From The I Told You So File
May 19, 2010 Political
First up, the health care takeover. Barack Obama promised people that if they liked their insurance and their doctors, they could keep them. This is not the case as the way the law is set up companies have determined they would be better off dropping employees and paying the fines. Companies can save upwards of a billion dollars:
Even with penalties in place for employers who decline to provide health insurance, documents showed that Caterpillar could reduce its health care costs by as much as 70 percent and AT&T could save as much as $1.8 billion by shifting their employees into public programs. Reason.com
In addition, the law will end up costing more than we were told and will end up costing us money, not saving any as Barack Obama said.
The Congressional Budget Office now reports that the law will require an additional $115 billion in previously unreported (and yet unpaid-for) discretionary spending. Medicare’s actuary has reported that total medical spending in the U.S. will actually go up and that crucial cuts to Medicare—cuts being used to pay for the law’s new entitlement spending—aren’t likely to happen, but that Medicare benefits are likely to be reduced. And in Massachusetts, the state whose 2006 health care overhaul served as the model for ObamaCare, insurers have gone to war with the governor, and the state treasurer is warning that the program could drive the state into bankruptcy. Reason.com
In addition, more and more doctors in Texas are not taking Medicare patients because the reimbursements do not cover costs and doctors are losing money. Doctors in other states have decided not to take them as well and this trend will only continue with Obamacare.
Texas doctors are opting out of Medicare at alarming rates, frustrated by reimbursement cuts they say make participation in government-funded care of seniors unaffordable.
Two years after a survey found nearly half of Texas doctors weren’t taking some new Medicare patients, new data shows 100 to 200 a year are now ending all involvement with the program. Before 2007, the number of doctors opting out averaged less than a handful a year. Chron
It is not hard to see that this will begin to affect the elderly and though the left despises the term “death panel” the reduction in doctors taking Medicare will lead to the same outcome.
Perhaps this is why the regime is accelerating the better parts of the law (though they have their own drawbacks). The more appealing things in the law (appealing according to the Democrats) were front loaded and the bad things like the mandates were pushed well past the 2012 elections in order to allow Democrats (particularly Obama) to be reelected before they have to answer for what they have done. Now Democrats are speeding up the front loaded items in hopes they can save seats in November.
This will not work.
Finally, the left likes to blame the economic problems we are having on the Bush tax cuts. The tax cuts did not cause the problems and, contrary to popular myth, Bill Clinton did not have a multi-trillion dollar budget surplus. He had one year with a budget surplus (not zero deficit) which means that the amount the government took in was less than it spent. A budget surplus is not necessarily a surplus. Budgetary tricks and moving things off budget can give the appearance of surplus when one does not exist. However, there was never trillions in surplus:
First, that $5.6 trillion surplus never actually existed (the budget surplus peaked at $236 billion in 2000). Instead, $5.6 trillion represents the cumulative 2002-2011 budget surplus that was projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in early 2001. Instead, the United States is now projected to run a $6.1 trillion deficit over those 10 years — an $11.7 trillion swing. Washington Times
The Times article is interesting and shows how the budget numbers are manipulated and lied about. The federal government has never really had a budget surplus anywhere other than on paper. Unfortunately, what is written on the paper is often not reality.
But let us suppose there was a 4 trillion dollar surplus when Bush took office (to be sure there absolutely was not but let’s pretend) . That means the government took in 4 trillion dollars more than it needed in by way of taxes. If this was the case then Bush did nothing more than give the money back to its rightful owners. The government should not be generating more than it needs and if it does it needs to give the money back. It is ours and if they get more of it than they need they find ways to spend it.
Another myth is that the tax cuts were for the rich and hurt the poor. This myth is dispelled in the article which also points out that the sun-setting of the Bush tax cuts will further hurt the poor and middle class whose taxes will go up higher than for those who make more money.
These are things I have discussed in the past and which have been denied by the drones on the progressive left. They did not go for it then and they will not go for it now even though the information is there in black and white.
Never surrender, never submit.
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BREAKING: Obama Embraces Limbaugh Policy Ideas
Jan 27, 2010 Political
Obama the Great is giving his State of the Union Address and in it he just said that his plan to stimulate the economy and create jobs will involve giving tax credits to small businesses and ELIMINATING the capital gains tax on small businesses. He also talked of corporate tax breaks.
This is nearly the exact thing Rush Limbaugh TOLD Obama needed to be done. On January 26th of last year, six days after the coronation, Limbaugh proposed the Obama-Limbaugh Bipartisan Stimulus Plan of 2009. In it he said that his part of the plan would include tax cuts:
These tax cuts will consist primarily of capital gains tax cuts and corporate tax rate cuts.
Limbaugh said that the way to stimulate the economy and create jobs was to cut the capital gains tax and the corporate tax. This was poo pooed by the left who claim that tax cuts do not achieve the stated goals and that only spending will work. Obama opted for the spending and unemployment is now at 10% and his Stimulus has been a bust.
Tonight Obama embraced the wisdom of Rush Limbaugh. He did not go for it in total because he only wants to cut small business capital gains on investments and Limbaugh called for a capital gains tax cut on individual capital gains as well. But this is a start.
By making this proposal, Barack Obama has admitted that the liberal ideology is wrong. He has admitted that liberal tax and spend policies do not work. He has admitted that liberalism and its ways is a complete hoax.
And he has admitted that Limbaugh was right.
He has embraced the conservative principle of tax cuts to stimulate. He has taken the advice of the man he tried to demonize only a few short months ago.
Rush Limbaugh was right and Obama was wrong. Obama as much as admitted that.
Make no mistake. Obama is trying to appeal to an electorate (particularly Independents) that is fed up with the way he is running things. He is trying to stop the bleeding from the wounds of the Brown victory in Massachusetts. He is taking this approach to try and win in November.
But he has thrown his party and its ideology under the bus. When things get better the country will see that liberalism is a failed exercise in futility.
And they will see that Limbaugh was right all along.
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Tags: failure, liberalism, Obama, Rush Limbaugh, tax cuts
Obama Admits Tax Cuts For The Rich Stimulate Economy
Jan 8, 2009 Political
The tax cuts enacted under George Bush were for everyone and the middle class made out better than the wealthy. I know that is hard to believe because a rich person gets a bigger dollar figure back but that person pays many multiples of what a middle class worker pays. Additionally, the lower 50% of wage earners pay just under 4% of our nation’s taxes. If they pay little or none then they should be getting little or none back. Our government though, believes in income redistribution or “spreading the wealth.” That is why the last stimulus checks went to people who paid little or no taxes while the upper wage earners, the ones whose taxes ultimately paid for the stimulus, got NOTHING.
When Barack Obama was running for office he said that George Bush had tax cuts for the rich. He had to say that because that is the mantra the left uses to invoke class warfare. They make the middle and lower classes support them by making them envious of the rich. Obama vowed that he would get rid of Bush’s tax cut for the rich and that he would cut taxes for the middle class. The problem with that is the Bush tax cut benefited the middle class and if it goes away the taxes on them go way up. If Obama takes away the tax cut and then gives them a tax cut, what did they gain? Oh well, it sounded good.
As part of the newest stimulus package that Obama says will likely end up being over a TRILLION dollars, there are tax cuts. That is right left wing moonbats who supported him, Obama wants tax cuts for those making under some magic number that is a moving target. Of course, when Bush cut taxes the left said that it would lead to less money going to government and that it was wrong to cut taxes when the country was in such debt. Since the sainted one is adding tax cuts to a stimulus package he must now be admitting that tax cuts stimulate the economy.
But Big Dog, that means nothing. Obama promised to give tax cuts to the middle class and to end Bush’s tax cuts fo the evil rich.
Yep, and Obama is also giving tax cuts to the rich. He has stated that he will probably not seek immediate repeal of Bush’s tax cuts for people making over $250,000 (the tax cuts were for everyone, Obama just wants to repeal them for anyone making this amount or more) and that he will let them expire in 2010. Imagine that, he is allowing the rich to keep the tax cuts in order to stimulate the economy. Barack Obama is now showing what Republicans have stated and what George Bush demonstrated and that is tax cuts (for everyone) stimulate the economy.
A few things though. The tax cuts for the middle class were not part of the original plan and Obama has them there as bait to get Republicans to sign on to the stimulus package. Also, the tax cuts will have little effect on the economy because they will be accompanied by a huge amount of government spending, spending that will give us a deficit that will take generations to pay off.
I am not in favor of the stimulus package and I believe that the more government meddles in the issue the longer the recession will last and it might end up in a full blown depression. We need the government to allow the free market to correct the issue as it always has. Despite Obama’s claim that Wall Street has not worked and needs more government regulation, the fact is the market has worked very well for a long time with just a few periods of economic downturn. The market is good more often than it is bad.
We do not need more government regulation. Government regulation and abandonment of free market principles is what got us in this mess. The government forced lending institutions to make loans that people were never going to be able to pay. That is too much government intervention. Everywhere governments meddle in the free market there is turmoil.
The politicians in DC have spent billions of dollars on bailouts already and there are trillions of dollars that they refuse to tell what it was spent on or who it went to.
More bailouts and more spending means that we have to borrow more money. China already has billions of dollars invested in our government and they are discussing investing billions more. When the bill comes due we are going to be in even greater trouble. We just don’t have the money.
Obama admitted that tax cuts are a stimulus for the economy. Now he needs to learn the second part and that is cutting government spending. If we cut the spending then we will reduce the deficit and things will gradually work back to normal.
I recommend we do not pass the stimulus package. The government is spending well beyond its means and that is a recipe for disaster.
Just ask any of the people who got loans they could not afford when the government forced lending institutions to lend them money.
Is it any wonder that people in this country live beyond their means? Their government is leading by example.
Source:
CNBC
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Tags: depression, economic stimulus, Obama, recession, tax cuts
Illegals Might Get Rebates
Jan 30, 2008 Political
If it isn’t bad enough that the government is rushing to send out rebate checks when they are probably not needed and not bad enough that they are sending them to people who paid no taxes, the government might also send rebate checks to ILLEGAL immigrants. The bill, as it is written, specifically states that ILLEGALS are not allowed rebates but since many ILLEGALS use false ID to get jobs and to pay taxes, they might end up collecting a rebate.
It isn’t bad enough that they come here illegally and they get jobs illegally but now they might be collecting a rebate check illegally when millions of Americans will not get one. As I stated, I don’t think the rebates are a smart move and I believe they amount to nothing more than a payoff during an election year. Regardless, the government should not be sending checks to ILLEGALS. To top it off, an ILLEGAL who paid taxes but has been deported might have a check sent to his native country. This is insane.
I don’t care that they paid taxes because they came here ILLEGALLY and they obtained jobs ILLEGALLY. As far as I am concerned they should lose what they paid in and be sent home. The problem is that the IRS is not a law enforcement agency (except when it locks you up for not paying) so it has no idea who is legal and who is not.
As an aside, lost in the rebate issue is the admission by Democrats that tax cuts are good and stimulate the economy. Besides being an election year payoff, the Democrats have admitted that giving people back their own money (in this case someone else’s) brings more revenue into the treasury. Nancy Pelosi stated that each dollar of broad tax cuts leads to $1.26 in economic growth and the mere act of giving it back to stimulate the economy shows they know tax cuts are good. I have news for her, this is true even when the economy is good. Lower taxes mean that people have more money to spend.
But we should not be giving it to ILLEGALS…
Source:
The Crypt
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