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Posts Tagged ‘2012’
July 13th, 2012 at 1:56 pm
Obama Repeals Welfare Reform By Administrative Fiat

The Heritage Foundation picked up on a little noticed administrative policy change announced yesterday by the Department of Health and Human Services that removes the work requirements in the landmark 1996 welfare reform legislation.

Here’s how Heritage characterizes the Obama HHS’s new policy:

[On Thursday, July 13, 2012] the Obama Administration issued a new directive stating that the traditional TANF work requirements can be waived or overridden by a legal device called the section 1115 waiver authority under the Social Security law (42 U.S.C. 1315).

Section 1115 states that “the Secretary may waive compliance with any of the requirements” of specified parts of various laws. But this is not an open-ended authority: Any provision of law that can be waived under section 1115 must be listed in section 1115 itself. The work provisions of the TANF program are contained in section 407 (entitled, appropriately, “mandatory work requirements”). Critically, this section, as well as most other TANF requirements, are deliberately not listed in section 1115; they are not waiveable.

In establishing TANF, Congress deliberately exempted or shielded nearly all of the TANF program from the section 1115 waiver authority. They did not want the law to be rewritten at the whim of Health and Human Services (HHS) bureaucrats. Of the roughly 35 sections of the TANF law, only one is listed as waiveable under section 1115. This is section 402.

Section 402 describes state plans—reports that state governments must file to HHS describing the actions they will undertake to comply with the many requirements established in the other sections of the TANF law. The authority to waive section 402 provides the option to waive state reporting requirements only, not to overturn the core requirements of the TANF program contained in the other sections of the TANF law.

The new Obama dictate asserts that because the work requirements, established in section 407, are mentioned as an item that state governments must report about in section 402, all the work requirements can be waived. This removes the core of the TANF program; TANF becomes a blank slate that HHS bureaucrats and liberal state bureaucrats can rewrite at will.

This newly created waiver authority builds on the unprecedented work of the Education Department waiving No Child Left Behind requirements, and HHS’s previous ObamaCare waivers.

It also reaffirms the Obama Administration’s commitment to its “We Can’t Wait” vision of governance, which says that if Congress won’t cooperate in passing liberal policies, then the President and his bureaucratic administrators will rewrite the law without them.

The administrative state remains constitutionally suspect because the Supreme Court has never explained how bureaucracies that exercise quasi-judicial, executive and legislative powers align with the separation-of-powers principle enshrined in our Constitution.  (Hint: They don’t.)

But because the Supreme Court has chosen to allow an unconstitutional barnacle to be grafted onto our ship of state, we now have liberal policy wonks passing, enforcing, and adjudicating laws through waiver requirements that are completely beyond the reach of democratic accountability.  (Sound familiar?)

The Obama Administration’s use of waivers to replace existing law with its own policies is bringing us to a tipping point.  If taken to its logical conclusion, Congress need not pass another law so long as the Executive can waive-and-replace its contents at will.

Like so many other issues this election cycle, Mitt Romney and others need to stress the importance of the Obama Administration’s lawless disregard for our constitutional system.  Administrative fiat cannot be accepted as a valid substitute for legislative deliberation.  If it is, then America will in every sense be a nation of men and not laws.

July 11th, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Quin’s Quintuple Veep Picks

Thanks, Quin, for the “clarification” on your vice presidential pick(s).  So far, I count four possible outcomes allowing you to claim Nostradamus status at the next company picnic.

Putting your competing theories and rationalizations aside for a moment, however, let me ask this: Who do you want right now?

My head tells me Romney should pick Paul Ryan because the two seem very comfortable with each other (one report says Ryan can finish Romney’s sentences and make him laugh) and because Ryan gives Mitt the disciplined, wonkish Washington veteran Romney seems to like (see Rob Portman) as well as the likeable guy-next-door demeanor Mitt needs (see Tim Pawlenty).

I also think Ryan would be a great number two to Romney without being such a second fiddle as to obscure his future presidential ambitions.  Paul Ryan: dutiful and dynamic.

But that’s my head.  My heart wants Chris Christie.  Why?  Because I want someone to articulate the anger I have for the wasted time, money, and opportunities squandered by the Obama Administration over the last three years.  America has more debt, less prestige, and bleaker prospects for the future than at any other time in the last forty years.

That’s more than a “kick in the gut”; it’s an affront to our patriotism.

I want someone who not only articulates the problems with Obamaism, I want a person who can point to the way out.  But right now, I also want someone who does this with an edge.  Not necessarily going off on a heckler while eating an ice cream cone edge, but with something more than charts, statistics, and phrases about getting hit.

I’d like someone in the Romney camp who knows how to hit back.

Strategically, my head is telling me Romney should pick Ryan, but tactically, I want Christie out there getting daily news coverage rhetorically perp-walking Obama’s bad policies out of Washington.

How about you, Quin?  Who do you want as Romney’s VP right now.  You can keep your other prognostications for future reference.  All I’m asking is for an undisputed, single name occupying your Veep choice today.

July 10th, 2012 at 5:53 pm
Chart: Timing of VP Picks, 1980 – 2008

Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner posted an interesting chart showing the timing of vice presidential picks from 1980 to 2008.  Notice a trend?

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Except for John Kerry’s selection of John Edwards nearly three weeks before the 2004 Democratic Convention, all the others picks occurred within a week of or at the respective party’s convention.

As Klein notes, as of today we’re 7 weeks / 49 days away from the Republican Convention in Tampa, so it’s probably waaaaaay too early to expect Quin (Bobby Jindal) or Troy (Jon Kyl) to collect the CFIF office pool money.

For what it’s worth, I’d like a Romney-Christie ticket just to see Chris Christie go after Joe Biden during their debate, play the attack dog on the campaign trail, and land the rhetorical blows on the Obama Administration that Mitt Romney can’t seem to muster.

Of course, those reasons – coupled with Christie’s propensity to be baited into a confrontation – are probably the same reasons Romney won’t pick him.

But if history is any guide, there’s still time for Mitt to get warm to the idea.

July 7th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
IPAB Should Be Next ObamaCare Target

Wesley J. Smith reminds us why with ObamaCare’s individual mandate safe for now, conservative litigators should focus on striking down the Independent Payment Advisory Board, the unelected, unaccountable group of “experts” charged with controlling costs under ObamaCare.

There’s not much time left:

According to the terms of the Affordable Care Act, IPAB must submit its first draft recommendations to the health and human services secretary by September 1, 2013. Its first Medicare cost-cutting goals must become law by August 15, 2014.

Why did I write “must” become law” instead of “may”? IPAB’s unique “fast track” authority divests Congress of discretion regarding the amount of money to be cut from Medicare once IPAB has submitted its “advice.” Get a load of these legislative handcuffs:

  • By January 15, 2014, IPAB must submit a proposal to Congress and the president for reaching Medicare savings targets in the coming year.
  • The majority leaders in the House and Senate must introduce bills incorporating the board’s proposal the day they receive it.
  • Congress cannot “consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report … that would repeal or otherwise change the recommendations of the board” if such changes fail to meet the board’s budgetary target.
  • By April 1, all legislative committees must complete their evaluation. Any committee that fails to meet the deadline is barred from further consideration of the bill.
  • If Congress does not pass the proposal or a substitute plan meeting the IPAB’s financial target before August 15, or if the president vetoes the proposal passed by Congress, the original Independent Payment Advisory Board recommendations automatically take effect.

Not only that, but Congress cannot consider any bill or amendment that would repeal or change this fast-track congressional consideration process without a three-fifths vote in the Senate. And to put the icing on the autocratic cake, implementation of the board’s policy is exempted from administrative or judicial review.

Unlike the rest of ObamaCare, IPAB cannot be repealed easily because its enabling statute “entrenches” it from being altered by later Congresses.  Thus, banking on a President Romney and a Republican Congress to get rid of it won’t work.

I’ve written before about the federal case in Arizona challenging IPAB.  It was on hold awaiting the Supreme Court’s decision on the individual mandate.  With the mandate redefined as a tax, the IPAB litigation will proceed, perhaps with a Supreme Court hearing as early as spring 2013.

Keep an eye on this one.  It’s easy to see how an unaccountable board of bureaucrats empowered to control costs could morph into a health care rationing board.

July 5th, 2012 at 1:35 pm
Roberts’ ObamaCare Decision a Job Creator?

It’s no secret that Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion in the ObamaCare case last week is already helping President Barack Obama on the campaign trail by giving the unpopular law constitutional legitimacy.

But Fox News reports that Roberts’s opinion may also help the President make another boast: ObamaCare is a job creator.

Much bigger than the mandate itself are the insurance exchanges that will administer $681 billion in subsidies over 10 years, which will require a lot of new federal workers at the IRS and health department.

“They are asking for several hundred new employees,” Dorn said. “You have rules you need to write and you need lawyers, so there are lots of things you need to do when you are standing up a new enterprise.”

For some, though, the bottom line is clear and troubling: The federal government is about to assume massive new powers.

According to James Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, federal powers will include designing insurance plans, telling people where they can go for coverage and how much insurers are allowed to charge.

“Really, how doctors and hospitals are supposed to practice medicine,” he said.

The health department is still writing regulations, which can be controversial in and of themselves. One already written, for instance, requires insurance plans to cover contraception. It has been legally challenged by Catholic groups in a case likely to end up in the Supreme Court.

So, there are likely to be many more chapters to go in the saga of Obama’s health care law

And none of it would be possible without the Chief Justice.

June 20th, 2012 at 1:46 pm
Executive Privilege Means Obama Owns Fast & Furious

Today marks a dramatic turn in the Fast and Furious scandal with the Obama White House announcing this morning that the documents sought by House Republicans are protected from disclosure by executive privilege.

For the first time since news broke of the Department of Justice gun-walking fiasco, the President of the United States is claiming an interest in DOJ’s internal deliberations about a program that purposefully armed Mexican drug cartels and ultimately allowed a drug runner to murder a U.S. Border Patrol agent.

In the short term, the president’s announcement may make House Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa’s contempt vote closer than it would have been, if some members decide that an executive privilege claim inoculates Holder from punishment.  My guess is that Obama’s announcement will embolden Republicans on the committee to go ahead with the contempt vote and give Democrats a talking point after they lose.

In the long term, today’s executive privilege claim finally elevates Fast and Furious into a surefire campaign topic for the fall.  As long as the scandal was defended as a policy decision gone bad – especially one that was until today linked to the previous Republican administration – it was unlikely that conservatives would make Fast and Furious into a campaign theme.

But now that’s changed for two reasons.  First, as of today DOJ has rescinded its claim that Bush’s Attorney General Michael Mukasey knew about Fast and Furious, thus admitting that the idea and its consequences belong completely to the Obama administration.  Second, Obama’s claim of executive privilege means that he is now claiming ownership of the program.

I suspect that the documents being withheld would make the case for the resignation or impeachment of Eric Holder or another high-ranking DOJ official.  Claiming executive privilege helps delay the reckoning, but it opens the door for Mitt Romney and others – most notably Issa and other congressional investigators – to ask White House officials directly – and President Obama indirectly – about the president’s knowledge, involvement, and approval of Fast and Furious.

Game on.

June 2nd, 2012 at 4:54 pm
Wisconsin Likes Walker, Could Boot Obama

Byron York explains why President Barack Obama is not campaigning on behalf of Tom Barrett, the Democrat running against Republican Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin’s recall election on Tuesday:

The latest poll on the recall battle shows why Obama is staying away. It’s not just that he doesn’t want to appear with a loser. Perhaps just as importantly, there is no advantage for Obama to risk his own popularity by making a high-profile visit to oppose policies that are finding increasing favor with voters.

The new poll, from Marquette University Law School, shows Walker leading Barrett 52 percent to 45 percent. Beyond the horse race, the Marquette pollsters also asked about specific elements of Walker’s reforms. It turns out some of the key elements of those policies — reforms Obama strongly opposed — are now winning the day.

Those policies include:

  • 75% of voters in favor of “requiring public employees to contribute to their own pensions and pay more for health insurance.”
  • 55% of voters in favor of “limiting collective bargaining for most public employees.”
  • 54% of voters thinking Wisconsin is better off in the long run because of the changes in state government

With these numbers and 52% of voters preferring him, Scott Walker appears likely to keep his job.  If Wisconsin voters start to apply the same poll questions to Obama’s failed economic policies – forty months of 8% unemployment, doubling the national debt in just one term in office – they’ll come to the opposite conclusion about the President.

No wonder he doesn’t want to be seen in Wisconsin.

May 18th, 2012 at 7:56 pm
Ryan: Obama Practicing ‘Lost Decade Economics’

When asked by the Washington Examiner about the policy choices facing American voters this election, Paul Ryan painted a picture of stark contrasts, beginning with the Obama Administration’s high-tax, high-spending approach:

“Those kinds of packages won’t succeed in preventing a debt crisis. We’ll pass one round of austerity, that won’t work, then the bond markets will get us, then we’ll do another round and another round, just like what Europe is going through now. We will have chosen to go on the path to decline and we’ll have a lost decade,” Ryan explained. “We see the president and his party are basically practicing lost decade economics,” he finished.

Moving to the Republican alternative, Ryan explained, “We think we have one more great chance, if the elections go the right way, to turn this thing around once and for all. And address it, the right way, up front. With real entitlement reform, restructuring these programs. Real tax reform to get back to growth. We want growth we want opportunity, we want reform, so that we fix this the American way.”

In terms of jobs and economic opportunity, it certainly has been a lost half-decade under President Obama.  Doubling down on more of the same for another presidential term would likely consign an entire generation of workers to a lifetime earnings amount much lower than their parents.

President Obama may be willing to tolerate being the first leader to see a generation of kids live below their parents’ standard of living since World War II.  (What else explains his campaign’s “Life of Julia” foolishness?)  However, my suspicion is that a majority of voters are not interested in either Lost Decade Economics or much less a lost generation of opportunity.

Good sound bites convey truth in a memorable way.  Kudos to Ryan for correctly identifying the likely result of Obama’s wasteful policies.

May 16th, 2012 at 7:11 pm
Congress Votes Down Obama’s 2012 Budget: 513 – 0

You read that right.

After the House voted down President Barack Obama’s budget proposal 414 – 0 in March, today the Senate defeated it 99 – 0.  There are 51 Democrats in the Senate (and two Independents that caucus with them).  Not one voted for their president’s budget.  There are 190 Democrats in the House.  Not one voted for their president’s budget.

There are only 535 members in Congress.  As of today, 513 are on record opposing Barack Obama’s 2012 budget.  No one is on record supporting it.

By contrast, Paul Ryan’s budget passed the House on March 29th with 228 Republican votes, and only 10 party members against.  Today, 41 of 47 Republicans voted for Ryan’s budget; short of the 51 needed for passage.

Only one party is trying to govern.  The other is refusing to.  The American people should take notice and vote accordingly.

May 3rd, 2012 at 8:16 pm
More Paul than Romney Delegates at GOP Convention?

On Monday, I shared a story about how Ron Paul’s fervent supporters are outmaneuvering the Romney campaign in the state-by-state process of selecting delegates to the GOP’s nominating convention in Tampa, FL.

Here’s more evidence from the Washington Times:

Exploiting party rules, loyalists for the libertarian congressman from Texas in recent days have engineered post-primary organizing coups in states such as Louisiana and Alaska, confirming what party regulars say would be an effort to grab an outsized role in the convention and the party’s platform deliberations.

In Massachusetts, the state where Mr. Romney served as governor, Paul loyalists over the weekend helped block more than half of Mr. Romney’s preferred nominees from being named delegates at state party caucuses — even though Mr. Romney won his home state’s primary with 72 percent of the vote.

And from the Las Vegas Sun:

In a letter delivered Wednesday to GOP Chairman Michael McDonald, the RNC’s chief counsel said if Ron Paul delegates are allowed to take too many slots for the national convention, Nevada’s entire contingent may not be seated in Tampa.

John R. Phillippe Jr. said that while his letter is not binding, “I believe it is highly likely that any committee with jurisdiction over the matter would find improper any change to the election, selection, allocation, or binding of delegates, thus jeopardizing the seating of Nevada’s entire delegation to the National Convention.”

Clearly, the RNC fears that mischief at the Sparks convention this weekend could result in Ron Paul delegates taking Mitt Romney slots and then not abiding by GOP rules to vote for the presumptive nominee on the first ballot in Tampa. So they are trying to force McDonald to ensure that actual Romney delegates fill 20 of the 28 national convention slots, thus removing any mystery of who they will vote for.

H/T: Teagan Goddard’s Political Wire

May 3rd, 2012 at 6:54 pm
Massachusetts’ Warren Checking All the Liberal Boxes

John Fund nails liberal Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren for being a consistent fraud.  In the last week her bid to unseat Scott Brown has taken two steps backward with the revelation that although she listed herself as a Native American for over a decade as a law professor, she – at most – is only 1/32 Cherokee; and even that connection is in dispute.

The incident confirms Warren as a practitioner of the liberal art of claiming multiple diversity status; in her case as a woman and a Native American.

Just as revealing is her decision year after year to pay Massachusetts’ lower state income tax rather than a voluntary higher rate as she insists wealthy people like her should do.

Fund’s conclusion:

Warren is free to believe that she has Native American ancestry, just as she is free to keep as much of her money as she is legally entitled to. But her choices in filling out forms are instructive. In checking the boxes claiming Native American status for so many years and in not checking the box to pay a higher state income-tax rate, she has revealed more than we need to know to brand her as yet another sanctimonious liberal who wants to have it all ways.

If Warren’s misfires keep up, Scott Brown will once again benefit from running against an unusually self-destructive liberal.

May 2nd, 2012 at 7:03 pm
Maybe Romney Should Choose Labrador for Running Mate

No, I’m not suggesting Romney atone for his past sin of strapping his family dog to his car on vacations by making a canine his running mate.  (Though most veeps at campaign time are called attack dogs.)

Rather, I’m reacting to an intriguing interview between Juan Williams and Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), a Tea Party congressman from the Class of 2010 who also happens to be Mormon and from Puerto Rico.

He opposes the DREAM Act, but is a staunch advocate for reforming the cumbersome legal immigration process.  As Williams says, Labrador “has been involved in trying to block virtually every one of President Obama’s major legislative initiatives.”  He also “openly mused” about supporting a Tea Party challenger to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) when it looked like Boehner might cave-in to President Obama’s demands to avert a government shutdown last summer.

As for how Labrador would advise Romney to reach out to Hispanic voters after a bruising primary season:

“I would tell, Romney, as I would tell anybody, is that we need to start talking about being a party of inclusion, we need to start talking about how we’re a, a party for legal immigration, that we actually want to reform the system so people can actually come to the United States in a legal, safe way.”

Sounds like a reasonable pitch to me.

April 30th, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Repeal Obamacare and Replace It with… Bushcare?

Avik Roy, a health policy expert at the Manhattan Institute, posits an interesting option for fiscal conservatives looking for something to replace Obamacare with, if Republicans capture Congress and the White House this November: Bushcare.

The Bush plan was formulated by the White House’s National Economic Council, under the leadership of Allan B. Hubbard. The core goal of the plan was to equalize the tax treatment of employer-sponsored and individually-purchased health insurance, without increasing the deficit. (As regular readers know, the fact that employers can purchase health insurance for their workers tax-free, whereas individuals can’t, is the original sin of the U.S. health-care system.)

Bush’s proposal sought to eliminate the unlimited tax break for employer-sponsored insurance, replacing it with a standard deduction for everyone. Under the plan, anyone—employed or not—who bought at least catastrophic insurance would not pay income or payroll taxes on the first $7,500 of their income, or the first $15,000 for a family plan.

The Bush plan’s numbers were designed with 2009 insurance prices in mind, and the tax-deduction thresholds would grow with CPI inflation. The Treasury Department estimated that the plan would lower taxes for 80 percent of those with employer-sponsored insurance, and increase taxes for the remaining 20 percent. It would have especially benefited the 18 million people who then bought insurance on their own, along with many of the uninsured, who would suddenly find health insurance to be significantly less expensive.

In contrast to Obamacare, however, the Bush plan would have turbocharged the market for consumer-driven health plans, tied to health savings accounts, because the most economically efficient use of the deduction would be to purchase a sufficiently generous consumer-driven plan that allowed individuals to put a maximal amount of money into HSAs. Obamacare significantly constrains the use of HSAs in its regulated insurance markets.

Among the criticisms of Bush’s health care proposal is that it “only” expanded health insurance coverage to an additional 11 million people.  Obamacare’s supporters claim – perhaps erroneously – that it would cover 33 million.  But even if we take the estimates at face value, there’s another number that’s arguably more important.

The cost of Obamacare’s 33 million newly covered citizens is agreed by all sides to be in the trillions of (new) dollars.  Bush covered 11 million for zero dollars in increased federal spending commitments.

Food for thought if the Republicans run and win on a platform to repeal and replace Obamacare.

April 30th, 2012 at 5:37 pm
GOP Convention: Ron Paul Revolution?

The Daily Caller explains the (tortured) delegate math that is giving GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul – yes, he’s still running – control of state delegations to the national convention; and with them, the ability to impact Mitt Romney’s march to the nomination.

Texas Rep. Ron Paul claimed another come-from-behind caucus victory this weekend, announcing that approximately 74 percent of the delegates to Louisiana’s state GOP convention will be Paul supporters.

Louisiana has a unique system of selecting delegates to the Republican National Convention. Twenty delegates are selected based on the results of the state’s March 24 primary and another 26 delegates are based on the outcome of the state’s caucus process.

If you’re confused it’s probably because you remember that Rick Santorum won 49 percent of the Louisiana primary vote back in February.

And that’s not the only Santorum victory that ultimately went to Paul:

Earlier this month, Paul won 20 of 24 delegates awarded by Minnesota congressional district conventions. Paul had received a significant 27 percent of the vote in the state’s Feb. 7 caucuses, but Santorum had won nearly every county in a major blowout.

According to The DC, Paul is also on the verge of winning a majority of the GOP’s delegates from Iowa, even though he came in third behind Mitt Romney and Santorum in the Hawkeye State.

Moreover, there are as many as six other states where Paul is poised to control a majority of delegates even though he didn’t win a majority of the primary votes cast in any of them.

If you, like me and perhaps Mitt Romney’s crew, considered Paul’s campaign an afterthought, it may be time to move the Veepstakes chatter to the backburner and ask a much more interesting question – What, exactly, does Mr. Paul want in exchange for his endorsement at the GOP’s Tampa convention?

April 25th, 2012 at 6:15 pm
Jimmy Carter Likes Romney After Favoring Huntsman

Just when he thought it was safe to grab hold of the GOP presidential mantle, Mitt Romney gets the worst kind of endorsement – a thumbs-up from Jimmy Carter.

Said Carter: “I’d rather have a Democrat but I would be comfortable — I think Romney has shown in the past, in his previous years as a moderate or progressive… that he was fairly competent as a governor and also running the Olympics as you know. He’s a good solid family man and so forth, he’s gone to the extreme right wing positions on some very important issues in order to get the nomination. What he’ll do in the general election, what he’ll do as president I think is different.”

To be sure, Carter’s statement about being “comfortable” with Romney isn’t as bad as the former Democratic president’s labeling one-time Romney rival Jon Huntsman as an “attractive” candidate and “very attractive to me personally.”

However, Carter’s justification for being comfortable with Romney does reinforce the conventional wisdom that Romney’s conservatism is a veneer whereas his “moderate or progressive” past is the truer indicator of how he’ll govern as president.

To paraphrase Nancy Pelosi, maybe we’ll have to elect Mitt to see how he’ll govern.

H/T: Political Wire

April 24th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
How to Make Obamacare Exchanges a State Campaign Issue

In a presidential election year like 2012, it’s easy for national issues to crowd out state and local concerns at the ballot box.  But thanks to Obamacare’s costly mandate on states to create health insurance exchanges, fiscal conservatives running for state offices can easily make opposition to more government a central plank in their campaign platform.

According to Cato Institute scholar Michael F. Cannon, outside of the U.S. Supreme Court’s potentially striking down Obamacare’s individual mandate, the most important health policy battle to be waged is state government opposition to creating Obamacare’s state-based health insurance exchanges.

As I’ve written previously these exchanges are a subtle way to coerce states into spending millions of dollars to set-up a government-controlled, taxpayer-subsidized “market” for health insurance.  Thereafter, when Obama’s bureaucrats at HHS decide the state version isn’t performing exactly the way they want, Obamacare grants HHS the power to take over any state’s exchange and run it from Washington, D.C.  Thus, the bait-and-switch is yet another way for Obamacare to hide its impact on the federal budget deficit by shoving some of its start-up costs onto the states.

Cato’s Cannon outlines a different strategy, with talking points that to me seem ready-made for a state campaigner’s website:

Jobs. Refusing to create an exchange will block Obamacare from imposing a tax on employers whose health benefits do not meet the federal government’s definition of “essential” coverage. That tax can run as high as $3,000 per employee. A state that refuses to create an exchange will spare its employers from that tax, and will therefore enable them to create more jobs.

Religious freedom. In blocking that employer tax, state officials would likewise block Obamacare’s effort to force religious employers to provide coverage for services they find immoral — like contraception, pharmaceutical abortions, and sterilization.

The federal debt. Refusing to create exchanges would also reduce the federal debt, because it would prevent the Obama administration from doling out billions of dollars in subsidies to private insurance companies.

The U.S. Constitution. The Obama administration has indicated that it might try to tax employers and hand out those subsidies anyway — even in states that don’t create an exchange, and even though neither Obamacare nor any other federal law gives it the power to do so. If that happens, the fact that a state has refused to create an exchange would give every large employer in the state — including the state government itself — the ability to go to court to block the administration’s attempt to usurp Congress’s legislative powers.

A lower state tax burden. States that opt to create an exchange can expect to pay anywhere from $10 million to $100 million per year to run it. But if states refuse, Obamacare says the federal government must pay to create one. Why should states pay for something that the federal government is giving away?

Bye-bye, Obamacare. That is, if the feds can create an exchange at all. The Obama administration has admitted it doesn’t have the money — and good luck getting any such funding through the GOP-controlled House. Moreover, without state-run exchanges, the feds can’t subsidize private insurance companies. That by itself could cause Obamacare to collapse.

There is no reason a state should agree to spend millions of dollars laying the groundwork for a federal takeover of health care.  Fiscal conservatives running for office this cycle should articulate this argument well and often.

April 23rd, 2012 at 1:30 pm
Inside the Minds of a Democratic Opposition Research Team

Roll Call has a behind-the-scenes look at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s opposition research team, and the findings aren’t pretty.

As any number of elections have taught us, a candidate’s personal history is just as relevant to voting decisions as his or her policy stances.  What makes the profile of the DCCC outfit stomach-churning, however, is the glee staff members exude from discovering the lowest points of other people’s lives:

Diana Asti, a newly promoted research analyst, finished a 204-page book on a target following seven days on the ground, 30 Freedom of Information requests and finding every word from the candidate ever on record. That morning in the DCCC’s second-floor conference room, Asti finally had the opportunity to reveal one of her biggest discoveries about her target: his secret first marriage.

“My head just went in all different directions, like maybe they’ve divorced and he hasn’t paid alimony, or maybe he has a child and he hasn’t paid child support,” exclaimed the 23-year-old Asti afterward in an interview. “I went into a million different directions of what this could possibly be. It was a very exciting moment.”

In case you’re wondering, the reason so few politicians seem “real” is because they live in fear of people like Diana Asti.

And let’s not forget her colleague Jonathan Pullum, a man who confesses the following desire whenever he sees his Republican target:

Occasionally, Pullum still sees his quirky research subject around Capitol Hill. Johnson doesn’t know the 24-year-old from any other young staffer, but Pullum describes his reaction as giddy.

“I have this real desire to be like, ‘How’s it going, buddy? Let’s talk about your diet,’” Pullum said. “It’s all these bizarre things that you know.”

Bizarre, indeed.

April 3rd, 2012 at 6:38 pm
Obama’s Campaign Spending Also Unsustainable

The Daily Caller makes hilarious use of Karl Rove’s analysis comparing the spending rates for the Bush and Obama reelection campaigns.

But there’s plenty of evidence that the campaign isn’t bringing in as much money as it wants.

For example, data from the campaign’s earlier quarterly reports to the Federal Election Commission show that Obama’s spending is growing faster than revenues.

“The Obama campaign’s high burn rate doesn’t come from large television buys, phone banks or mail programs that could be immediately stopped … [but] from huge fixed costs for a big staff and higher-than-expected fund-raising outlays,” according to a March 14 article by Karl Rove, chief political strategist for George W. Bush.

In the second quarter of 2011, Obama’s “campaign spent 25% of what it raised… while Mr. Bush’s campaign spent only 9% in the second quarter of 2003,” Rove said. Since then, the spending pace has accelerated, he said, pointing out that in January “the Obama campaign spent 158% of what it raised, while the Bush campaign spent 60% in January 2004.”

Also, his supporters initially predicted a $1 billion reelection fund, but campaign staffers are quick to deny that is a goal.

Rove argues that one reason the re-election campaign might be running lighter-than-expected on cash is that many of Obama’s 2008 supporters are not opening their checkbooks this time around.

Spending growing faster than revenues (158%!).  Huge fixed costs triggering obscene debt.  An unsustainable burn rate.  Grandiose predictions cratering on fiscal reality.  Contributors unwilling or unable to pony up more cash.

Whether it’s managing the federal government or his own campaign, Barack Obama is as unbalanced with money as he is with policy.

March 30th, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Being Joe Biden

How’s this for honesty from America’s Vice President:

Vice President Joe Biden offered a frank assessment of his career in remarks at a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago last night, according to the Washington Examiner.

Said Biden: “I never had an interest in being a mayor ’cause that’s a real job. You have to produce. That’s why I was able to be a senator for 36 years.”

H/T: Political Wire

March 26th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
Etch-a-Sketch vs. More Flexibility

In just a few days two presidential campaigns may have coined the slogans we’ll all be hearing ad nauseum this fall.

Last week, a top Mitt Romney advisor likened his boss to an Etch-a-Sketch, able to be shaken and reset while moving from the primaries to the general election.  Over the weekend, President Barack Obama told his Russian counterpart that “This is my last election.  After my election I have more flexibility.”

Each statement betrays a fundamental suspicion about each candidate.  Romney has no core principles.  Obama’s will emerge only after he’s insulated from facing voters again.  The comments feed the narrative that both men will say anything to get elected.

If Romney is the GOP nominee, Jennifer Rubin already has proposed talking points attacking the ‘more flexibility’ president. (E.g. “He says he’ll only raise taxes on the rich, but after the election he’ll have ‘more flexibility.'”)

We can also assume more comments like Vice President Joe Biden’s that Romney won’t be allowed to be all things to all people.

Unless Rick Santorum can turn his 22 point win in last Saturday’s Louisiana caucuses into a Wisconsin win tomorrow, we may be in for an Etch-a-Sketch vs. More Flexibility campaign.