Thursday, October 31, 2013
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, October 31, 2013
Also known as... Halloween!
All Hallows Eve...
And as always... looking forward to heading over to the home of "He Whose Name Dare Not Be Mentioned" so as to be a part of something amazing!
Indeed, I've just returned home from BJ's; two big bags of candy for "His" house and a box of "Cow Tails" for here!
So... will I get any newsbites in before heading across the river...? Let me give it a shot!
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Who is Chris Christie?
"Collaborating" With The New York Times...
Running for New Jersey governor in 2009, Chris Christie
hammered the Democratic incumbent, Jon S. Corzine, for using “one-shot
gimmicks” to balance the budget, called it “unconscionable” to take away
property tax rebates and railed against issuing more debt for transportation
projects, promising to “start saying no to spending.”
* YES... THAT WAS THEN... THAT WAS CHRIS CHRISTIE 2009...
CANDIDATE CHRISTIE 2009...
But in four years in office, Governor Christie, a
Republican, has relied on the same kind of short-term strategies, diverting
money for things like affordable housing and property tax rebates to balance
the budget, and tapping funds intended for development of new sources of energy
to keep the lights on in state buildings.
* THAT'S BECAUSE HE'S A SCUMBAG.
Mr. Christie made headlines when he declared he was
canceling construction of a tunnel under the Hudson River to halt runaway
costs, but he has issued more debt for transportation projects than any of his
predecessors.
(*SNORT*)
* I DO HOWEVER TAKE ISSUE WITH THE WORD
"ISSUED." I'D SAY "SUPPORTED." (AFTER ALL, HE DIDN'T DO IT
BY EXECUTIVE FIAT... DID HE?)
Overall spending has risen 14%...
* GEEZUS...
...and while state surpluses nationwide are growing, New
Jersey’s has shrunk to its lowest percentage in a decade.
* TELL ME MORE ABOUT THESE "SURPLUSES."
The state’s bond rating is among the worst in the
country.
* HAS IT GONE DOWN SINCE CHRISTIE HAS BEEN IN
OFFICE...??? (HEY... I CAN BELIEVE SOMEONE IS A SCUMBAG AND STILL BE FAIR TO
HIM!)
Mr. Christie’s record is drawing scrutiny now, not only
because he is emphasizing that he “restored fiscal sanity” to the state as he
seeks re-election next week, but also because of his possible presidential
candidacy: As a Northeastern Republican, he needs a way to connect with the
party’s conservative base, and a strong message of fiscal management could help
him offset skepticism about his positions on social issues.
* YES... BY ALL MEANS... LET'S STICK TO FISCAL
MANAGEMENT!
Wall Street ratings agencies and nonpartisan commissions...have
been sounding warnings about Mr. Christie’s financial management since early in
his tenure. The governor has promoted a “Jersey Comeback,” but an analysis of
budgets across the country in June rated New Jersey and Georgia as highest in
“fiscal stress,” in a category called “What Recovery?”
“He’s posing as a fiscal conservative, and he’s not,”
said Gordon MacInnes, a Democratic former state senator and now president of
New Jersey Policy Perspective, a liberal-leaning group. “He talks about a
mythical fact that he has produced four balanced budgets. Well, every governor
since 1947 has done that, as the Constitution has required them. That’s not the
question. The question is, do you balance current spending on current revenues?
Or do you borrow against the future to pay for current services?”
(*NOD*)
Spending continues to expand. Mr. Christie’s budget for
2014, at just shy of $33 billion, will reach the second highest amount in state
history and more than Governor Corzine’s did in his last two years in office.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Mr. Christie’s critics give him credit for progress in
one key area: working with the Legislature to pay more toward the state’s
pension obligations. His administration argues that the state would be in
catastrophic shape had he not done so. The governor and the Legislature also
limited the size of arbitration awards and the amount by which towns could
increase property taxes, and required public employees to contribute more
toward their benefits. The administration says these measures will slow the
growth of property taxes over time.
“The governor did this without a care for the political
fallout from special interests that his predecessors and Democratic
legislatures cowered and caved to year after year,” said Michael Drewniak, a
spokesman for Mr. Christie. “That delay and lack of courage carried serious and
lingering consequences, which Governor Christie addressed aggressively to date
and will continue to meet head-on.”
* AND I APPLAUD THE GOVERNOR FOR... er... DOING HIS
JOB... FOR ACTING AS A TRUE CONSERVATIVES ON THESE ISSUES. (WHERE CHRISTIE DESERVES
KUDOS HE'LL GET 'EM FROM ME!)
And some of those who have watched New Jersey’s finances
spin out of control over the previous decades — when governors had to raise
taxes even in good economic times to satisfy budget demands — say he is moving
the state in the right direction.
(*LISTENING*)
“You can’t deal with it all at once,” said Joseph J.
Seneca, a professor of economics at Rutgers and a former chairman of the New
Jersey Council of Economic Advisors. “New Jersey got itself into its fiscal
problems and an underperforming economy over many years. It’s going to take
some time to get back, but I think the important first steps have occurred very
effectively.”
But a recurring pattern has emerged in Mr. Christie’s
approach to budgeting that concerns ratings agencies: The governor bases his
spending plans on robust revenue growth, despite evidence of a weak economy.
And because he has pledged not to raise taxes, when those revenues fail to
materialize, he is left scrambling to drain money from other accounts to
balance the state budget, relying on the gimmicks he once derided Mr. Corzine
for using.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
During the past two years, he took $175 million from the
money paid to states to settle complaints of mortgage fraud, intended to help
homeowners prevent foreclosure. (Nationwide, New Jersey has the second-highest
percentage of homes in foreclosure.) Last year, he planned to take $166 million
that towns were supposed to spend to build affordable housing. (The towns have
sued to stop him, so the governor may have to fill an even bigger hole.)
* IS IT JUST ME OR DO YOU GUYS READ THIS AND ALSO REACT
BY THINKING, "HOW IN THE HELL IS THIS LEGAL?"
Christie relied on an accounting switch earlier this
year, announcing that instead of sending out property tax rebates in May, as
has been the custom, the state would send them out in August, pushing $400
million onto the next budget.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
This year’s budget also counts on a one-time bonus of
$120 million that he expects to be paid by a company hired to run the state
lottery.
(*ROLLING MY EYES*)
Mr. Christie has been especially aggressive about taking
funds dedicated to energy efficiency, to developing renewable energy and to
reducing costs for rate payers. He has taken roughly $700 million in so-called
clean energy funds, dumping most of that into the general fund, and using a
smaller percentage to pay utility bills in state buildings. The transfers began
small — $42.5 million in fiscal year 2011 — then more than quadrupled over the
next three budgets.
* AND FRANKLY IN ONE SENSE I'M APPLAUDING ALL OF THIS
RE-ROUTING OF MONEY. THE THING IS... DO IT HONESTLY... BE FORTHRIGHT... BRAG
ABOUT IT, DON'T "HIDE" IT SO THAT WE HAVE TO READ ABOUT IT IN THE
NEWSPAPER!
That money came mostly from a “societal benefits charge”
on ratepayers’ electric and natural gas bills, and from auctioning off carbon
dioxide emission allowances under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, which
Mr. Christie pulled out of soon after taking office.
* AGAIN... HURRAY FOR CHRISTIE HAVING PULLED OUT OF THIS
NONSENSE... THE "REGIONAL GREENHOUSE GAS INITIATIVE."
He has similarly drained money intended to fix the
state’s aging roads, bridges and public transit system. When he was elected,
the Transportation Trust Fund, which for three decades has paid for capital
improvements, was depleted. Mr. Christie rejected calls to raise the gasoline
tax and instead asked the Corzine administration, then in its lame-duck period,
to issue debt to fill it. When that began to run out, he replenished it with
money that had been intended for building the Hudson rail tunnel to connect
North Jersey and Manhattan, which he had canceled.
* OK. FAIR ENOUGH. INDEED... KUDOS!
He issued $4 billion in bonds, but said that to avoid
future borrowing, he would increase the amount the state contributed toward the
transportation trust fund every year. But when revenues came up shorter than
his projections in 2013, he took the turnpike tolls intended for those
contributions to the trust fund and used them to help balance the overall state
budget. For fiscal year 2014, he again eliminated the planned payments.
* NOW HE'S BACK TO BEING A SCUMBAG.
In late 2012, the State Budget Crisis Task Force, a
bipartisan panel led by Paul A. Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, and
Richard Ravitch, a former lieutenant governor of New York, warned that New
Jersey’s reliance on the one-shot practice had led to “structurally unbalanced
budgets.” The report argued that the pension overhaul was in trouble: The state
would have to come up with $5.5 billion a year in annual payments by 2018, and
current budgets did not suggest where that money might come from. With a small
surplus, then projected at $648 million, there was “little room for error” in
revenue projections. “This pushes difficult budget choices off to future years
and is ultimately unsustainable,” the report said.
The projected surplus has fallen since then, to about
$300 million, or less than 1% of the overall budget. (By contrast, the national
average has been higher than 6% since 2011.) New Jersey’s rainy day fund, too,
has been empty since the recession.
The report on fiscal stress last spring, by the Federal
Funds Information for States, a non-partisan group that relies on states’ own
reporting of their finances, found that unlike most states that had pulled
themselves out of the recession years, New Jersey was struggling more this
year, given its lower-than-expected tax collections and little surplus to
cushion it.
That was not the only warning sounded.
In 2011, ratings agencies downgraded the state’s bond
rating — it is still among the worst in the nation — out of concern about the
low surplus.
* WELL... THAT ANSWERS A PREVIOUS QUESTION!
In recent years, they have also issued alerts that the
governor’s inflated revenue predictions were threatening another downgrade.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
This spring, the Christie administration acknowledged in
a prospectus for potential investors that even its signature pension overhaul
would present a “significant burden on all aspects of the state’s finances.” “No
assurances can be given as to the level of the state’s pension contributions in
future fiscal years,” it said.
Still, Mr. Christie’s optimism abides. Next month, the
state will begin allowing online gambling. The legislative budget office says
that Wall Street analysts expect it to bring in $40 million in tax revenue in
its first 12 months. Mr. Christie’s budget is counting on it to bring in $180
million in just seven.
* WE'LL SEE...
The Office of Legislative Services “has been unable to
identify any independent source that endorses such an estimate,” the budget
office director, David Rosen, told the Legislature in May. “And despite several
explicit requests, the Executive has offered no analysis to support its
estimate.”
Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Well, gang... you read yesterday's stand-alone...
(*SHRUG*)
Hopefully you read yesterday's newsbites...
(*PURSED LIPS*)
What do you think?
To those of you who are my age or thereabout, have you ever seen anything like the last five years? Is this not above and beyond the usual muck of politics... the lies, the incompetence, the waste, the contempt for the very rule of law?
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
The Latest NBC News "Investigation" Into ObamaCare. (Where Were They in 2010?)
* HE LIED.
But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get
cancellation letters for their health insurance under ObamaCare...and the Obama
administration has known that for at least three years.
* THUS... OBAMA THE LIAR...
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act
tell NBC News that 50% to 75% of the 14 million consumers who buy their
insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the
equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the "standards"
mandated by the new health care law.
* REGARDLESS OF WHETHER THE PLANS ARE "LIKED."
(*PURSED LIPS*)
One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80%.
* WELL... EVENTUALLY THE PLAN IS TO MAKE IT 100% SO AS TO
USHER IN SINGLE-PAYER.
(*SHRUG*)
And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new
policies will experience “sticker shock.”
* YEP...
* AND IF "YOUR" COSTS DO HAPPEN TO GO DOWN,
IT'S BECAUSE THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS ADDED YOU (OR YOU AND YOUR FAMILY) TO
THE OBAMACARE "WELFARE" ROLLS - MEANING YOU'RE BEING SUBSIDIZED...
ADDED TO THE FINANCIAL BURDEN TAXPAYERS NOW CARRY... ADDED TO THE DEFICIT
SPENDING THAT ACCOUNTS FOR WHAT... THIRTY-SOMETHING.. FORTY-SOMETHING PERCENT
OF OPERATING BUDGET FUNDING...?
* SOUND LIKE A GOOD PLAN TO YOU, FOLKS?
None of this should come as a shock to the Obama
administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010
will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though
they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of
Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision,
by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that
date - the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example - the policy would not
be grandfathered.
* BAIT AND SWITCH. GRANDFATHERED DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN
GRANDFATHERED.
Buried in ObamaCare regulations from July 2010 is an
estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market,
“40% to 67%” of customers will not be able to keep their policy.
* SMOKING GUN, FOLKS! THEY KNEW THIS IN JULY 2010 FOR
SURE AND SINCE IT TAKES TIME TO COME TO CONCLUSIONS IT'S A SURE BET THAT THEY
KNEW LONG BEFORE THIS.
And because many policies will have been changed since
the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather
status in a given year exceeds the 40% to 67% range.”
* NOT 5%... NOT 7%... NOT 9%... BUT BETWEEN 40%-67%.
FOLKS... YOU WERE LIED TO.
That means the administration knew that more than 40% to
67% of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans,
even if they liked them.
* UH... YEAH... OBVIOUSLY THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS. (THUS
"SMOKING GUN.")
Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you
like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still
saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your
health insurance.”
* THAT'S BECAUSE OBAMA IS A LIAR.
“This says that when they made the promise, they knew
half the people in this market outright couldn’t keep what they had and then
they wrote the rules so that others couldn’t make it either,” said Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy
Associates...
* YES... WE'RE BEATING A DEAD HORSE... THEY LIED... THEY
LIED... THEY LIED... DELIBERATELY SO.
Laszewski estimates that 80% of those in the individual
market will not be able to keep their current policies and will have to buy
insurance that meets requirements of the new law, which generally requires a
richer package of benefits than most policies today.
* HEY FOLKS... YOU KNOW HOW EACH TIME YOU BUY A NEW CAR
THEY TRY AND SELL YOU OPTIONS AND UPGRADES AND FINALLY AN EXTENDED WARRANTY?
YOU'RE ABLE TO SAY NO AND YOU USUALLY DO, RIGHT? WELL... NOT WITH OBAMACARE!
The White House does not dispute that many in the
individual market will lose their current coverage...
* THE COVERAGE THEY PROMISED THEY COULD KEEP IF THEY
WISHED...
...but argues they will be offered better coverage...
* ISN'T "BETTER" IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER...?
* PLUS... "MORE" DOESN'T ALWAYS EQUAL
"BETTER." FOR EXAMPLE... SINGLE MALES BEING FORCED TO BUY POLICIES
WHICH PROVIDE PREGNANCY COVERAGE...
(*SHRUG*)
* HELL... MENOPAUSAL WOMEN BEING FORCED TO BUY POLICIES
WHICH PROVIDE PREGANCY COVERAGE...
(*SNORT*)
...and that many will get tax subsidies that would offset
any increased costs.
* AND THIS IS GOOD...??? A GOVERNMENT THAT CAN'T COME
CLOSE TO MEETING CURRENT OPERATING EXPENSES ADDING MORE UNFUNDED LIABILITIES TO
ITS LEDGER IS GOOD...?!?!
"The consumers who are getting notices are in plans
that do not provide all these protections – but in the vast majority of cases,
those same insurers will automatically shift their enrollees to a plan that
provides new consumer protections and, for nearly half of individual market
enrollees, discounts through premium tax credits,” said White House
spokesperson Jessica Santillo.
* TAX CREDITS ARE SUBSIDIES. "CREDITS" ARE
DEDUCTIONS FROM THE FEDERAL COFFERS! AGAIN, FOLKS, THESE PEOPLE ARE BASICALLY
BRAGGING ABOUT EXPANDING DEFICITS, EXPANDING DEBT, AND EXPANDING THE WELFARE
STATE!
“Nothing in the Affordable Care Act forces people out of
their health plans: The law allows plans that covered people at the time the
law was enacted to continue to offer that same coverage to the same enrollees –
nothing has changed and that coverage can continue into 2014,” she said.
* TOTAL BULLSHIT! IF YOU HAVE A PLAN YOU LIKE AND THE
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SAYS IT'S GONNA BE ILLEGAL FOR THE INSURANCE COMPANY TO
OFFER THIS PLAN FROM NOW ON... (*DEEP BREATH*)... THEN YOU'LL NO LONGER HAVE
THE OPTION OF KEEPING THIS DISCONTINUED PLAN!
* FOLKS... WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO REBEL AGAINST THESE
PEOPLE?! WHEN WILL THE LIES, MANIPULATIONS, AND BETRAYALS PUSH YOU PAST THE
BREAKING POINT?!
The Affordable Care Act will not affect most traditional
employer-based plans...
* MEANING WORKERS WHO HAD INSURANCE... WHO DIDN'T NEED
OBAMACARE!
...but many of those who purchased insurance policies on
their own will see higher premiums.
* AGAIN, FOLKS... MARY AND I PAY $1,327/MO. NOW... WHAT
WILL OBAMACARE MEAN FOR US NEXT YEAR? I FEAR NOTHING GOOD.
This is in part due to the 10 "essential"
health benefits insurance providers are now required to include. NBC's Peter
Alexander reports:
Individual insurance plans with low premiums often lack
basic benefits, such as prescription drug coverage...
* WHICH MAKES PERFECT SENSE FOR HEALTHY PEOPLE WHO DON'T REQUIRE
COSTLY REGULAR MEDICATIONS!
...or carry high deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.
* WHICH IS WHAT I'D LOVE TO BE ABLE TO PURCHASE BUT EVEN
BEFORE OBAMACARE SUCH PLANS WERE UNABLE TO BE SOLD IN NEW YORK.
The Affordable Care Act requires all companies to offer
more benefits, such as mental health care, and also bars companies from denying
coverage for preexisting conditions.
* THUS... WE'RE NO LONGER TALKING ABOUT
"INSURANCE." YOU'RE ALREADY SICK! THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT IS FORCING
AN INSURANCE COMPANY TO SIMPLY EAT A GUARANTEED LOSS RATHER THAN STEPPING UP TO
SHOULD THE BURDEN OF SUCH PEOPLE DIRECTLY.
George Schwab, 62, of North Carolina, said he was
"perfectly happy" with his plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which
also insured his wife for a $228 monthly premium. But [last month], he was
surprised to receive a letter saying his policy was no longer available. The
"comparable" plan the insurance company offered him carried a $1,208
monthly premium and a $5,500 deductible.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
And the best option he’s found on the exchange so far
offered a ["mere"] 415% jump in premium, to $948 a month.
* CHANT IT WITH ME, FOLKS... O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A! O-BAM-A!
"The deductible is less," he said, "But
the plan doesn't meet my needs. Its unaffordable."
"I'm sitting here looking at this, thinking we ought
to just pay the fine and just get insurance when we're sick," Schwab
added. "Everybody's worried about whether the website works or not, but
that's fixable. That's just the tip of the iceberg. This stuff isn't
fixable."
Heather Goldwater, 38, of South Carolina, is raising a
new baby while running her own PR firm. She said she received a letter in July
from Cigna, her insurance company, that said the company would no longer offer
her individual plan but promised to send a letter by October offering a
comparable option. So far, she hasn't received anything.
* NICE...
"I'm completely overwhelmed with a six-month-old and
a business,” said Goldwater. “The last thing I can do is spend hours poring
over a website that isn't working, trying to wrap my head around this entire
health care overhaul."
* TOO BAD, HONEY... THE BORG ARE HERE... RESISTANCE IS
FUTILE...
Goldwater said she supports the new law and is grateful
for provisions helping folks like her with pre-existing conditions, but she
worries she won’t be able to afford the new insurance, which is expected to
cost more because it has more benefits.
* SHE... "SUPPORTS"... THE LAW. UH-HUH. OK...
(*SHRUG*)
"I'm jealous of people who have really good health
insurance," she said. "It's people like me who are stuck in the
middle who are going to get screwed."
* WELL... AT LEAST THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH HER SEX
DRIVE! (HEY... SHE ADMITS SHE SUPPORTS GETTING SCREWED!)
(*GUFFAW*)
Richard Helgren, a Lansing, Mich., retiree, said he was
“irate” when he received a letter informing him that his wife Amy's $559 a
month health plan was being changed because of the law. The plan the insurer
offered raised his deductible from $0 to $2,500, and the company gave him 17
days to decide. The higher costs spooked him and his wife, who have
painstakingly planned for their retirement years. "Every dollar we didn't
plan for erodes our standard of living," Helgren said. Ultimately, though
Helgren opted not to shop through the ACA exchanges, he was able to apply for a
good plan with a slightly lower premium through an insurance agent. He said he
never believed President Obama’s promise that people would be able to keep
their current plans.
* SMART MAN!
"I heard him only about a thousand times," he
said. "I didn't believe him when he said it though because there was just
no way that was going to happen. They wrote the regulations so strictly that
none of the old polices can grandfather."
* OR AT LEAST VERY FEW...
For months, Laszewski has warned that some consumers will
face sticker shock. He recently got his own notice that he and his wife cannot
keep their current policy, which he described as one of the best, so-called
"Cadillac" plans offered for 2013. Now, he said, the best comparable
plan he found for 2014 has a smaller doctor network, larger out-of-pocket
costs, and a 66% premium increase.
(*CLAP...CLAP...CLAP*)
“Mr. President, I like the coverage I have,"
Laszweski said. "It is the best health insurance policy you can buy."
* MAKE THAT "HE LIKED THE COVERAGE HE HAD. IT WAS
THE BEST ONE COULD BUY."
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