Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Websites and blogs I recommend
Blog Archive
-
▼
2013
(388)
-
▼
February
(22)
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 28, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 27, 2013
- Barker's Ramblings
- Pat Buchanan (and yours truly) Opine on What the S...
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 25, 2013
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 23 & 24, 2013
- The Wisdom of Patrick J. Buchanan
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 21, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 20, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Tuesday, February 19, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 18, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 14, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 13, 2013
- Barker's Newsbites: Monday, February 11, 2013
- I... Want... Them... Dead...!!!
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 8, 2013
- Censor the Truth...? Or Just Ignore It...?
- Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 7, 2013
- Just a Quick Note...
- Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Feb. 2 & 3, 2013
- And We're Back! Dow 14,000 Fuels a New Wealth Boom!
- Barker's Newsbites: Friday, February 1, 2013
-
▼
February
(22)
About Me
- William R. Barker
- Pearl River, NY High School Class of '81; Northeastern University, Boston, MA Class of '87.
12 comments:
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/tourism/os-universal-part-time-insurance-20130219,0,4887679.story
Universal Orlando plans to stop offering medical insurance to part-time employees beginning next year, a move the resort says has been forced by the federal government's health-care overhaul.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/3-hour-airport-security-waits-under-sequester/article/2522078
The travel industry is warning that airport security line wait times could stretch to three hours after mandatory funding cuts kick in March 1.
Top congressional aides and the U.S. Travel Association tell Secrets that under the looming budget sequester, an hour will be added to security waits at the nation's largest and busiest airports due to necessary Transportation Security Administration and U.S. Custom and Border Protection furloughs required to meet the funding cuts.
* BULLSHIT, FOLKS. NONE OF THESE SPECIFIC CUTS ARE "NECESSARY." THERE'S SUCH A THING AS PRIORITIZATION AND THESE BASTARDS ARE DELIBERATELY REFUSING TO PRIORITIZE.
* ALSO... FOLKS... ANYONE WHO HAS EVER TRAVELED BY AIR AND LOOKED AT THE TAXES AND FEES ON ONE'S TICKET UNDERSTANDS THAT ALL THESE "SERVICES" ARE BEING PAID FOR... NO DOUBT MORE THAN PAID FOR... VIA DEDICATED TAXES AND FEES. ONCE AGAIN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE BEING THREATED, EXTORTED, AND HARMED BY OUR OWN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS.
And once travelers pop out of those security lines they will likely face even longer waits since cuts in Federal Aviation Administration staff will result in reduced air traffic control and longer delays.
* SO... INSTEAD OF CUTTING THE BUREACRACY... THE PAPER PUSHERS... THE POLITICAL APPOINTEES... THEY'RE PLANNING ON CUTTING FRONT LINE SERVICE PERSONNEL? SOUND REASONABLE TO ANY OF YOU? IT DOESN'T SOUND REASONABLE TO ME.
Customs furloughs will hit especially hard in international passenger areas where check-ins for those returning to or visiting the United States can experience two hour waits already. "Wait times getting back into the country projected at three or more hours," said a travel industry source. A Democratic review of sequester cuts added, "At the busiest airports, the increase in peak airport wait times would regularly reach three or more hours. These delays would dramatically impact air travel, potentially causing thousands of missed passenger connections daily, and negatively impact our economy."
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THESE BASTARDS WILL CONTINUE TO WAGE WAR UPON "WE THE PEOPLE" AS LONG AS WE ALLOW THEM TO.
http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2013/02/20/jesse-jackson-jr-pleads-guilty-to-spending-campaign-cash-for-personal-use/
An emotional former Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. (D) pleaded guilty in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to misusing $750,000 in campaign funds.
In a separate hearing in the afternoon, a tearful Sandi Jackson (D), Jesse Jackson’s wife, pleaded guilty to a tax fraud charge.
* THIS IS CHICAGO... THIS IS ILLINOIS... THIS IS DEMOCRATIC POLITICS... AND FRANKLY... READERS MIGHT WANNA GOOGLE "BLACK CAUCUS SCANDALS".
* WATCH JACKSON AND HIS WIFE GET SLAPS ON THE WRIST.
(*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)
http://news.yahoo.com/detroits-financial-crisis-now-governors-hands-080206730.html;_ylt=A2KJ2PZ84iRRRz8AI5fQtDMD
Detroit's deficit could have reached $900 million last fiscal year had it not borrowed enormous amounts of money.
* SO THE DEFICIT WAS "COVERED" BY DEBT THAT... er... CAN'T BE REPAYED... CAN'T EVEN BEGIN TO BE REPAID... BECAUSE NOW WE HAVE A NEW YEAR AND A NEW BUILDING DEFICIT...
The city's long-term liabilities, including underfunded pensions, are more than $14 billion.
* "UNDERFUNDED." (*SNORT*) NICE BLAND WORD.
The ongoing cash crisis has threatened to leave the city, which has a current budget deficit of $327 million, without money to pay its workers or other bills.
* AS I NOTED ABOVE: NOW IT'S A NEW YEAR... AND THUS A NEW DEFICIT.
State Treasurer Andy Dillon said the city has been running deficits since 2005, and masking over them with long-term borrowing.
* AND YET... NO ONE GOES TO JAIL... IT'S ALL PERFECTLY LEGAL...
The fiscal crisis plaguing Detroit is now in the hands of Michigan's governor after a state-appointed review team determined the city was in a financial emergency with "no satisfactory plan" to resolve it. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has 30 days to decide if Detroit needs an emergency manager to take charge of its finances and spending, and come up with a new plan to get the city out of its financial mess.
If Snyder appoints an emergency manager, Detroit would be the sixth and largest city in Michigan to have one. The cities of Benton Harbor, Ecorse, Pontiac, Flint and Allen Park are currently under state oversight. School districts in Detroit, Highland Park and Muskegon Heights also have managers.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/njs-newest-casino-revel-file-005235068.html
ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. (AP) -- Revel, the casino many people had hoped would turn around Atlantic City's sagging fortunes, said Tuesday that it will file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March, less than a year after it opened.
http://blogs.phillymag.com/the_philly_post/2013/02/20/photos-hurricane-sandy-jersey-shore-recovery/
It has been nearly four months since the storm commonly known as Hurricane Sandy hit New Jersey’s shoreline.
* AND CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS, FRIENDS; AND THIS IS AFTER THEY'VE PISSED AWAY $60 BILLION.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/nation/2013/02/19/2013-gasoline-prices-could-flirt-with-all-time-highs/1930681/
The national average for a gallon of regular gasoline is $3.75, up 45 cents since Jan. 20. Experts say prices should continue rising at least 5 cents a week until early April.
* WELCOME TO THE AGE OF OBAMA, FOLKS, WHERE EACH YEAR SPIKES ARE HIGHER AND RELIEF IS LOWER AND FOR SHORTER PERIODS OF TIME.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323495104578314240032274944.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
* THE AUTHOR IS JOHN "THE JACKASS" BOEHNER - SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE
A week from now, a dramatic new federal policy is set to go into effect that threatens U.S. national security, thousands of jobs and more.
* A FEDERAL POLICY THAT BOEHNER SUPPORTED... (NOT SURE IF HE VOTED ON IT; AS SPEAKER HE OFTEN REFRAINS FROM ACTUALLY VOTING.)
Most Americans are just hearing about this Washington creation for the first time: the sequester.
* BECAUSE THEY'RE STUPID AND LAZY AND BECAUSE THE MEDIA AND THE POLITICIANS OF BOTH PARTIES WOULD RATHER "PLAY" WE THE PEOPLE THAN SERVE THE NATIONAL INTEREST.
What they might not realize from Mr. Obama's statements is that it is a product of the president's own failed leadership.
* AND YOURS, MR. BOEHNER... AND HARRY REID'S... AND NANCY PELOSI'S... AND MITCH MCCONNELL'S...
* FRANKLY... IF ALL FIVE OF YOU - PLUS JOE BIDEN - WERE TO DROP DEAD THAT MIGHT MARK THE START OF A NATIONAL RECOVERY. (SADLY I CAN ONLY WISH... ONLY FANTASIZE...)
The sequester is a wave of deep spending cuts scheduled to hit on March 1. Unless Congress acts, $85 billion in across-the-board cuts will occur this year, with another $1.1 trillion coming over the next decade.
* I ONLY WISH IT WERE MORE... PERHAPS DOUBLE!
There is nothing wrong with cutting spending that much — we should be cutting even more — but the sequester is an ugly and dangerous way to do it.
* WHICH, AGAIN... YOU YOURSELF SUPPORTED!
By law, the sequester focuses on the narrow portion of the budget that funds the operating accounts for federal agencies and departments, including the Department of Defense.
* BY "LAW" SUPPORTED BY YOU... AND OBAMA... AND PELOSI AND REID AND MCCONNELL...
(*MIGRAINE HEADACHE*)
Exempt is most entitlement spending — the large portion of the budget that is driving the nation's looming debt crisis.
* YEP... UNFORTUNATELY... THAT'S THE WAY YOU SCUMBAGS WROTE THE LAW! (I TRULY WISH BOEHNER WOULD DIE!)
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Should the sequester take effect, America's military budget would be slashed nearly half a trillion dollars over the next 10 years.
* BIG WHOOP.
Border security, law enforcement, aviation safety and many other programs would all have diminished resources.
* BUDGETING IS ABOUT PRIORITIZATION! YOU SCUMBAGS REFUSE TO PRIORITIZE!
How did the country find itself in this mess?
* IT STARTED WITH THE CIVIL WAR... ACCELERATED AT THE TURN OF THE CENTURY... WENT WILD DURING THE SO-CALLED "NEW DEAL"... AND SINCE NEWT GINGRICH WAS FORCED OUT OF POWER THE COUNTRY HAS BEEN STEAMING FULL SPEED AHEAD IN THE WRONG DIRECTION.
During the summer of 2011, as Washington worked toward a plan to reduce the deficit to allow for an increase in the federal debt limit...
* FOLKS... RE-READ THAT LAST LINE AND TELL ME IT DOESN'T SAY IT ALL! "REDUCE" THE DEFICIT. "INCREASE" FEDERAL DEBT. GOD HELP US...
President Obama and I very nearly came to a historic agreement.
* WHICH WOULD HAVE CONTINUED DEFICIT SPENDING AND CONTINUED ADDING TO THE FEDERAL DEBT...
(*SIGH*)
Unfortunately our deal fell apart...
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
...at the last minute when the president demanded an extra $400 billion in new tax revenue — 50% more than we had shaken hands on just days before.
* YEP. OBAMA TRIED TO PULL A FAST ONE. THIS MUCH IS INDEED DOCUMENTED.
It was a disappointing decision by the president...
* THAT'S WHAT THIS CLOWN CALLS IT? I... WISH... BOEHNER... WOULD... DROP... DEAD...!!! (SERIOUSLY... IN SOME WAYS I HATE BOEHNER MORE THAN OBAMA!)
...but with just days until a breach of the debt limit, a solution was still required—and fast. I immediately got together with Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell to forge a bipartisan congressional plan. It would be called the Budget Control Act.
* YEAH... THE ONE HE STARTS OUT AS DESCRIBING AS A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY...
(*HEADACHE*)
* FOLKS... I CAN'T READ ANY MORE OF THIS BULLSHIT. JOIN ME IN PRAYING THAT AMERICA'S ENEMIES ARE DESTROYED... ALL OF AMERICA'S ENEMIES... (*KNOWING NOD*)
http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2013/02/20/the_obama_recovery_less_unemployment_but_more_dependence_100154.html
A strange and disturbing new social pattern is unfolding before our eyes in America today: growing dependence on government handouts in the face of declining unemployment rates.
Though we are now preparing to enter into the fourth year of "recovery" from our Great Recession, the roster of Americans seeking and obtaining entitlement benefits from our government just seems to keep on going up.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the national unemployment rate soared during the Great Recession, reaching a peak of nearly 10% in late 2009. By the second quarter of 2011, in a painfully slow decline, it had dropped by almost a point, to about 9%. Today it is a bit under 8%.
* BUT, FOLKS... AS YOU KNOW, THIS IS BUT AN ILLUSION. THE UNEMPLOYMENT NUMBER IS GOING DOWN BECAUSE MORE AND MORE AMERICANS KEEP ON DROPPING OUT OF THE LABOR FORCE FOR GOOD! THEY CAN'T FIND GOOD JOBS!
In the fourth quarter of 2009 - when the U.S. unemployment rate had reached its Great Recession apogee - about 144 million Americans (just under 48% of the country) lived in homes that were receiving benefits from one or more government programs. These figures come from the Census Bureau's Survey on Income and Program Participation (SIPP).
* NOW GET THIS... (KEEP READING!)
SIPP cannot yet provide data on the current entitlement picture - its most recent release is for 2Q 2011. At that time, however, the estimated number of Americans in families obtaining government benefits was just about 150 million - an increase of more than five and a half million over the worst phase of the Great Recession's unemployment problem!
(*PURSED LIPS*)
This jump cannot be attributed to population growth: America's total population only rose by 3 million over that period.
Rather, as the unemployment rate was dropping, the share of Americans in families on government benefits happened to rise - from under 48% in late 2009 to 49% in spring 2011.
The situation seems even more striking when we look a little closer. In 2011, as in 2009, only a third of America's beneficiary headcount consisted of people living in families with a Social Security or a Medicare recipient. (So much for the "entitlements-are-mainly-old-age-insurance" storyline.) The overwhelming majority of Americans on government entitlement programs today are collecting benefits from "means-tested" programs: ostensible poverty-alleviation programs like Medicaid, Food Stamps (as they were once known), and the like. And between the end of 2009 and the middle of 2011, the U.S. population in homes accepting means-tested benefits shot up by nearly 6 million, to over 107 million.
* YOU READ THAT RIGHT! 107 MILLION!
In barely a year and a half, the share of Americans on means tested benefits had ratcheted by a percentage point and a half - to a full 35% of our population[!]
[T]he old counter-cyclical relationship between the unemployment rate and dependence on government entitlement transfers has apparently broken down. In good times or bad, evidently, America's dependence on government largesse is now always on its way up.
* AND THUS... IN GOOD TIMES AND BAD... AMERICA IS IN DECLINE.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/341086/losing-states-avik-roy
t has become a common refrain among conservatives who are looking to cheer one another up. “We may have lost the White House,” they say, “but we’re doing great work in the states.”
(*SMIRK*)
Republicans have total control of state government (the executive and the entire legislature) in 24 states, after all, compared with 12 states for the Democrats. But a number of these allegedly conservative governors and legislatures are actively supporting the biggest enlargement of state government in decades: ObamaCare's expansion of Medicaid.
Medicaid, one of the pillars of the Great Society, provides government-sponsored health insurance to low-income Americans. A key aspect of the program is that it’s jointly funded by the states and the federal government: Washington provides “matching funds” to support state Medicaid spending. On average, prior to ObamaCare, for every dollar a state spent on Medicaid, the federal government chipped in another $1.32. It has been a politician’s dream: Raise taxes on your constituents by $1, and spend more than $2 on them in return.
(*SIGH*)
ObamaCare significantly expands the Medicaid program by requiring states to cover all individuals below 133% of the federal poverty line. (Previously, Medicaid was mostly aimed at children, the mothers of children, the elderly, and the disabled.) States that refused to go along with the expansion would have their matching funds yanked.
Officials of 27 states sued the federal government, arguing that this feature of the law was coercive. When the Supreme Court upheld the bulk of ObamaCare last summer, the justices agreed with the states, and threw out this particular provision. As a result, states now have the option of accepting or rejecting the ObamaCare expansion of Medicaid, while still leaving their existing Medicaid programs intact. Surprisingly, however, six GOP governors — those of Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Ohio — have endorsed the Medicaid expansion.
The Medicaid Gang of Six all describe themselves as conservatives. Indeed, five of the six state governments had been party to the litigation against the Medicaid expansion. But when it came time to actually say no to ObamaCare's new torrent of Medicaid spending, they opened the spigot instead.
* THIS IS WHAT WE'RE DEALING WITH, FOLKS... THIS IS WHY THERE'S NO HOPE...
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
“For a state match of a little over $154 million in FY 2015,” cheered Arizona’s Jan Brewer, “the State can draw into its healthcare sector $1.6 billion in federal funds — a return on investment of more than 10 to 1” (I’ll let you, dear reader, consider the “return on investment” gained by borrowing trillions of dollars from China.)
Ohio’s John Kasich, former chairman of the House Budget Committee, revealed the Six’s reasoning when he wrote that endorsing the Medicaid expansion “avoids leaving Ohioans’ federal tax dollars on the table and keeps the federal government from simply giving them away to other states.” In other words, it’s important to fleece the taxpayers of other states, because some of them will be doing it to us, too.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
But expanding Medicaid is bad policy. The system has the worst health outcomes of any insurance program in the developed world, largely because it severely underpays doctors and hospitals, making it hard for Medicaid patients to find a physician who will see them. Somewhere between 10% and 30% of Medicaid spending goes to fraudsters. And some of the fraudsters are state governments — the federal government recently found that New York’s Medicaid program has overcharged federal taxpayers by $15 billion over the last 20 years.
One group agitating especially loudly for the Medicaid expansion is the hospital industry. It is the most government-subsidized industry in America, and it has never said no to the offer of more taxpayer dollars. But hospitals should be careful what they wish for. In Ohio, hospitals lose more money caring for Medicaid patients than they do caring for the uninsured, a problem that ObamaCare will make worse.
And while Washington is promising to fund most of ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion over the next eight years, it is almost certain that Congress will contribute less to the program over time, sticking states with the tab. Indeed, President Obama proposed to do just that in his budget for fiscal year 2013.
It’s worth noting that 13 Republican governors have said no to the Medicaid expansion: those of Alabama, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin. But another eleven GOP governors — those of Alaska, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, New Jersey, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming — are undecided.
Further, the Republican governors who have said no, such as Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, have been far from outspoken in criticizing governors who waste the dollars of taxpayers in other states on Medicaid in their own states. These executives who say "no" need to do more to stand up for the economic interests of their states’ residents.
Fortunately for taxpayers, governors don’t have the final word on Medicaid expansion. It’s state legislatures that would have to approve the budgets that would fund the Medicaid expansion, and tea-party activists have been successful at challenging state-level Republican politicians who stray to the Left. These voters, once awakened, can help determine their states’ answer to the Medicaid question. But they must awaken soon.
Post a Comment