Big spenders want you to think they’re actually deficit hawks. They’re lauding themselves for passing PAYGO legislation in the U.S. House, with praise from President Obama. But this bill is more loophole than substance. And Congress retains the power to waive its flimsy requirements whenever it wishes. PAYGO is about creating political cover, not about controlling spending. Supposedly, pay-as-you-go requires that extra spending in one area must be offset by reducing spending elsewhere, or raising taxes, or requiring the President to sequester funds before they are spent. The Congressional Budget …
On Friday, the federal minimum wage will increase from $6.55 to $7.25, an increase of almost 10.6%. This increase is the final installment of the minimum wage increase that Congress added to the 2007 Iraq War spending bill. The program will raise the income level of many Americans who are currently employed in minimum-wage, often entry-level positions. Unfortunately for Congress and the American public, this legislation will have several unintended consequences. Raising Minimum Wages Will Increase Unemployment – As any Economics 101 student could tell you, if the price of …
The AP’s Calvin Woodward and Jim Kuhnhenn have an item out today challenging key assertions President Barack Obama made in his press conference last night: OBAMA: “We already have rough agreement” on some aspects of what a health care overhaul should involve, and one is: “It will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you’re happy with it.” THE FACTS: In House legislation, a commission appointed by the government would determine what is and isn’t covered by insurance plans offered in …
Support for school choice in Washington, D.C. continues to grow. The latest national voice to call for saving the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program is MSNBC’s Chris Matthews. Check out this Hardball interview with RNC Chairman Michael Steele: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFUyqr6QsFY[/youtube] Mr. Matthews says: “These opportunity scholarships should be maintained.” Later in the interview, Mr. Matthews makes an interesting point about how the opportunity to attend a private school made a big difference in the life of Judge Sotomayor: “Cardinal Spellman high school is one of the reasons why this woman, Sotomayor got …
Arena chat: Healthcare with Heritage
President Obama again trumpeted his claim last night, that we need government-run health insurance “to help keep the insurance companies honest.” He should check with his own Justice Department about dishonesty in government-run health plans. The state and city governments in New York this week agreed to pay a $540 million fine, $440 million from the state and $100 million from the city, to settle accusations that they defrauded Medicaid. It’s a record-high Medicaid recovery from a public entity. According to the Department of Justice press release, the governments “knowingly …
Politico has picked up on a story we’ve been following for some time. Eamon Javers reports: “We’re looking at continuous monstrous issuances of federal debt, and it is only a matter of time before appetites are filled up,” said Tad DeHaven, a budget analyst at the CATO Institute, a libertarian think tank. “There’s a finite amount of debt that the market’s willing to purchase.” “The debt bubble continues to inflate,” said J.D. Foster, a former official in the Bush administration’s Office of Management and Budget who is now a senior …
Rep. Charlie Rangel of New York and other House Democrats propose to pay for their $1.3 trillion bill to create government-run health care with a 5.4 percent surtax on 2.04 million high-income Americans — about half of them small business owners. Americans would face European-style taxes, paying top rates that – combined with local and state taxes – exceed those of economic competitors such as Germany and Japan. Taxpayers in Italy, Spain, and even France pay lower rates. And that’s not all: President Obama would have the power to increase …
The Congressional Budget Office’s low-ball analysis of the Waxman-Markey global warming bill’s costs allowed President Obama to claim that this bill would cost each household no more than a postage stamp per day. Now, a preliminary analysis by the US Department of Agriculture insists the news is even better for farmers – this bill will have negligible costs in the near term and might actually make them money over the long term. The Heritage Foundation strongly disagrees, not to mention the American Farm Bureau Federation and most other farm groups. …
NYT’s Robert Pear and Peter Baker lay waste just some of the preposterous claims President Obama made last night. Obama claimed more support for his plan than it actually has: Mr. Obama said doctors, nurses, hospitals, drug companies and AARP had supported efforts to overhaul health care. While it is true the American Medical Association has endorsed a bill drafted by House Democratic leaders, a half-dozen state medical societies have sharply criticized provisions that would establish a new government-run health insurance plan.
