Whether the source is Gallup, Pew, Quinnipiac, the Wall Street Journal, NPR, the Washington Post, or even the New York Times; every recent poll on the issue shows that either pluralities or majorities of Americans have serious doubts about President Barack Obama’s health care plan. Reviewing the month’s polling data, Gallup’s Frank Newport sums it up: “The bottom line is a sense that, while Americans apparently favor some type of healthcare reform in the long term, they are in no hurry to see healthcare reform legislation passed in the short-term …
White House chief of staff Rahm Emmanuel wasn’t kidding when he said that a crisis is a terrible thing to waste, and according Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), it was anything but wasted. “Indeed, the period of panic that everyone was facing opened a tremendous opportunity for the left to start establishing the principles of social democracy,” Brooks said this week at The Heritage Foundation. As the recession abates, confidence slowly builds and a dynamic is born where panic is receding and anger is setting in …
You know a side is on the run rhetorically when it deals the race card. The race card is divisive, disingenuous and outright dangerous, but its great virtue is that it can slow down the other side’s momentum, and even stop it altogether. So, in a way, those of us who believe President Obama’s health care plans are misguided and hazardous to our national well being can take some comfort in the fact that the President’s supporters are so desperate that they are now crying “racism” in order to stop …
Despite President Barack Obama’s deadline, both the House and Senate failed to pass Obama’s health care plan before they adjourned for the month of August. Now Senators and Representatives are returning home to participate in one of America’s greatest democratic traditions: the townhall. The events afford citizens the rare opportunity to share their opinions directly with their elected officials. Unfortunately at this Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) townhall, Service Employee International Union members are allowed into the event while Obamacare protesters are left outside. So how did these free speech loving …
We’ve reported before on recent analysis by the Lewin Group, the nation’s most prominent health policy econometrics firm, showing that full implementation of the House health legislation would force 83.4 million Americans out of their current plan and into government-run health care. Now Sageworks, a data analysis firm focused on small business, has also released a study of the bill. Investor’s Business Daily reports: The House version would require any employer with a payroll of at least $500,000 a year to provide health insurance or pay a penalty. The penalty …
The Senate Finance Committee’s proposed version of the “pay or play” employer mandate reportedly calls for employers who do not sponsor health insurance to pay a “free rider” tax equal to the subsidies their low-income employees would receive to buy insurance in a proposed national health insurance exchange. Yesterday, health law expert Judith Solomon and former Carter Administration official Robert Greenstein of the liberal Center for Budget and Policy Priorities released a report explaining how this will be devastating to the employment prospects of low-income workers – and even more …
In a discussion about the economy and the stimulus package President Obama signed into law earlier in the year, Vice President Joe Biden last Sunday said, “Jobs are being created that would not have been there before. Can I claim credit that all that’s due to the recovery package? No. But it clearly has had an impact.” The Department of Labor today released its monthly jobs report. Does it validate the Vice President’s remarks? No. The jobs report provides no evidence that the stimulus is working. If anything, it suggests …
The Wall Street Journal reports: Congress plans to spend $550 million to buy eight jets, a substantial upgrade to the fleet used by federal officials at a time when lawmakers have criticized the use of corporate jets by companies receiving taxpayer funds. The purchases will help accommodate growing travel demand by congressional officials. … The congressional shopping list goes beyond what the Air Force had initially requested as part of its annual appropriations. … Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said the Department of Defense didn’t request the additional planes …
Washington Post business columnist Steve Pearlstein writes about opponents of Obamacare today: They’ve become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems. And just what is the “anything” these “terrorists” are saying about health care? There is no credible way to look at what has been proposed by the president or any congressional committee and conclude that these will result in a government takeover of the health-care system. That is a flat-out lie whose …
Ten Senate Democrats recently expressed their concern over cap and trade legislation that would dramatically increase energy prices and particularly hurt the country’s manufacturing base. In a letter sent to the White House, Senators from Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota and West Virginia wrote: As Congress considers energy and climate legislation, it is important that such a bill include provisions to maintain a level playing field for American manufacturing. Manufacturing accounts for more than 10 percent of our economy and nearly three-fourths of the nation’s industrial research and development. …
