ABC: IRS Official in Charge Targeting Now Runs ObamaCare Division

Definitely from the ‘you can’t make this stuff up” file …

ABC News is reporting …

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012.

But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed.

House Speaker John Boehner expressed “serious concerns” that the IRS is empowered as the law’s chief enforcer.

“Obamacare empowers the agency that just violated the public’s trust by secretly targeting conservative groups,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind.,
added.

“Even by Washington’s standards, that’s unacceptable.”

Sen. John Cornyn even introduced a bill, the “Keep the IRS Off Your Health Care Act of 2013,” which would prohibit the Secretary of the Treasury, or any delegate, including the IRS, from enforcing the Affordable Care Act.

“Now more than ever, we need to prevent the IRS from having any role in Americans’ health care,” Cornyn, R-Texas, stated.

“I do not support Obamacare, and after the events of last week, I cannot support giving the IRS any more responsibility or taxpayer dollars to implement a broken law.”

Seriously, you just can’t make this stuff up …

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Gotcha: IRS admits to targeting “Patriots” … turns attention to ObamaCare enforcement.

Just in case you missed the news last Friday, the IRS publicly admitted that it targeted conservative groups during the 2012 election … and then shielded itself behind a George Castanza defense.

Here is the WSJ summary of the IRS disclosure:

Yesterday,an Internal Revenue Service official disclosed for the first time, and by way of apologizing, that the agency that wields the taxing power of the federal government had targeted conservative groups for special scrutiny during the 2012 election season.

A spokeswoman acknowledged that the agency had flagged groups with the words “tea party” or “patriot” to have their tax returns inspected.

In addition, the agency was targeting groups raising  ”issues regarding government spending, government debt or taxes”,  or …  how to  ‘make America a better place to live’.  WSJ update

She added the tax inspections were carried out entirely by low-level workers in Cincinnati without any direction from Washington.

Here’s my take on the IRS revelations:

First, a couple of weeks ago Obama bristled at the thought that some (many ?) folks don’t trust the government. 

What does the jabrone expect if his administration turns its bulldogs on its political opponents?

Can you imagine the outcry if George Bush had told the IRS to key word search “Muslim”, “Islamic”,”Progressive” or “choice” and then said to go get ‘em.

All hell would have broken loose.

Second, about the “don’t blame me, it was somebody in my organization” defense …

Nums: More on the rise of part-time work …

Yesterday we posted “Connecting the dots: ObamaCare may be creating jobs!”

The punch line: many companies are reported to be down mixing their work forces by reducing full-timers to part-time status … and hiring additional part-timers to fill their needs.

Today, let’s look at some macro numbers.

Total employment dropped 8.2 million during the recession.

5.3 million of those 8.2 million jobs have been recovered … but total employment is still down 2.9 million from its pre-recession peak.

Note that total employment is up 1.4 million since President Obama’s Inauguration in January 2009.

Keep that number in mind … 1.4 million.

Things get more interesting with a little drilling down …

Part-timing it: Retailers adding employees … and cutting hours.

According to IBD …

Retailers – prepping for the ObamaCare mandates — are cutting workers’ hours and reclassifying them as part-timers.

Here’s the data …

Connecting the dots: ObamaCare may be creating jobs!

You read that right.

The obvious has become evident to me …

The BLS reported that employment rose by 165,000 in April, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.5 percent,

Hmmm.

Memory jogged back to last week’s post re: the increasing number of part-timers:

Obvious question: how many of the 165,000 were part-timers?

According to the Fed’s data base, part-time employment increased by 229,000.

If true, that means that full-time employment dropped.

Hmmm again.

What’s going on?

Nums: The shift to part-timers …

In a prior post, we reported that middle income jobs were disappearing … apparently down mixing to lower income jobs.

Here’s more …

The NY Times reports that about 7.6 million Americans working part-time jobs are doing so reluctantly, and would rather have a full-time job … that’s about 3 million more than there were when the recession began at the end of 2007.

Most of the part-time jobs are in retail and food service … where companies are throttling full-time employment in advance of ObamaCare penalties.

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Cajones: Congress considers an exemption to ObamaCare … to themselves!

From the you can’t make this stuff up files …

During the 2009-10 battle over what’s now dubbed Obamacare, Republicans insisted that Capitol Hill hands must have the same health care as the rest of the American people.

Now, according to left-leaning Politico, “Congressional leaders in both parties are engaged in high-level, confidential talks about exempting 535 lawmakers and their aides from the insurance exchanges they are mandated to join as part of ObamaCare.”

“The lawmakers — especially those with long careers in public service and smaller bank accounts — are concerned about the hit to their own wallets.”

Obviously, “by removing themselves from a key ObamaCare mandate, lawmakers – who passed the law — and aides would be held to a different standard than the people on whom they’re imposing the law.”

Picture credit

Politico keenly observes: “If Capitol Hill leaders move forward with the plan, they risk being dubbed hypocrites by their political rivals and the American public.”

You think?

Good for us, bad for them.

Hmmm.

There’s more. Here’s the real head-scratcher …

Nums: Do big companies or small companies create more jobs?”

Bit of a trick question since the constant refrain is that small companies are the ones that generate job growth.

According to a Business Week analysis of ADP National Employment data …

Since the U.S. economic recovery began in june 2009, big employers have increased employment 7.5%, while small employers have boosted payrolls only 4.9%.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, was on the McCain team in 2008 but has changed sides and now regularly advocates for the Administration of TV.

He says: that there are three explanations for why large employers (1,000 employees and up) grew faster than small ones (fewer than 50 workers).

Gotcha: Health insurance premiums soaring

Remember this?

Hmmm.

Let’s fast forward to today’s WSJ headline:

The numbers are staggering (and virtually certain):

Gotcha: Here are the nasty 13 tax increases …

Here’s a great recap prepped by the Heritage Foundation with links to deeper details …

Key takeaways:

• Everybody is getting nicked … either directly or indirectly … not just the wealth-mongering 2%.
• Biggest impact is elimination of the payroll tax holiday … which hurts the middle class the most

Read ‘em and weep …

Will ObamaCare close the biggest tax loophole?

First, what’s the biggest tax loophole?

Answer: The non-taxable payments that companies make towards employees health insurance premiums.

These days, the policy to cover a husband, wife and a couple of kids is about $15,000.

Employers typically pick up about 2/3s of the bill … call it $10,000.

The $10,000 is tax deductible for the company, and isn’t taxed as employee compensation – even though it’s clearly part of an employee’s compensation package.

In total, the health insurance loophole amounts to over $170 billion annually … about twice the mortgage interest deduction … and about twice the “Bush tax cuts for the wealthy”.

Source:  Credit Suisse,  Neal Soss

= = = = =

So, how might ObamaCare close this loophole?

Electronic medical records cut costs … oops, make that raise costs.

Interesting expose In the NY Times of all places.

Punch line:

When the federal government began providing billions of dollars in incentives to push hospitals and physicians to use electronic medical and billing records, the goal was not only to improve efficiency and patient safety, but also to reduce health care costs.

But, in reality, the move to electronic health records may be contributing to billions of dollars in higher costs for Medicare, private insurers and patients by making it easier for hospitals and physicians to bill more for their services.

How can this be?

Simple, Watson.

First, a system can provide docs with a checklist of separately billable procedures that they might perform … ensuring a complete check-up and making sure that no billing stone is left unturned.

Second, an e-system can make it easier for doctors to “upcode” a procedure in a way to maximize reimbursement rates.

For example, when a doctor enters a billing code, the system can present him with alternative codes for very similar procedures that get higher reimbursement payments … and tell the doctor what addition work needs to be done to qualify for the higher paying code.

So, maybe just asking the patient a couple of more specific questions  may upgrade an examination from ‘simple’ to ‘ complex.  The doc can then ask the questions (or not) and check the higher paying box.

Third, an e-system makes it easy for docs to “clone” common ‘boiierplate’ findings from one patients chart to another patient’s chart … saving time and, perhaps, implying a more detailed examination.

The Times says:

As software vendors race to sell their systems to physician groups and hospitals, many are straightforward in extolling the benefits  of those systems in helping doctors increase their revenue.

In an online demonstration, one vendor promises that it “plays the level-of-service game on your behalf and beats them at their own game using their own rules.”

An expert says “What’s happening is just the problem we feared” … unintended consequences.

For the record, I think that cutting healthcare costs by reducing doctors’ pay is nuts … there is lots of waste, fraud and unnecessary expense in a grossly inefficient system.

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Give me a large pepperoni pizza … with a touch of ObamaCare

Punch line: Papa Johns CEO has taken a stand against Obamacare, and announced that the popular pizza delivery chain will pass the increased cost of doing business on to its customers, in order to protect its shareholders.

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Excerpted from latimes.com’s, “Papa John’s to raise pizza prices if ‘Obamacare’ survives”

Get ready to pay more for your Papa John’s pizza if “Obamacare” goes into full effect …  15 to 20 cents more.

John Schnatter, chief executive of the pizza chain, is bashing President Obama’s healthcare reform law as a policy that will force the company to choose between its customers and its investors.  And if the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act rolls out as planned in 2014, Schnatter’s strategy is “of course … to pass that cost on the consumer in order to protect our shareholders’ best interest,” he said in a recent conference call.

Schnatter estimates that the legislation will cost Papa John’s about 11 cents to 14 cents per pizza, which equates to 15 cents to 20 cents per order.

“We’re not supportive of Obamacare like most businesses in our industry but our business model and unit economics are about as ideal as you can get for a food company to absorb Obamacare,” Schnatter said. “Ergo, we have a high ticket average with extremely high frequency of order counts, millions of pizzas per year.”

On Twitter, reactions were mostly negative.  “*switches to Pizza Hut*,” wrote one user. “*calls Dominoes*,” wrote another.  “I really wish businesses would stay out of politics,” tweeted user mikedavis824.

The National Restaurant Assn. has criticized the healthcare legislation for having a chilling effect on expansion and hiring in the industry, which tends to be labor-intensive and burdened with thin margins.  Chains such as White Castle and Burger King have predicted surging costs due to the new regulations, which require businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to offer healthcare to such workers and their dependents.

Unsurprisingly, Papa John’s chief is a big fan of Mitt Romney. Schnatter recently even hosted a private fundraiser for the Republican presidential candidate at his mansion in Anchorage, Ky.  Romney was dazzled by the grounds, declaring to guests: “Who would’ve imagined pizza could build this. This is really something. Don’t you love this country? What a home this is, what grounds these are, the pool, the golf course…. This is a real tribute to America, to entrepreneurship.”

Edit by BJP

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The incremental cost of that 51st employee …

Of course, I’ve been thinking about entrepreneurs and small businesses recently.

And, the obvious suddenly became evident to me: Under ObamaCare, the incremental cost of a small company’s 51st employee is ENORMOUS.

Think restaurants … paying a bunch of workers minimum wage with few or no benefits.

Today, employee #51 costs the business about $20,000 annually (2,000 hours @ $10 per hour).

Under ObamaCare, that added bus boy costs $122,000 … his $20,000 plus the $2,000 per employee tax penalty on the business for not giving employees health insurance.

That’s a lot money for a bus boy.

Guess employees #1 to #50 are just going to have to work harder.

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Tread marks: NEWSWEEK throws Obama under the bus!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

Here’s the picture; below are a couple of snippets; click to read the whole article (a must read!).

Couldn’t have said it better myself …  send to friends.

Snippets

The question confronting the country … is not who was the better candidate four years ago. It is whether the winner has delivered on his promises. And the sad truth is that he has not.
 

In his inaugural address, Obama promised “not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth.” He promised to “build the roads and bridges, the electric grids, and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together.” He promised to “restore science to its rightful place and wield technology’s wonders to raise health care’s quality and lower its cost.” And he promised to “transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age.” Unfortunately the president’s scorecard on every single one of those bold pledges is pitiful.

Welcome to Obama’s America: nearly half the population is not represented on a taxable return—almost exactly the same proportion that lives in a household where at least one member receives some type of government benefit. We are becoming the 50–50 nation—half of us paying the taxes, the other half receiving the benefits.

The president has done absolutely nothing to close the long-term gap between spending and revenue.

After all, it’s the president’s job to run the executive branch effectively—to lead the nation. And here is where his failure has been greatest.

Larry Summers told Orszag over dinner in May 2009: “You know, Peter, we’re really home alone  …  I mean it. We’re home alone. There’s no adult in charge.  … You can’t just march in and make that argument and then have him make a decision … because he doesn’t know what he’s deciding.”

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 did nothing to address the core defects of the system: the long-run explosion of Medicare costs as the baby boomers retire, the “fee for service” model that drives health-care inflation, the link from employment to insurance that explains why so many Americans lack coverage, and the excessive costs of the liability insurance that our doctors need to protect them from our lawyers.

The president just kept ducking the fiscal issue. Having set up a bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, headed by retired Wyoming Republican senator Alan Simpson and former Clinton chief of staff Erskine Bowles, Obama effectively sidelined its recommendations of approximately $3 trillion in cuts and $1 trillion in added revenues over the coming decade

For me the president’s greatest failure has been not to think through the implications of these challenges to American power. Far from developing a coherent strategy, he believed—perhaps encouraged by the premature award of the Nobel Peace Prize—that all he needed to do was to make touchy-feely speeches around the world explaining to foreigners that he was not George W. Bush.

America under this president is a superpower in retreat, if not retirement. Small wonder 46 percent of Americans—and 63 percent of Chinese—believe that China already has replaced the U.S. as the world’s leading superpower or eventually will.

It is a sign of just how completely Barack Obama has “lost his narrative” since getting elected that the best case he has yet made for reelection is that Mitt Romney should not be president. In his notorious “you didn’t build that” speech, Obama listed what he considers the greatest achievements of big government: the Internet, the GI Bill, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Hoover Dam, the Apollo moon landing, and even (bizarrely) the creation of the middle class. Sadly, he couldn’t mention anything comparable that his administration has achieved.

Ken’s Take:

There’s not much new news in the article’s content … all of it has been said before somewhere … much has been said here in the HomaFiles.

The news is that a liberal magazine has thrown Obama under the bus.

Newsweek, by breaking from the left-ranks, may have given permission to other media to at least jump off the bus and start reporting squarely.

OMG.

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Did the Supreme Court help Obama or Romney ?

Pundits – all of whom mis-predicted the Supreme Court decision – were largely split re: whether the decision would boost Obama’s or Romney’s Presidential chances.

Well, based on this week’s NYT-CBS poll, the SCOTUS decision was a boost for Romney:

28% said they were more likely to vote for Romney … only 13% said that they were more likely to vote for Obama … that’s more than 2 to 1.

Fair to say that the SCOTUS decision was a force boosting Romney into a dead heat in the election poll.

 

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SCOTUS & Politics

From the same poll, a majority felt that  the SCOTUS decision was based on personal or political views rather than the law.

That can’t be good …

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A good day for Team R&R …

On Monday, I laid out the Brer Rabbit strategy that I thought Team Romney was implementing.

Note: Pundits are now calling it “Political Jujitsu”

The essence: name Ryan and lure Team Obama into the Medicare trap … get them to repeat their claim that Ryan wants to throw granny off a cliff … and then bang …  counter attack and put ObamaCare on the table.

Team Romney probably didn’t expect help from others , it got some.

First, a video of Erskine Bowles – you know, of Simpson-Bowles fame – went viral.

The video shows Bowles (a Democrat) praising Ryan and his budget.

“Have any of you all met Paul Ryan? We should get him to come to the university. I’m telling you this guy is amazing. … He is honest, he is straightforward, he is sincere. And the budget that he came forward with is just like Paul Ryan. It is a sensible, straightforward, serious budget and it cut the budget deficit just like we did, by $4 trillion. … The president as you remember, came out with a budget and I don’t think anybody took that budget very seriously. The Senate voted against it 97 to nothing.”

click to view vid

* * * * *
On cue, the Dem talkers started ripping on Ryan.

As soon as they did, Team Romney launched the counter-attack …  reminding folks that Medicare funds were being raided to pay for ObamaCare … taking Medicare funds away from seniors and sprinkling them to others.

click to view vid

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On cue, the Dem talkers denied that Obama would ever consider raiding Medicare.

Oops.

Tape on file shows Pres. Obama telling Jake Tapper of ABC that he would, he did, and he’d make it stick.”

TAPPER: One of the concerns about health care and how you pay for it — one third of the funding comes from cuts to Medicare.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: “Right.”

TAPPER: Are you willing to pledge that whatever cuts in Medicare are being made to fund health insurance, one third of it, that you will veto anything that tries to undo that?
OBAMA: Yes.

click to view vid

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That’s called “hoisting yourself by your own petards.”

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The ObamaCare advantage in battleground states …

Goes to Romney !

According to last week’s NPR poll , likely voters in the battleground states oppose ObamaCare 52% to 39%.

Hmmm.

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Your doctor will see you … in a couple of months.

Fairly balanced piece in the NY Times last Sunday re: the impacts of ObamaCare

Punch line: In 2015 the country will have 62,900 fewer doctors than needed … that number will more than double by 2025, as the expansion of insurance coverage and the aging of baby boomers drive up demand for care.

The problem, in a nutshell …

• There is a shortage of every kind of doctor, except for plastic surgeons and dermatologists
• Primary care doctors make about $200,000 a year. Specialists often make twice as much.
• ObamaCare adds about 30,000 people to insurance rolls … the majority via Medicaid
• Fewer than half of primary care clinicians are accepting new Medicaid patients
• Medicare will surge to 73.2 million in 2025, up 44 percent from 50.7 million this year.
• “Older Americans require significantly more health care,”
• And about a third of the country’s doctors are 55 or older, and nearing retirement.
• Younger doctors are on average working fewer hours than their predecessors.
• It typically takes a decade to train a doctor.
• Medical schools are at capacity and Federal training subsidies have been cut.

 

While ObamaCare mandates broader insurance coverage, it does little to fundamentally restructure the healthcare delivery … save for government administered rationing.

Part of real answer: more doctors (new and retained), more walk-in clinics (public & private), and more authority to RNs and PAs.

Note: the Times failed to mention that the CBO’s current estimate for ObamaCare’s costs has tripled since the law was passed. 

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The 3.8% solution … here comes the tax pile-on.

Taxes will be going up … thanks to  ObamaCare and Justice Roberts.

Flashback: ObamaCare’s initial $1 trillion cost projections (which have already doubled) … were funded (on paper, that is) roughly half by cuts to Medicare and half by tax increases.

One of the tax increases is a 3.8% tax on investment income … essentially slapping payroll taxes on so-called “unearned income”.

“Unearned income” is more than dividends and capital gains.

According to the WSJ …

The tax applies to:

• dividends;
• rents;
• royalties;
• interest, except municipal-bond interest;
• short- and long-term capital gains;
• the taxable portion of annuity payments;
• income from the sale of a principal home;
• a net gain from the sale of a second home;
• passive income from real estate and investments, such as limited partnerships.

The tax does not apply to:

• payouts from a regular or Roth IRA, 401(k) plan or pension;
• Social Security income; or annuities that are part of a retirement plan.
• life-insurance proceeds;
• municipal-bond interest;
• veterans’ benefits; Schedule C income from businesses

Also, the tax does not apply to  non-resident aliens.

Couple of mega-takeaways:

1) Municipal bonds benefit … not subject to the ObamaCare surcharge … and don’t count towards the $250k AGI trigger.

2) Renters lose … landlords are likely to pass along the surcharge to higher rents

3) Housing prices pressured … double-whammy … higher cap gains taxes make houses less attractive as investments … rents tax decreases motivation for investors to buy and rent homes.

4) Seniors lose … if they shifted their retirement portfolios to fixed incomes … since interest and dividends get hit … dividends especially since they’ll also get hit with an increase in income tax rates — from 15% to as high as 39.5%

At least our health insurance premiums are going down … NOT !Could be worse … our health insurance premiums could be going up … oops, they are.

Oh well …

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Constitutional Law 101 …

Mainstream media missed it, but last week Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified before a Congressional committee to rehash her directive that Catholic organization pony up for contraceptives.

Representative Trey Gowdy (R–SC) asked Sebelius to explain the legal basis for what the secretary called an “appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services.”

In her responses to subsequent questions, the secretary admitted she was unaware of Supreme Court cases stretching back several decades, in which religious believers’ rights against government intrusion were upheld by the court.

So, Rep. Gowdy schooled her.

It’s worth watching the video of the trainwreck … portions of the transcript are below.

         click to view

Excerpted for the Catholic News Agency 

“So, before this rule was promulgated,” Gowdy continued, referring to the federal contraception mandate, “did you read any of the Supreme Court cases on religious liberty?”

“I did not,” Sebelius responded.

The representative proceeded to ask the Health and Human Services secretary whether she was familiar with the outcomes of several cases pitting state interests against religious believers’ claims under the First Amendment.

Sebelius agreed with Gowdy that the state had a “compelling interest in having an educated citizenry.”

“So when a state said, ‘You have to send your children to school until a certain age,’ and a religious group objected because they did not want to send their children to school until that certain age, do you know who won?” he asked. “It went to the Supreme Court.”

The 1970s case, Wisconsin v. Yoder, is considered a landmark in U.S. jurisprudence. Sebelius said she did not know its outcome. “The religious group won,” Gowdy informed her.

“I think the state has a compelling interest in banning animal sacrifice,” he continued. “When a state banned the practice of animal sacrifice and a religious group objected, it went to the Supreme Court. Do you know who won that?”

“I do not, sir,” Sebelius responded. She was again informed that the religious group prevailed, in the 1993 case of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. Hialeah.

“When a religious group objected to having a certain license tag on their cars, it went to the Supreme Court,” Gowdy said, in an apparent reference to the 1976 case of Wooley v. Maynard. “Do you know who won?”

Sebelius said she was unaware of this outcome as well. “The religious group won,” Gowdy told her.

The congressman also noted the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s recent 9-0 loss in the Supreme Court. The commission accused a Lutheran church and school of retaliatory firing, but lost the case when all nine justices upheld the school’s right to choose employees on religious grounds.

“So when you say you ‘balanced’ things,” Gowdy said, “can you see why I might be seeking a constitutional balancing, instead of any other kind?”

Ouch …

“Unintended consequences” … say, what?

There was a report released last week by the House Ways and Means Committee.

It didn’t get much mass media coverage, perhaps, because of its title: “Why ObamaCare Will Force Americans to Lose the Health Care Coverage They Have and Like”

The essence of the report: many Fortune 100 companies expected to drop their health insurance plans and, instead, pay the $2,000 per employee ObamaCare “penalty”.

First, the facts:

The House Ways and Means Committee asked for and received, on a confidential basis, information on the cost and coverage of the health insurance plans for the Fortune 100 companies.

In total, the Committee received information from 71 Fortune 100 companies.

In total, the 71 Fortune 100 companies that responded to this inquiry could save an estimated $28.6 billion in 2014 alone by eliminating health insurance coverage for their more than 5.9 million U.S. employees (impacting more than 10.2 million employees and dependents covered by those plans) and instead paying the $2,000 per full-time employee fine created in the Democrats’ health care law.

From 2014 through 2023, these employers could save an astounding $422.4 billion if they took this action.

Most (all ?) of the cable and radio pundits were calling big company plans to be an unintended consequence of ObamaCare.

I beg to differ.  I think it’s completely intended.

Thank about it: Team Obama often said that they wanted a “single payer system”.

English translation: everybody gets covered by government administered  health insurance.  Everybody.

So, they put a lowball number on the penalty.

Companies usually pay more than $5,000 per employee … often more … sometimes way more.

It’s a no-brainer for companies to ditch their plans, pay the penalty, and force their employees onto the government program.

But, that’ll make ObamaCare more costly.

How will it get paid for?

Easy, just jack up the ‘per employee’ penalties.

The penalties are already programmed to go to $10,000 in 2024.

What’s to keep them from going even higher?

Answer; nothing.

Now ponder that for a moment

Many (most?) companies will be paying an escalating “headcount tax”.

The more employees they hire, the higher the tax bill.

How do you think that’ll impact the sluggish job growth?

I’m betting it won’t help …

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Remember the docs in the white lab coats standing behind Obama?

According to Forbes …

Doctors, no fans of health insurance, are openly rooting that Obamacare will be struck down by SCOTUS, as appears to be the direction of things after last month’s oral arguments.

A recent poll by sermo.com, a physican’s website, revealed that 75 percent of doctors are against the health care law.

A survey by Deloitte, a major health consulting firm, found that 69 percent of physicians are “pessimistic about the future of medicine” because of the law.

My, oh my, how times have changed.

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Get out your wallet: CBO says ObamaCare to cost twice the original estimates.

According to a new projection released by the Congressional Budget Office, ObamaCare will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade,  rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.

The CBO now projects  that more people will be obtaining insurance through Medicaid than it estimated a year ago at a greater cost to the government, but fewer people will be getting insurance through their employers or the health care law’s new subsidized insurance exchanges.

According to the Washington Examiner:

Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation.

The most egregious of the accounting tactics was to delay full implementation of the law until 2014, so it would appear cheaper under the CBO’s standard ten-year budget window and, at least on paper, meet Obama’s pledge that the legislation would cost “around $900 billion over 10 years.”

When the final CBO score came out before passage, critics noted that the true 10 year cost would be far higher than advertised once projections accounted for full implementation.

The projection for 2022, the last year available, indicate that the cost is likely to exceed $2 trillion over the first decade, or more than double what Team Obama advertised.

Surprise, surprise, surprise.

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How about a referendum on the 10 Commandments ?

OK, the Catholic bishops are still pushing back on the ObamaCare mandate that church-affiliated organizations must “violate their consciences” and ante up for contraceptives.

Many pundits are counter-punching the bishops … arguing that they are woefully out-of-touch … that an overwhelming majority of Catholics support contraception.  So, the bishops should get off their soap boxes and ditch the rule.

Interesting angle: subject religious doctrine re: right and wrong  to a popular vote.  If it doesn’t get a majority, chuck it.

Hmmm.

I think the idea has merit.

In fact, I say: why not hold a referendum on the 10 commandments?

Maybe #10 and #7 would fail to get enough votes and it would become legit for me to jack my neighbors big screen TV.

The idea has potential, right?

Think about it.

Which of the 10 would you like to see voted out?

            10 Commandments

1. You shall not have other gods.
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord God in vain
3. Remember to keep holy the Lord’s Day
4. Honor your father and your mother
5. You shall not kill
6. You shall not commit adultery
7. You shall not steal
8. You shall not bear false witness
9. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife
10. You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods
    

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Obama’s favorite book … guaranteed.

Gotta admit, I like the tussle between Team O and the Catholic Church.  It’s like watching a Wrestlemania main event.

But, theological and and health issues aside, I’m shocked by Administration’s naiveté re: business and economics.

And, I think I broke the code. 

I’m betting that the only business book Obama and his advisers carry around is Chris Anderson’s 2009 best-seller: Free – The Future of a Radical Price.

Note that I said “carry around” … not “read” … because the book does a nice job of explaining the uses and mis-uses of “free”,

Why do I think so?

Easy, because the cover blurb was written by Google’s Eric Schmidt — the recently canned Google CEO and close buddy of Obama’s … and because of Obama’s penchant for declaring stuff to be “free” whether it is or isn’t.

Obviously, Team O doesn’t really get the concept.

Let’s start with the basics: nothing is free. 

When something (like pills) is produced, delivered and consumed, there are associated  costs.

Yes, pills may be given to the consumer without charge, but somebody has to pick-up the tab.

Since the government has no money of its own, if it nobly declares that it’ll pay for it, it’s really saying that all taxpayers will pay for it — whether they want to or not.

Note that, for obvious reasons,  I said taxpayer, and not citizens. 

Let’s take another variation: consumers don’t have to pay for pills — their insurance companies will be mandated to give them away for free.

Oh really.

One member of the administration said that the money will come straight from the insurance companies reserves — the money set aside to pay claims.

Well, then either other types of claims become unfunded (i.e. can’t be paid), or the insurance  company just rolls over and sacrifices some profits, or premiums go up.

There aren’t any other options, and I’m betting on the last one — raising premiums.

That’s ok — in the mind of the Feds — because employers, not employees have to eat the premium increase.

Well, economists would say that the higher premiums come indirectly out of employees pockets since they will just constrain other parts of workers’ compensation packages.

You can buy into that argument or not … your choice.

Let’s pretend that the insurance company just has to eat the added costs.

Oops.

Team O walked into a logic trap.

Many large organizations self-insure.  That means that insurance companies are just processing agents — the companies pay claims out of their own coffers. 

It was like that at GE and Black & Decker.

And guess what, many large Catholic organizations are self-insured.

So, saying that the Catholic organizations won’t have to pay for pills, etc., — that their insurance companies will have to pay — is complete nonsense.

You see, self-insured organizations are their own insurance companies.

That’s what self-insured means!

So, even the Catholic bishops figured out that Team O’s grand accommodation is not really an accommodation at all.

It’s either the reflection of business ignorance or an intentional ruse.

Hmmm.  Hard to pick.

>> Latest Posts

Pro-life, pro choice … the nums explain the politics.

Since the “A”  issue has been front and center the past couple of days – given the flaps between Komen and Planned Parenthood, and Team O and the Catholic Church – I got curious about the numbers.

Results of the  the most recent Gallup survey …

• 2011 results: 49% pro-choice, 45% pro-life
• Prior year was reversed: 47% pro-life, 45% pro-choice
• Call it a “push”, but recent trend favoring pro-choice

Last point probably explains why Team O dropped the gloves for a fight with the Catholic bishops …

>> Latest Posts

Why isn’t toothpaste mandated on my health insurance?

That question and a few others that cut to the chase on the flap between ObamaCare and the Catholic Church are central to a WSJ op-ed by Univ. of Chicago prof John Cochrane.

Well worth reading in its entirety.

The answer:

Insurance is a bad idea for small, regular and predictable expenses.

There are good reasons that your car insurance company doesn’t add $100 per year to your premium and then cover oil changes, and that your health insurance doesn’t charge $50 more per year and cover toothpaste.

You’d have to fill out mountains of paperwork, the oil-change and toothpaste markets would become much less competitive, and you’d end up spending more.

Every increase in coverage means an increase in premiums.

Another question: What’s the difference between “access” and “cost.”

I have “access” to toothpaste because I have two bucks in my pocket and a competitive supplier.

Anyone who can afford a cell phone can afford toothpaste or pills or condoms.

Poor women who can’t afford birth control are a red herring in this debate.

The very poor typically don’t have employer-provided health insurance in the first place.

But, Americans, when paying even modest co-payments, choose to spend their money on other things.

They prefer a new iPod to a “wellness visit” to the doctor.

Cochrane’s overall conclusion:

It all leads back to the elephant in the room: the tax deductibility of employer-provided group insurance.

If your employer pays you $100 less in salary and buys $100 of group insurance for you, you don’t pay taxes on that amount.

Hence, the more insurance costs and covers, the less in taxes you seem to pay. (Even that savings is an illusion: The government still needs money and raises overall tax rates to make up the difference.)

To add insult to injury, this tax deduction does not apply to portable, guaranteed-renewable individual insurance.

You don’t get the tax break if your employer gives you the $100 and you buy a policy — a policy that will stay with you if you get sick, leave employment or get divorced.

The pre-existing conditions crisis is largely a creature of tax law.

You don’t lose your car insurance when you change jobs.

Again, well worth reading in its entirety ,,,

>> Latest Posts

Reprise: Move over Charlie Brown, (former) Congressman Stupak wants to kick the football …

OK, I can’t resist.

Remember gullible old Joe Stupak — former Congressman from Michigan?

President Obama got old Joe to sell out his convictions and cast one of the votes that carried ObamaCare. 

How?

By giving Stupak $750k for airport construction in his district and by promising an executive order that would insure that Catholic facilities wouldn’t have to fund or provide abortions, contraceptives, etc.

Here’s our post on the subject from March 2010.

This was an easy one to predict.

Hope Stupak feels like a complete idiot.

* * * * *
Move over Charlie Brown, Congressman Stupak wants to kick the football …

Fool me once, shame on you.

Fool me twice, shame on me.

What about the 3rd, 4th, 5th times ?

Doesn’t Bart Stupak learn ?

To refresh your memory:

• Back in November, pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak scored what he thought was a victory and the House passed an amendment to its ObamaCare bill limiting the use of tax-payer funds for abortions.
• But, immediately after the vote, pro-choice Dems expressed confidence that “controversial language on abortion would be stripped from a final healthcare bill” via legislative maneuvering.
• Then , House Dem leadership told Stupak and his pro-life buddies to take a hike … because liberal Dems want the government to fund abortions.  Details

Sunday, to get Stupak to vote yes on ObamaCare, the President promised to issue an Executive Order that, in effect, restores the Stupak Amendment to the final bill — after the fact.

Well, a couple of potential bumps in Bart’s road:

1. The President has to do what he promised … hmmm.
2. Some legal pundits are saying that the Executive Order has little or no force — the passed law will prevail in high courts
3. A President can rescind an Executive Order at any time

This time when Lucy pulls the football away, Stupak will have no one but himself to blame.

He’ll deserve to feel more ‘stupid’ than ‘Stupak’.

>> Latest Posts

Whatever the SCOTUS rules on ObamaCare, Obama wins.

I think the pundits are missing this one.

Most are saying that Obama wins if the court rules the individual mandate (and assorted ObamaCare junk) is constitutional  ….  and, he loses if the court rules that it’s unconstitutional.

I don’t see it that way.

Sure, it’s a win if the law gets a pass.  Obama can crow about how it’s time to move on.

Here’s the twist.

If it’s ruled unconstitutional, the GOP loses one of its major campaign issues.  They can’t go around beating a dead horse, right?

But, Obama can rail about the conservative justices  legislating from the bench … and, he can argue that he needs to be re-elected – with a large majority – in order to craft a cleaner replacement for ObamaCare and, more important, to control appointments to the SCOTUS to make it more reasonable and objective.

Obama can also reap the economic benefits the laws demise. For sure, hiring will pick up a bit when the bill is buried.

See, heads he wind, tails he wins, too.

Nuts.

>> Latest Posts

Tanning salon update: tax collections 64% below ObamaCare projections

Well, well, well.

It appears that tanning salons either don’t know about their targeted ObamaCare tax or they aren’t complying with it or the added tax has dampened demand … and the IRS is having trouble tracking the  salons down to figure out what’s going on.

So, the new federal tax on indoor tanning services isn’t bringing in as much revenue as promised.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration says the new federal tax on indoor tanning services isn’t bringing in as much revenue as hoped.

Tanning tax receipts for that nine-month period ending March 31, 2011  totaled $54.4 million, the report found.

That was below projections by the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation, which had estimated the tax would raise $50 million per quarter.

The IRS had difficulty determining the actual number of tanning salons and the contact info for businesses required to collect the new tax from customers.

Using an April 2010 Indoor Tanning Association estimate, the IRS initially projected the tax would be due quarterly from roughly 25,000 stand-alone tanning salons, plus spas, health clubs and beauty parlors.

But the inspector general report found that actual tax returns filed for the first three quarters through March 31 averaged just above 10,300.

Source: USA Today

It’s a shocker, isn’t it ?

>> Latest Posts

Channeling Buffett: Is Obama proposing a (substantial) hike in capital gains tax rates?

OK, I keep harping on the point, but …

At 7:25 pm last Thursday, Obama repeated the tired refrain about how Warren Buffet pays less taxes than his secretary and wants to pay more – his fair share.

Cutting to the chase: Buffett pays more in dollars, but pays at a lower rate.

Why?

Because most of Buffett’s income is “unearned income”.

English translation: capital gains and dividends.

So, there are only two ways to get Warren-the-sage on an equal rate  footing with his secretary: (1) lower marginal tax tax rates on the secretary’s earned income or (2) increase Buffett’s tax rate on his capital gains … to be taxed at the same rate as “earned income”.

Here’s the good news for Buffett: thanks to the ObamaCare bill, Warren will be paying a higher tax rate on his cap gains and dividends starting in 2013 (after the next election, of course).

So, the Buffett-secretarial gap will narrow.

 

Technical note: The ObamaCare Surtax on Investment Income takes effect Jan. 2013.

It’s a new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single).

Other unearned income includes (for surtax purposes) gross income from interest, annuities, royalties, net rents, and passive income in partnerships and Subchapter-S corporations.

Source

But, even then there still may still be a gap.

So, either the rate on earned income comes down or rate on cap gains goes up.

I’m betting the latter.

So, to stop Warren from whining, Obama will likely raise the cap gains and choke capital flows – in order to stimulate the economy.

Huh?

Or, maybe Obama doesn’t understand the implications of his applause lines.

Hmmm.

>> Latest Posts

Viva McKinsey …. study was “rigorous”

Of course, I’ve got horses in this race since I’m a McKinsey alum …

When dufass Henry Waxman started attacking McKinsey for lack of credentials and poor methodology, I just had to laugh.

* * * * *

From the WSJ: Shutting Up McKinsey

The White House routinely tries to intimidate its health-care critics, but the campaign against McKinsey & Co. is something else.

The management consultants attempted to find out how U.S. business will respond to ObamaCare,

Democrats don’t like the results, and so McKinsey must pay with its reputation.

The firm’s sin was to canvass some 1,300 companies and report that nearly a third will “definitely” or “probably” stop offering insurance to employees after 2014, dumping them instead into ObamaCare’s subsidized exchanges.

Democrats immediately blasted the results, attacked McKinsey’s integrity and demanded that it release its methodology and full responses.

So this week McKinsey opened its books, and what do you know, the survey was rigorous.

Respondents were a representative cross-section of businesses of many sizes and across industries and regions, and the questions were impartial.

* * * * *

The White House shills declared that the study  was not a “predictive economic analysis.”

For truth, they point to the ever-dutiful Congressional Budget Office which – after the CBO got an all expenses paid trip to meet with Obama in the oval office –  thinks the law will have little effect on employer coverage.

* * * * *

Viva McKinsey.

Dumping employer provided health insurance … the simple economics

Recent studies have projected that many employers will drop their health insurance plans when ObamaCare goes live.

Why?

Simple economics.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’—reported in the WSJ –, the annual premium for an average policy last year was $5,049 for a single worker, with the company picking up roughly $4,150 (83%) and the employee the rest.

For a family of four, the total cost was $13,770, with the company picking up $9,773 (71%).

ObamaCare, businesses can stop providing health-care coverage, paying a $2,000 per-worker fine instead.

For small businesses, the trade-off is even more attractive: They are given a pass on the first 50 workers.

So what?

The employees formerly covered by employer-subsidized plans will swell.  Increasing the costs of ObamaCare.

That is, until the Feds raise the fine (tax?) on employers to cover the shortfall.

Bad estimating or clever foxes?

Think about it.

An induced move into a 1-payer system.

Pretty clever.  Especially if funded by a headcount tax (oops, fine) on employers.

Hmmm.

Is that likely to create jobs?

I’m betting the under.

* * * * *

Dodge ObamaCare … by earning less. Huh?

Punchline: Obama’s solicitor general, defending the national health care law, told a federal appeals court that Americans who didn’t like the individual mandate could always avoid it by choosing to earn less money.

“If you don’t like the mandate, just earn less money>”

Apparently, there’s a provision in the health care law that allows people to avoid the mandate:  the minimum coverage provision only kicks in after people have earned a minimum amount of income.

… and, people can choose to earn less and, thus, avoid the mandate.

It’s a matter of choice.

The judge’s response: “That wasn’t in a single speech given in Congress about this…the idea that the solution if you don’t like it is make a little less money.”

Ken’s Take: You just can’t make this stuff up …

* * * * *
Source: Washington Examiner

McKinsey: 78 million Americans could lose employer health coverage … thanks, ObamaCare.

 Punch line: ObamaCare will lead to a dramatic decline in employer-provided health insurance—with as many as 78 million Americans forced to find other sources of coverage.

* * * * *

Currently,  156 million non-elderly Americans get their coverage at work.

Before ObamaCare passed, the CBO estimated that only 9 million to 10 million people, or about 7% of employees who currently get health insurance at work, would switch to government-subsidized insurance.

A new study by McKinsey – reported in the WSJ — suggests that ObamaCare will lead to a “radical restructuring” of job-based health coverage with  as many as 78 million Americans could lose employer health coverage.

The McKinsey study, “How US health care reform will affect employee benefits,” predicts that employers will either drop coverage altogether, offer defined contributions for insurance, or offer coverage only to certain employees.

Up to 50% of employers say they will definitely or probably pursue alternatives to their current health-insurance plan when ObamaCare takes effect in 2014.

And, “something in the range of 80 million to 100 million individuals are going to change coverage categories in the two years” after the insurance mandates take effect in 2014.

* * * * *

Uh-oh: GAO dogs turned loose on ObamaCare

Punch line: Buried in the $38.5 billion (or, was it $526 million) budget reduction compromise were provisions for the GAO to start looking at ObamaCare’s waivers, effect on insurance premiums, and “comparative effectiveness” panels.

* * * * *

According to Michael Barone writing in RealClearPolitics …

The Continuing Resolution (i.e. budget) covering the rest of fiscal year 2011 … contains some details that threaten ObamaCare

Most important, the CR requires the General Accounting Office to conduct an audit of the waivers from the Democrats’ health care bill that are being issued in large numbers by the secretary of health and human services.

This will raise an uncomfortable question. If Obamacare is so great, why are so many trying to get out from under it? And, more specifically, why are so many Democratic groups trying to get out from under it?

The fact is that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has granted more than 1,000 waivers from Obamacare. Many have been granted to labor unions.  One was granted to the entire state of Maine.

The GAO has also been ordered to produce audits on the effect of Obamacare on health insurance premiums. This is likely to reveal that the president did not keep his promise that you could keep your current health insurance if you want to.

And there will be an audit of the comparative effectiveness bureaucracy established in the 2009 stimulus package. Comparative effectiveness is supposedly an objective study of which medical techniques are most effective. But anyone who looks closely finds that the experts are constantly changing their minds, which suggests that this is more alchemy than science — and maybe political favoritism, as well.

All of which tends to undercut the thrust of Obama’s obviously-aimed-at-the-2012-campaign message: We can continue to fund Medicare and Medicaid indefinitely if we just tax rich people a little more.

RCP, President Whatever Finds Things Not Going His Way, April 18, 3011

“The budget process shouldn’t be used to advance a social agenda” … oh, really?

President Obama – concerned that ObamaCare might be defunded –  is ranting that “The budget process shouldn’t be used to advance a social agenda.”

And, I haven’t heard any pundits call him on the obvious hypocrisy:

ObamaCare was passed using a Senate scheme called “reconciliation” so that it could be passed by a simple majority.

You may remember Harry Reid wrangling with the Senate parliamentarian over the rules.

You see, by Senate rules, reconciliation can ONLY be applied to budget matters.

Somehow, ObamaCare was ruled to be a budget matter requiring only a simple majority.

I guess ObamaCare isn’t a social agenda item when it’s passed, only when it’s being defunded.

Go figure …

Cracking down on – you guessed it – those evil, profiteering tanning salons …

Here’s the latest from our pro-business, big picture President …

Baked into President Obama’s budget, the Internal Revenue Service will get 1,054 new auditors and staffers and new facilities at a cost to taxpayers of more than $359 million in fiscal 2012 just to watch over the initial implementation of President Obama’s healthcare reforms.

Among the new corps will be 81 workers assigned to make sure tanning salons pay a new 10 percent excise tax.

Their cost: $11.5 million.

US News, Healthcare Reform Law Requires New IRS Army,  February 15, 2011

He may take his eye off Egypt and the US Economy, but he maintains a sharp focus on the tanning salons.

Forget the jugular, just go right for the capillaries.

Thanks to SMH for feeding the lead

Whatever happened to majority rule?

Excluding one poll from the bastions of impartiality: the NY Times and CBS – all major polls are now reporting that a plurality of Americans want ObamaCare repealed … and about 1/2 of the polls report a majority of citizens want it repealed.

Doesn’t faze our Dem senators, though, who voted as a lemming-bloc against an amendment to repeal the law.

Who cares what the majority of citizens want …

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/repeal_of_health_care_law_favoroppose-1947.html

‘‘Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act’’

Weighing in about 2,500 pages shorter than the ObamaCare monstrosity, the Congressional bill to repeal ObamaCare – called the Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act – is 2 pages long and is posted for public viewing already – a week before the vote.

• Read it: http://rules-republicans.house.gov/Media/PDF/HR__-Repeal.pdf

Pretty catchy name …

Omnibus Bill’s defeat is a big blow to ObamaCare … here’s why.

Obama and Reid almost got away with it.

At the last minute – in the lamest of lame duck session – Reid tried to push through a $1.1 trillion Federal budget.

The public uproar centered on the process (more backroom dealing), the magnitude (another $1 trillion), and the earmarks (over 6,000 and more than $8 billion).

Yep, it was a stick in the eyes of voters … I think Reid liked that.

But, Reid had to pull the bill last nite … accepting that he didn’t have the votes to pass it.

Interesting, because most of the uproar was just a distraction.

Bottom line, the budget that finally gets passed next year will be right around $1 trillion … you can make bank on that.

And, it’ll contain tons of wasteful spending … it’ll just be harder to find since it won’t be tagged “earmarks”.

So what’s the big deal ?

In my opinion, the omnibus bill was just a Trojan Horse.

Inside it was more than $1 billion funding for ObamaCare … to continue building the enforcement infrastructure.

There’s no way that the newbies arriving in DC will build that into the budget.  Many have declared that “defunding” ObamaCare is one of their top priorities.

That’s why Obama didn’t step forward and tell Reid to stop the foolishness re: spending and earmarks.

He couldn’t … he was getting the biggest earmark of them all.

Losing that, coupled with the states’ legal fight over the constitutionality of ObamaCare … 2011 will be a challenging year for ObamaCare as it’s supporters fight for $$$ and try to convince the courts that’ it’s legal.

About that MediCare waste & fraud …

About half of ObamaCare is being funded by cuts in MediCare – and about half of that is supposed to come from eliminating waste & fraud.

Yeah, right.

It’ll be fun watching the the MediCare chief report to GOP interrogators on his progress.

But, I’m still betting under on this one.

From the Christian Science Monitor …

Oversight hearings will begin in the GOP-run House in January.

One of the first oversight hearings will likely probe how the Obama administration intends to attain $500 billion in cuts to Medicare mandated by the health-care reform act.

That will involve a trip to Capitol Hill by Donald Berwick, whom Obama appointed, without Senate confirmation and over GOP objections, to head the government’s Medicare and Medicaid programs.

Republicans will no doubt ask Dr. Berwick to explain how those cuts can be made and what their effect on seniors will be.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/1115/Health-care-reform-in-GOP-cross-hairs/(page)/2

Majority of states now opposing ObamaCare’s individual mandate.

Right now, 21 states are suing the Feds to stop the ObamaCare mandates that require individuals to buy health insurance whether they want it or not.

Virginia enacted a state law banning individual mandates before  ObamaCare passed.  So, that state – with a law on the books — has a unique standing.

19 states jumped on the bandwagon when Florida filed suit against the individual mandate – claiming it’s unconstitutional

The courts are supposed to rule on both cases before the end of the year.  Regardless of the rulings, they are likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court.

Now – because of GOP gains in governorships –  the plot has thickened.

According to Florida AG-elect Pam Bondi, at least 6 states have newly elected GOP governors or AGs or both: Oklahoma, Ohio, Kansas, Wisconsin, Wyoming, and Maine.  All of these states are likely to jump on the lawsuit bandwagon.

If at least 5 of the 6 do, it’ll mean a majority of states will have expressed their opposition to ObamaCare in one of the strongest possible ways.

While the Supreme Court doesn’t act because a majority of states think something, the lawsuit majority has got to hang in the back of judge’s minds. 

Source story:
http://politifact.com/florida/statements/2010/nov/10/pam-bondi/defending-health-care-suit-new-florida-ag-says-uni/

* * * * *

Reportedly, writers of the 2,700 page ObamaCare bill forgot to include a severability clause – so if the courts rule in the states’ favor, all of ObamaCare goes down with the individual mandate.

Remember when the President dissed the Supreme Court justices at the last State of the Union Address?

I bet he’d like that one back …

What do Barack Obama and Rodney Dangerfield have in common?

According to Dangerfield and the President, they get no respect.

Charles Krauthammer sums it up nicely …

Obama Underappreciation Syndrome

Opening a whole new branch of cognitive science — liberal psychology — Obama has discovered a new principle: The fearful brain is hard-wired to act befuddled, i.e., vote Republican.

But of course. Here Obama has spent two years bestowing upon the peasantry the “New Foundation” of a more regulated, socially engineered and therefore more humane society, and they repay him with recalcitrance and outright opposition.

Here he gave them Obamacare, the stimulus, financial regulation and a shot at cap-and-trade — and the electorate remains not just unmoved but ungrateful.

Faced with this truly puzzling conundrum, Dr. Obama diagnoses a heretofore undiscovered psychological derangement: anxiety-induced Obama Underappreciation Syndrome, wherein an entire population is so addled by its economic anxieties as to be neurologically incapable of appreciating the “facts and science” undergirding Obamacare and the other blessings their president has bestowed upon them from on high.

I have a better explanation.

Better because it adheres to the ultimate scientific principle, Occam’s Razor, by which the preferred explanation for any phenomenon is the one with the most economy and simplicity.

And there is nothing simpler than the Gallup findings on the ideological inclinations of the American people. Conservative: 42 percent. Moderate: 35 percent. Liberal: 20 percent.

No fanciful new syndromes or other elaborate fictions are required to understand that if you try to impose a liberal agenda on such a demonstrably center-right country — a country that is 80 percent non-liberal — you get a massive backlash.

Washington Post, Obama Underappreciation Syndrome, October 22, 2010
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/21/AR2010102104856.html

My early high school football coach Howie Weyer — who got 15 minutes of fame by refusing to hire smokers and fat people when he left football and went into business — used to drum in to us: respect is something you earn.

Hear that, Dude?

Recovery Summer Update: THE bold stroke implemented yesterday …

Yes, I’m talking the ObamaCare tanning salon excise tax – it went into effect yesterday.  As near as I can tell, it’s the only operative part of ObamaCare.

I feel my health care improving as I write this …

* * * * *

Excerpted from: Businessweek, Tanning Salon Patrons Face 10% Tax for Glowing Skin, July 01, 2010,

The price of looking good increases by 10 percent on July 1 when a tax on indoor tanning created by the U.S. health-care reform bill takes effect.

The tax is expected to raise $2.7 billion over 10 years, according to a March 10 estimate by the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Small-business owners will be hurt by the tax …

• There are more than 20,000 tanning salons in the U.S.
• Women own 67 percent of them
• The industry employs about 140,000 people

Centers that use spray-on services or lotions are exempt from the tax.

Full article:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-07-01/tanning-salon-patrons-face-10-tax-for-glowing-skin.html

A middle class marginal tax rate of 37% … way to go ObamaCare

There are many perverse incentives built into ObamaCare. Here’s one:

Middle class Americans who aren’t insured through their companies can buy heavily subsidized policies under the plan.

The problem is that as their incomes rise, the subsidies decline, giving them far less incentive to work more hours or stretch for raises.

For example, if the income for a family of four rises from $55,000 to $66,000, their contribution to their premium jumps from $4,400 to $6,600, erasing 22% of the $10,000 increase.

Source: Fortune, The best stimulus? Spend less, borrow less, June 24, 2010
http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/24/news/economy/stimulus_spending_cuts.fortune/index.htm

* * * * *

Note:

Assuming that the $66,000 puts the family in the 15% tax bracket, it’s the equivalent of a 37% marginal tax … right up there with the rich folks.

Go figure …