Thursday, February 6, 2014
Barker's Newsbites: Thursday, February 6, 2014
Well... thank God it's Thursday...!
(Folks... like I keep telling you... you never know what you're gonna see here at Usually Right!)
Anyway... up to Season 7 of Dexter! (What a great show!) If only there were a real "Dexter" who specialized in politicians!
Anyway... onwards to today's newsbites! (Two hours and fifteen minutes till I have to leave for the gym!)
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* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/05/email-irss-lerner-treasury-department-secretly-drafted-new-rules-to-restrict-nonprofits/
The Obama administration’s Treasury Department and former IRS official Lois Lerner...
* SHE OF "I'LL TAKE THE FIFTH" FAME...
...conspired to draft new 501(c)(4) regulations to restrict the activity of conservative groups in a way that would not be disclosed publicly, according to the House Committee on Ways and Means.
* SHOW US THE PROOF.
The Treasury Department and Lerner started devising the new rules “off-plan,” meaning that their plans would not be published on the public schedule.
* O...K...
They planned the new rules in 2012, while the IRS targeting of conservative groups was in full swing, and not after the scandal broke in order to clarify regulations as the administration has suggested.
* SO THIS IS PROOF THE ADMINISTRATION LIED...
The rules place would place much more stringent controls on what would be considered political activity by the IRS, effectively limiting the standard practices of a wide array of non-profit groups.
* ALONG PARTISAN LINES...?
“Don’t know who in your organizations is keeping tabs on c4s, but since we mentioned potentially addressing them (off -plan) in 2013, I’ve got my radar up and this seemed interesting…,” Treasury official Ruth Madrigal wrote in a June 14, 2012 email to Lerner and others obtained by Ways and Means and provided to The Daily Caller.
* TO BE CONTINUED...
* CONCLUDING... (Part 2 of 2)
Ways and Means chairman Rep. Dave Camp blasted the off-the-record plan during a hearing Wednesday with IRS commissioner John Koskinen, and called for the administration’s newly proposed 501(c)(4) rules to be halted until criminal investigations into the IRS targeting scandal are complete.
“If Treasury and the IRS fabricated the rationale for a rule change it would tend to raise questions about the integrity of the rule-making process,” Camp said.
* ONE WOULD THINK...
“I want to be perfectly clear – this committee will fight any and all efforts to restrict the rights of groups to organize, speak out and educate the public, just as unions are allowed to do so. We will get to the bottom of this, and I expect the IRS to produce – quickly – the outstanding documents the committee has requested,” Camp said.
“I believe the IRS has a long way to go in restoring its credibility. But, you can take a first step by complying with this committee’s request and stopping all action against 501(c)(4) groups until the appropriate investigations are completed.”
The new rules define more previously acceptable activities by non-profit groups as prohibited “candidate-related political activity.” Communications and activities including voter registration drives and publishing voter guides, among others, are now classified as political activity. Grants and donations that 501(c)(4)’s give to other non-profits are now subject to new record-keeping and increased scrutiny to prevent the money’s use for broadly-defined political activity. The rules were “drafted in a manner, in my view, to shut down tea party groups” Rep. Camp said earlier this week.
* THAT WAS HOW THEY WERE USED... (*SHRUG*)
New IRS commissioner Koskinen said that the rules should “put to rest all of the issues surrounding applications for tax-exempt status.”
But Madrigal’s email to Lerner proves that the regulations were being developed long before the IRS needed to publicly put anything “to rest.”
(*SMIRK*)
At least 292 conservative groups were subjected to unfair targeting between 2010 and 2012, against six liberal groups that were allegedly given similar treatment.
* 292-6 IS A MORE LOPSIDED SCORE THAN THIS YEAR'S SUPERBOWL!
“They are both over-broad and under-inclusive,” said Foley & Lardner LLP partner Cleta Mitchell on the new rules. “They’ve taken everything that 501(c)(4) organizations do in the normal course of business and proposed to convert that all to candidate-related activity, even if a candidate is never mentioned.”
Mitchell said that the rules are being “rushed through” for political purposes.
“The objective is to get the rules in place before the 2014 election,” Mitchell said.
http://www.talkradionews.com/congress/2014/02/06/cantors-big-business-agenda-sparks-primary-challenge.html#.UvQO-86j-ho
Dave Brat is challenging Rep. Eric Cantor in a Republican primary — and giving the House majority leader a verbal thrashing on immigration.
* REMIND ME TO SEND THIS GUY A CHECK! (AND ONCE I DO TO POST IT AS A STAND-ALONE ASKING TRUE CONSERVATIVES TO JOIN WITH ME!)
“Cantor is following the agenda of the Business Roundtable and the Chamber of Commerce — pursuing policies that are good for big business, but come at the exclusion of the American people,” said Brat, an economics professor at Randolph-Macon College.
* ABSOLUTELY! 100% TRUE!
Brat’s upstart bid against the second highest-ranking House Republican may seem quixotic. But it’s part of a growing national movement to oust GOP leaders who fail conservative litmus tests.
* SCREW THAT "LITMUS TEST" BULLSHIT; CANTOR HAS PUT HIS CAREER BEFORE HIS PRINCIPLES. CANTOR HAS PLEDGED HIS LOYALTY TO BOEHNER - NOT TO THE CONSTITUTION.
Cantor, in Brat’s view, is flunking badly on border security.
* TRUE... BUT IT'S NOT JUST BORDER SECURITY - NOT BY A LONG SHOT! AGAIN... CANTOR HAS SOLD HIS SOUL TO RISE WITHIN THE BOEHNER LEADERSHIP.
Indeed, the congressman even applauded President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address outlining a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
(*SHRUG*)
On Friday, Cantor said on the House floor that “immigration reform could be an economic boon to this country.”
* FUCK BLACK AMERICANS! FUCK HISPANIC AMERICANS! UNDERCUT WAGES! ALLOW WALL STREET TO EXPLOIT MAIN STREET! THAT'S CANTOR... (FOLKS... WHITE UNEMPLOYMENT IS A FLESH WOUND COMPARED TO WHAT BLACK AND BROWN AMERICANS FACE.)
Brat is having none of it. He calls the imminent GOP cave-in on immigration an exercise in “crony capitalism.”
* DAMN STRAIGHT!
“It’s incredibly unpopular. It lowers wages, adds to unemployment, and the taxpayer pays the tab for any benefits to folks coming in,” Brat told Watchdog.org in an interview.
* PLUS... (READ ON...)
“This is not equal treatment under the law. People who are waiting in line (to immigrate) are fuming.”
* YEP!
Traversing the staunchly Republican 7th Congressional District, which stretches from Chesterfield County south of Richmond to Rappahannock and Page counties on the cusp of Northern Virginia, Brat is counting on grassroots support.
Larry Nordvig, executive director of the Richmond Tea Party, says Brat has his group’s “100 percent” backing.
“The feeling from the grassroots is, ‘Finally! We have a viable candidate to get rid of Cantor,’” said Nordvig, who brands the congressman “backward on all the issues that matter to true conservatives.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/watch-out-obamacares-subsidy-cliff-earn-1-more-wages-and-you-could-pay-20000-more-insurance_778743.html
On Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office released a new study finding that the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare, will cause "a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024."
That doesn't mean that ObamaCare will cause 2.5 million employees to be laid off, but rather that the law will encourage the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers to drop out of the workforce.
Here's how it will work (or rather, discourage work):
ObamaCare offers Medicaid to people earning up to 138% of the federal poverty line in states that opted into the program, and it provides subsidies to people earning ... up to 400% of the federal poverty line.
As your income increases, the subsidy decreases.
CBO explains that "the phase-out effectively raises people’s marginal tax rates (the tax rates applying to their last dollar of income), thus discouraging work."
For some people, CBO notes, the incentive to reduce their hours or quit their jobs will be especially strong: "People whose income exceeds 400% of the FPL are ineligible for premium subsidies, and for some people those subsidies will drop abruptly to zero when income crosses that threshold."
The ObamaCare subsidy cliff is so steep that if you earn just $1 above the threshold, you could end up paying anywhere from a few thousand dollars to $20,000 more for insurance, depending on your age.
Take the case of a couple of 55-year-olds living in St. Croix County, Wisconsin, where the median household income is a little over $68,000. Let's say that they earn $62,040 in 2014. They would pay $211 per month for the cheapest ObamaCare plan available on healthcare.gov
* WITH THE REST SUBSIDIZED... BY A GOVERNMENT THAT ALREADY CAN'T PAY IT'S EXISTING OPERATING EXPENSES... NOW CREATING A VAST NEW MIDDLE-CLASS ENTITLEMENT!
But if they earn $62,041 - just one dollar more - they would pay $1,342 per month. That's an extra $13,572 per year for the same bare-bones insurance plan.
The cost of crossing the threshold of subsidy eligibility will vary based on age. For a couple in their 30s, according to healthcare.gov, it might only cost you a little over $4,000. For a couple of 64-year-olds, who are a year away from qualifying for Medicare, falling over the subsidy cliff could cost more than $20,000.
Any tax credit that phases out will discourage work. The child tax credit, for example, is gradually reduced by $50 for each $1,000 above the cap (currently $110,000 for a couple). In effect, that imposes up to a 5% marginal tax hike on income earned above $110,000. But ObamaCare's effective marginal tax hike is 100% or more on the first $4,000 to $25,000 a couple makes above the income eligibility threshold, depending on age.
Whether or not it's a good thing to encourage workers to cut their hours or quit their jobs is a matter of debate among ObamaCare's supporters and opponents. Liberals point out that some people will gladly choose to work less now that they have greater economic security. But for Americans teetering on the edge of ObamaCare's subsidy cliff, the decision to work more in order to earn less isn't much of a free choice at all.
* ONE MORE TIME: THE GOVERNMENT IS BROKE. THIS YEAR'S DEFICIT IS EXPECTED TO BE OVER HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS. AND THIS IS THE GOVERNMENT TAKING ON A NEW MIDDLE-CLASS ENTITLEMENT! THIS IS INSANE!
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