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Posts Tagged ‘White House’
December 18th, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Are Polls Previewing the Obama Legacy?
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Less than one year into the Obama Administration, unequivocal public opinion polls are saying a lot about his leadership ability, and may be providing an early clue into what might come to be his legacy.

Namely, unlike leaders such as Ronald Reagan or Franklin Roosevelt, he is turning the public away from his worldview, rather than persuading it to join him.

By now we’re well-familiar with Obama’s steady decline in public opinion polls.  In fact, he stands lower than any President at this point in his tenure.  But the latest Rasmussen poll shows something broader, which is good news for those of us who advocate individual freedom, but bad news for Obama.

By an enormous 66% to 22% margin, Americans state that they prefer less government and lower taxes to stronger government with higher taxes.  Amazingly, the tone-deaf White House and the Pelosi/Reid Congress continue to advance bigger government (ObamaCare, carbon cap-and-tax, new regulations over the struggling economy,etc.) and higher taxes (increase of the death tax, higher income taxes, healthcare penalties, etc.) despite these unequivocal results.

By a 62% to 21% margin, respondents also say that lowering taxes is a better way to create jobs than more federal “stimulus” is.  This is remarkable, considering the degree to which Obama, Pelosi, Reid and liberal pundits scapegoat lower taxes and less regulation as the alleged cause of our economic difficulties.  They’re obviously not making the case, and are losing the battle of ideas.

Furthermore, 62% believe that it would be better for the rest of the world and our allies to follow America’s lead, an all-time high.  In contrast, a tiny 8% report that America should increasingly follow our allies’ lead.  This again contrasts with Obama’s apologetic international demeanor and submission to new global constraints upon the U.S., especially on the heels of his Nobel Prize and Copenhagen boondoggle.

But more broadly, these striking results show that Obama is failing miserably at the task of persuading and leading Americans toward his point of view and policy agenda.  He presumably has several years to reverse this reality, but we may already be witnessing the early elements of the eventual Obama legacy.

December 14th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
White House: Debt? What Debt?
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The White House has made the decision that debt, all $12 trillion worth of it, no longer matters in America.  Instead of attempting to lower the $1.4 trillion annual budget deficit, the White House is looking for another round of stimulus pork.

According to White House Economic Advisor Christina Romer, it would be “suicide” to focus on deficit reduction to the exclusion of “job creation.”  Her solution, of course, is to repeat the past two/three failed stimulus bills and spend another $50 billion on infrastructure.   In Washington, D.C. that means $5 billion on infrastructure and $45 billion on pork and other preferred government handouts.

Romer’s solution is odd considering this paper she authored with her husband in April (after she began working at the White House) that concluded each dollar of tax cuts historically raised Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by $3, greater than many similar estimates of government stimulus spending.

Romer also concluded that tax increases can easily lower GDP.  As she wrote, “Our results indicate that tax changes have very large effects on output.  Our baseline specification implies than an exogenous tax increase of 1% of GDP lowers real GDP by almost 3%.”  There appears to be a big difference between Doctor of Economics Romer and White House employee Romer.

With all this knowledge about the virtues of tax cuts and the harm of tax increases, Dr. Romer should pay a visit to the West Wing occasionally and remind President Obama that his policies will continue to shrink GDP and impede job creation.

November 16th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
Report: ObamaCare Will Increase Health Care Spending
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The government can’t manage to control the laws of economics like it used to.

No surprise here, but according to a new study released by the non-partisan Center for Medicare and Medicaid Studies, the House health care bill will increase health care costs by $289 billion in the next ten years.

As much as the White House talked about “bending the health care cost curve” downward, the House health care bill, H.R.3962, does the exact opposite.

For some reason the Administration can’t understand that more government spending on health care without commensurate gains in supply leads to health care inflation, driving up costs for all consumers.

Other highlights from the report:

By calendar year 2019, the mandates, coupled with the Medicaid expansion, would reduce the number of uninsured from 57 million, as projected under current law, to an estimated 23 million under H.R. 3962.

The estimated effects of H.R. 3962 on overall national health expenditures (NHE) are shown in table 5. In aggregate, we estimate that for calendar years 2010 through 2019 NHE would increase by $289 billion, or 0.8 percent, over the updated baseline projection that was released on June 29, 2009… The NHE share of GDP is projected to be 21.1 percent in 2019, compared to 20.8 percent under current law.

Public spending would increase under H.R. 3962 as a result of the expansion of the Medicaid program and other Medicaid changes, less the net Medicare savings under the bill. Private expenditures would be higher as well…

November 12th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
Now He Tells Us!

Apparently, former president George W. Bush “went against (his) free-market instincts” when he approved the Wall Street bailout towards the end of his administration.  Better late than never I suppose.

After issuing his mea culpa, “W” had some words of wisdom for his successor:

And without mentioning President Obama by name the former President did have some rather pointed comments for the current Administration claiming that generally “history shows that the greater threat to prosperity is not too little government involvement, but too much.”

Bush, who as President also signed off on massive aid to the auto industry, warned against a government takeover of the economy fearing it would eliminate free-market enterprise.  “As the world recovers, we are going to face the temptation to replace the risk and reward model of the private sector with the blunt instruments of government spending and control.”

Do as I say…

November 12th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
And They Wonder Why We Have Tea Parties

In one of the best critiques of action without regard to consequences, celebrated chaos theoretician Ian Malcolm said about overzealous experts that they were “so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”

From bio-ethics to evidence-based public policy, it is astounding that the 220 members of the U.S. House of Representatives and at least a score of senators who support the Obama Administration’s health care “reform” plan cannot answer the following question:

It’s one of the most basic, kitchen-table questions of the entire reform debate: Would the sweeping $900 billion overhaul actually lower spiraling insurance premiums for everyone?

No one really knows.”

And it’s not just that people haven’t read the bill, or studies analyzing its impact on the cost of health care. It’s that the data doesn’t exist.

At a recent Senate health committee hearing, two health care rivals – Douglas Holtz-Eakin, an economic adviser to Sen. John McCain’s presidential campaign, and Jonathan Gruber, an economics professor whose work is cited often by the White House – agreed comprehensive, objective evidence wasn’t available for small and large businesses.

“It’s insane,” Holtz-Eakin said.

Agreed. Thankfully, at least one Democratic Senator thinks information – not just assurances – is needed before committing American taxpayers to a trillion dollar decision.

The lack of data prompted Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) to request a broad analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office on premiums, which he said was “a basic, bottom-line question that we have to have answered before we can decide if this is an intelligent thing to do.”

Now we see why Senator Bayh didn’t make the cut to be Vice President. He likes to consult factually-based, non-partisan research before voting in favor of the largest expansion of federal social services in 40 years.

Characteristically, top Obama advisors have a different view – one that chooses the devil we don’t know instead of the devil we do.

“I think you could always use more data,” (White House Health Czar Nancy-Ann) DeParle said, but added that “we have plenty of data on where things are and where things are headed without reform.”

Did you catch the barely concealed contempt for “business as usual” and the stifled urge to blame the previous administration?

All this would be comical if there weren’t a $787 billion stimulus package in circulation, the consequences of which still defy an ability to be measured or predicted. To their credit, some Democratic caucus members are joining Senator Bayh’s (belated) rush to judge the health care “reform” bill on its merits.

Lawmakers say they are hungry for data that assures them they are not voting for a bill that does the opposite what they have intended.

“I want to see an objective, third-party analysis from people who don’t have a conflict of interest,” said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.). “I like evidence.”

Good. So do the people being asked to finance health care “reform” unto the nth generation.

You can read the entire article from Politico here.

November 11th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
PhRMA Getting Rich from ObamaCare
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Earlier this year IMS Health projected the American drug industry to contract slightly in the next few years, at a rate of 0.01 percent. In an updated report, however, the industry now stands to turn in healthy profits.

This change in good fortune is not because of a surging economy; it’s because of backroom deals with the White House and Congress. According to the report, the industry is expected to grow by 3.5% next year, and is set to rake in about $137 billion over the next four years.

Behind this paradox is the Obama Administration’s deal with the drug companies. IMS states that ObamaCare is actually going to “lead to higher priced brand [non-generic] products.”

So drug companies, the villain and devil-incarnate for much of the left-wing, will soon gain another $137 billion because of the Obama Administration? Wasn’t President Obama supposed to be the destroyer of all evil in the world?

These newfound profits might be surprising, but it comes as no surprise that former Representative Billy Tauzin leads PhRMA and still has plenty of political clout in Washington, D.C.

You might recall Tauzin, architect of the 2003 Prescription Drug Bill, who then bolted for his current cushy position at PhRMA.

What capitalism creates … crony-capitalism destroys.

HT: Huffington Post

October 24th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Even Joe Klein Thinks Obama Went Too Far

Thankfully, Joe Klein (almost) proves the adage that even a broken clock is right twice a day. As recently documented, Klein has an inability to set aside his partisan pom-poms and see the real issue in a news story. But not when it comes to the White House’s war on Fox News:

The problem with war is that it diverts attention from the actual news. The Administration has tried to pursue a sophisticated, difficult domestic and foreign policy. It doesn’t offer the quick-fix irresponsibility of a tax cut or an invasion. It needs space, time and patience to explain. This is an enervating, midstream moment. It’s not certain that the President’s efforts from health care to Afghanistan will succeed. We’ll know a lot more in a month, but I really hope the White House hasn’t launched this attack to fill the public space while the other issues are being sorted out. The long-term costs of stooping to Fox’s level are not just bad posture; they are diminution of the office and its primary occupant.”

Now, Klein has a few more hours to be right again.  The clock is ticking…

October 23rd, 2009 at 10:21 am
Running Out of Republican Enemies, White House Targets Democrats
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Apparently, the White House’s “Enemies List” has exhausted its reservoir of Republicans, so it’s now targeting Democrats.

According to this morning’s Washington Post, senior Obama advisors anticipate a resounding defeat in the Virginia governor’s race between Republican Bob McDonnell and Democrat Creigh Deeds. Accordingly, the article reports that the White House fears a Republican victory “would likely be seen as a sign that Obama’s popularity is weakening in critical areas of the country.”

So how does the White House respond?  Simple – scapegoat Deeds, and ignore Obama’s plummeting popularity in Virginia, which voted for a Democrat in the presidential race for the first time in over four decades.  The White House conveniently claims that Deeds should have targeted the bloc of younger and African-American voters who propelled Obama in 2008, but the fact is that those 2008 surge voters are deflated after nine months of disastrous performance by Obama.

The lesson?  Democrats across America can no more count on steadfast loyalty from the Obama White House than foreign allies such as Poland, Afghanistan, Israel, Honduras or Colombia can.

October 22nd, 2009 at 12:34 pm
The Back Story on Civil-Military Relations in Afghanistan

Peter Feaver writes a wonderful post today for Foreign Affairs where he recounts the growing mistrust between the Obama White House and the military establishment. The problem is what to do about Afghanistan, how soon, and at what price. There is evidence that National Security Advisor Jim Jones was dispatched to tell war planners to tailor their advice to fit the President’s political calculations. Feaver also hypothesizes about the involvement of the ever-present Bob Woodward in shaping the increasingly tense interactions between military commanders and their civilian bosses. This does not bode well for the troops on the ground.

October 22nd, 2009 at 10:18 am
Individual Mandate Increased ER Visits
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Despite claims from some on the left, including the White House, that health care reform will lower visits to the ER, new statistics from Massachusetts prove that individual mandates could actually increase ER visits.

A survey of Massachusetts emergency physicians found that 42% said emergency care had “somewhat increased,” while 22% of respondents said ER care had “significantly increased.”

The main platform of health care reform in Massachusetts is an individual health care mandate for virtually all residents.  (Residents who fail to obtain coverage can face fines of up to $912.)  Dr. Angela Gardner, President of the American College of Emergency Physicians, noted, “The idea that emergency departments are filled with people who don’t need to be there is simply not true.”

Thus, despite increased access to care in Massachusetts, ER’s across the commonwealth are still inundated with patients.  This finding isn’t too surprising.  Sure enough, people will actually go out of their way to save their lives, even if government tries to get in the way.

October 19th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Supreme Court Justice Couldn’t Dress Herself?
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NBCConnecticut.com reports:

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotormayor’s nomination was so controlled that the White House even approved her clothes, she told Yalies when she appeared at her 30th Yale Law School reunion on Saturday.”

September 24th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
GOP Pushes WH-NEA Issue, Wants Congressional Investigation

CNSNews.com is reporting that “House Republicans are seeking a congressional investigation and information from the White House to determine whether the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) pushed politics in a conference call with potential grant recipients.”

The issue erupted when Andrew Breitbart, of ACORN-video fame, published details of the call on his Big Hollywood website in which the White House allegedly worked with NEA officials to encourage its grant recipients to push Obama’s top policy priorities, including health care reform, cap-and-trade and other issues.   

According to Rep. John Kline (R-MN), ranking member of the House Education and Labor Committee:

The Lobbying Act and the Hatch Act are there to make sure we do not see government personnel and assets used for political purposes. … It does appear laws were broken. I want to work within the jurisdiction where I have it, which is the ranking Republican on the Education and Labor Committee.”

In addition, Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has sent a letter to Obama Sr. Advisor Valerie Jarrett at the White House asking her to provide more information about the conference call, including:

  • A full and complete list of all participants on the August 10, 2009 conference call.
  • A full and complete explanation of how invitees to the conference call were selected.
  • A full and complete description of any consultation of, or opinion provided by, the Office of the White House Counsel or any other advisor regarding the legal implications of the August 10, 2009 conference call specifically and/or the relationship between the White House and NEA generally.
  • A full and complete description of how the conference call was arranged, including which White House staff initiated contact with, or were contacted by, NEA staff, the role of the White House Office of Public Engagement, and the role of the Corporation for National and Community Service.
  • A full and complete explanation of the White House’s expectations for call participants.
  • A full and complete list of, any material produced by call participants in response to the August 10,2009 conference call.

Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), Ranking Member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, is leading the effort on the Senate side.

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September 21st, 2009 at 6:34 pm
NEA Received $50 Million From Stimulus Bill

Following the news that the White House has been colluding with the National Endowment for the Arts (a public agency) to enlist artists to become propaganda tools for the President’s agenda on health care, the environment and other issues, we thought it would be prudent to remind readers that Congress earmarked $50 million for the NEA in the so-called Economic Stimulus Bill passed back in February.

September 21st, 2009 at 2:24 pm
Painted Talking Points?
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The White House has made a habit out of its secret dealings with outside groups, including unions.  However, now it appears that the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is scheming to promote the President’s agenda.  One would think that White House talking points wouldn’t be the best muse, but let us not underestimate the power of “hope.”

According to the Washington Times and Breitbart, the NEA and the Administration set up a conference call to encourage artists around the U.S. to channel their creativity … with the help of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

What’s worse, when confronted by reporters, the NEA lied about setting up the conference call.   Here is the transcript. The Director who misled reporters did not resign, but has instead been reassigned.

As Patrick Courrielche of Breitbart wrote:

“I was invited by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to take part in a conference call that invited a group of rising artist and art community luminaries ‘to help lay a new foundation for growth, focusing on core areas of the recovery agenda – health care, energy and environment, safety and security, education, community renewal.'”

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August 17th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
White House Aide: Obama Still Favors Public Option

The extreme Left, led by Former Dem Party Chairman Howard Dean, is up in arms over the Administration’s hint that it may willing to forgo a government-run public insurance option in an attempt to strike a deal on health care reform.  And it appears the Deaniacs are having an impact.

CNN is reporting that White House Aide Linda Douglass has sent out a written statement making clear the President still supports the “public option.” 

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The White House sought to reassure jittery supporters Monday that President Obama is not abandoning the fight for a public health insurance option.

President Obama “believes the public option is the best way” to reform health care, a White House aide says.

The assurance came amid a media firestorm ignited over the weekend by administration officials seeming to indicate a willingness to drop such an option in order to secure congressional approval of a health care reform bill.

“The president has always said that what is essential is that health insurance reform must lower costs, ensure that there are affordable options for all Americans, and it must increase choice and competition in the health insurance market,” White House aide Linda Douglass said in a written statement.

“He believes the public option is the best way to achieve those goals.”