The Administration’s Obamacare Denial

 By Amy Payne

Obamacare was supposed to go so well, we were told.

The mandates. The long-term care insurance. The Medicaid expansion. All going swimmingly, right?

Only in the minds of Harry Reid and the bureaucrats at Health and Human Services (HHS).

Obamacare’s Dirty Dozen Implementation Failures

Last week, the Obama Administration attempted to spin its announcement of a one-year delay in Obamacare’s employer mandate as an effort to implement the law “in a careful, thoughtful manner.” Don’t be fooled. Even Democrats have admitted the law has turned into a massive “train wreck,” with delays, glitches, and problems aplenty. Here are a dozen more Obamacare implementation failures.

We’ve Seen the Effect of “Amnesty” Before

Experts can't always predict exactly how public policy will affect the nation, despite our best efforts. But when it comes to immigration policy, we have tried many of the types of reforms advocated by today’s Gang of Eight—so we should consider the effects these reforms had in the past.

Ready for Another Debt Limit Fight?

 

 

Yes, it’s time to talk about the debt limit again.

Benghazi Witness Speaks Today

Ghosts of Benghazi

The White House might have wanted to mute its response to the terrorist attack in Benghazi for fear of inflaming Anti-American sentiment. Perhaps the President did not want to acknowledge a successful attack by an al-Qaeda affiliate on the anniversary of 9/11—right before a national election. Maybe it was just all “Keystone Kops” at the national command authority on the night four Americans were killed at their posts. It could be a bit of all three. The problem is, nine months later, we still don’t know for sure.

President Says Obamacare Is Going Great

Obamacare is “working fine,” President Obama said yesterday in his press conference. It’s made health insurance “stronger, better, more secure than it was before.”

Internet Sales Tax Is a State Money Grab

Why are states so eager to collect taxes on Internet sales?
In short, because they could grab money from other states.
Heritage legal expert David Addington lays it out:

Where Did Your Tax Dollar Go?

Obama’s Fake Budget Marketing Exposed

President Obama is marketing his new budget by saying it has “more than $2 in spending cuts for every $1 of new revenue.” Is this true?

Read On >>

North Korea on the Edge

Yesterday, North Korean officials warned foreigners in South Korea to leave that country. Today, the foreign ministers of the Group of Eight (G8) countries—the United States, Britain, Russia, Japan, Canada, France, Germany, and Italy—are meeting in London to discuss North Korea’s threats.
Americans are taking notice. CNN reports that “more than four in 10” Americans in a new poll say “they see the reclusive nation as an immediate threat to the United States…That’s up 13 percentage points in less than a month.”
Heritage’s experts have been following the threats closely—in fact, senior research fellow Bruce Klingner, formerly the CIA branch chief for Korea, warned of the growing risk of a clash in late March. Cont. Reading

Keeping Americans Safe Online: What We Need for Cybersecurity

Everything we do is online. If you’ve been the victim of identity theft or an email phishing scam, you know how quickly your personal data can be stolen or threatened.
It’s important to know the difference between types of cyber threats and the right approach to fighting them.
There are three tiers of cyber threats, as explained by Heritage experts Steven Bucci, Paul Rosenzweig, and David Inserra:

Cont. Reading >>

The Marriage Debate Through a Child’s Eyes

Earlier this month, 11-year-old Grace Evans appeared before a panel of Minnesota lawmakers considering a redefinition of marriage in that state. She testified to the significance of her mother and father and the different contributions each makes to her life.

Thanks to Obamacare…

It’s Obamacare’s third anniversary. Though many key parts of Obamacare - including some of its tax hikes and mandates - don’t go into effect until next year, Americans are feeling many of its changes already.

Please share these impacts to mark three years of this bureaucratic nightmare.

Make Your Voice Heard for Marriage

Marriage is the fundamental building block of all human civilization. All Americans, especially conservatives, should respect this crucial institution of civil society. This is why 41 states and the federal government affirm that marriage is between a man and a woman.

Senators Bring Stirring Filibuster Against Obama CIA Nominee

“I rise today to begin to filibuster John Brennan’s nomination for the CIA. I will speak until I can no longer speak. I will speak as long as it takes, until the alarm is sounded from coast to coast that our Constitution is important…”

Obama’s Sequester Smokescreen

Suppose you desperately needed to lose weight but had a Big Mac with fries and a Coke staring you in the face. You could take your need to diet seriously and say, “No thanks, I’ll have a salad.” Or you could decide to reduce the Big Mac meal by 2 percent—pushing aside a couple French fries and gobbling up the rest.
If you took Option B, how do you think that “diet” would work out for you? Well, that, my friends, is the tale of the sequester that hit us this morning.
For the past few days the White House, with a big assist from sympathetic media, has done all within its considerable powers to make it seem like sequestration means the end of the world. If all you’ve heard is their side, you might be forgiven for thinking that the Mayans were right after all—just off by a couple of months on their prediction of the apocalypse.
This political panic needs a little common sense. In the last decade, federal spending has exploded from a $2 trillion budget in 2002 to a $3.5 trillion budget in 2012—a 75 percent increase. Over the next 10 years, the budget is projected to grow another 69 percent to $6 trillion. The sequester barely taps the brakes on this runaway spending, still allowing a 67 percent increase over the next 10 years. Too much to ask of Washington?

Cont. Reading

Stop Apologizing for America and Start Promoting Liberty - The Foundry: Conservative Policy News Blog from The Heritage Foundation

In some families, a father will proudly pass a car he’s driven for many years along to his son. But Air Force pilot David A. Deptula has gone even further.
He earned his wings and flew an F-15 for the first time in 1977. Thirty years later his son, Lt. David A. Deptula II, flew the same jet.

“We have really flown these aircraft well beyond what originally would be believed as their replacement lifetime,” the elder Deptula, a retired lieutenant general, says. The F-15 was originally designed for a 4,000-hour service life. That was later extended to 8,000 hours. “And now, because of some of the fiscal constraints that are being imposed on the Department of Defense, there is consideration being given to extending the lifetime even further,” he says.
In the Declaration of Independence, the people are said to possess the right to institute the government that “to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness” (emphasis added). Happiness is the ultimate objective, but safety comes first.
This week, we are highlighting America’s Opportunity for All—Heritage’s explanation of the conservative principles we stand for. One of the most important founding principles that very much applies today is providing for the common defense.
Today, while government spending is soaring, defense spending relative to the size of the economy is near historical lows. The Obama Administration is promising to hollow the military even more in the years ahead. Right now, America’s defenses are facing harmful cuts through budget sequestration. Such policies not only jeopardize our safety and our ability to secure our interests, they also undermine our legitimate role in the world.
Military strategy should drive the budget, not the other way around. The mission of the United States military is determined by America’s vital interests and an assessment of the threats to those interests. We must spend what is necessary to fully fund our military. Of course there is waste and inefficiency in the defense budget. But the core and undisputed responsibility of the U.S. government to provide for the nation’s security must not be up for negotiation.
Conservatives believe America is an exceptional nation, conceived in liberty and committed to the cause of constitutional self-government, not only for itself but also for other nations. The United States must have the will and the means to stay involved in the world, both to protect the nation and its citizens from freedom’s adversaries and to defend our principles, policies, and vital interests wherever they may be threatened.
This does not mean that America must be the world’s policeman, but our founding principles mean the United States has a special responsibility to defend the cause of liberty. We should not be apologizing but explaining, defending, and promoting America’s unique concept of ordered liberty and advancing freedom on all fronts.
America’s Opportunity is our plan to:

• Provide for the common defense and keep America safe. To ensure that the nation’s military forces have what they need, the core defense budget should be fully funded at a level that would enable the U.S. to maintain stable troop levels in an all-volunteer force, provide sufficient readiness funds, and ensure adequate funding for research, development, and procurement. Congress should also pursue efficiency and reform efforts and work to eliminate waste in the defense budget. Some $100 billion in savings can be achieved in the near term simply by continuing and expanding select efficiency initiatives that are already underway. Savings should be invested in modernizing the military.

• Secure America’s interests and advance liberty in the world. The course consistent with constitutional government is to defend America’s vital interests in light of its principles, maintaining the country’s freedom of action while upholding liberty. We should advocate freedom—especially economic freedom. Some sensible steps include reducing U.S. trade barriers and pursuing new trade and investment agreements.

America’s Opportunity for All explains how our country can remain vigilant in a dangerous world. Despite the grave fiscal challenge we face, we must defend ourselves, secure our independence, and strengthen the cause of liberty.

Matthew Spalding, Ph.D.

How to Balance the Budget in 10 Years

Both houses of Congress have now voted to suspend the debt ceiling until May 19, buying lawmakers more time to develop a budget. The Senate would put together a budget for the first time in three years—and the details of that budget are crucial.

To prevent the federal debt from growing further out of control and harming economic growth in the long term, Congress must balance the budget in 10 years and keep it balanced—without raising taxes further.

>>> Watch Heritage President-elect Jim DeMint talking about America’s debt problem on Fox News

This 5-point checklist covers the do’s and don’ts of balancing the budget in 10 years:

1. Do not raise taxes. Despite the President’s repeated assertions that he favors a balanced approach to deficit reduction, the latest budget debate over the fiscal cliff concluded by allowing 13 new or higher taxes to take effect, while it produced a net increase in spending of $47 billion. The tax hikes are hurting the economy and American workers by dampening investment and job creation. Yet our debt challenge remains. Only significant reductions in spending will effectively curb debt and deficits.

2. Reform entitlement programs. Congress must make much-needed reforms to entitlement programs to provide an affordable safety net. Congress should first repeal Obamacare or at least stop the subsidies and Medicaid expansion that begin in 2014. Social Security and Medicare should become true safety net programs and focus assistance on seniors in need. The eligibility age for both programs should match and reflect increases in longevity. Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment should be based on a more accurate measure of inflation.

3. Reduce discretionary spending. Congress should immediately stop all spending for programs that benefit only a few and have even the appearance of cronyism, like subsidies for public broadcasting, agriculture, green energy, and ethanol. The federal government should focus on a limited number of appropriate national duties. States and local governments are better able to meet the needs of local populations in areas such as transportation, education, job training, economic development, and environmental conservation.

4. Do not use budget gimmicks. Congress must put the federal budget on a firm course to balance in 10 years and keep it balanced, without employing budget gimmicks. Congress should abstain from abusing disasters, like Hurricane Sandy, to push through excess spending. Neither should Congress enact laws that count on spending outside the 10-year budget window, as is the case with Obamacare’s coverage expansion provisions.

5. Do not sacrifice the nation’s security. Allowing myopic cuts to reduce military capabilities today risks incurring higher rebuilding costs tomorrow. Congress should responsibly fund defense at adequate levels.

The debate about the debt ceiling is the perfect opportunity to talk about America’s real budget priorities. Growing federal spending has put the nation on a track to fiscal collision, and a significant course correction is necessary.

Average historical tax revenues are 18.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). We can’t keep spending more than we take in. Spending must be reduced to this level over the 10-year budget window to balance the budget. The Heritage plan, Saving the American Dream, shows how Congress can prudently balance the budget in 10 years, without burdening Americans with higher taxes or compromising the nation’s national security.

A Blow to Obama’s Imperial Presidency

President Obama has gone around Congress in as many ways as he can find. One way is by abusing the presidential power to make appointments to government positions during a supposed Senate recess—in an attempt to avoid having the Senate confirm the nominees.
Last week, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals dealt quite a blow: It ruled that a number of President Obama’s “recess appointments” were invalid.
As Todd Gaziano, director of Heritage’s Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, said: “Our unilateral president must take his unilateral medicine.”
Heritage’s James Gattuso explains:

To sidestep opposition in the Senate, the President declared these to be “recess” appointments, invoking his prerogative to fill vacancies without Senate confirmation when that body is not in session. The action was roundly criticized on the grounds that although the Senate was not actively conducting legislative business, it was formally still in session.

The judges issued an even broader ground for striking down the unconstitutional appointments, holding that President Obama could make valid recess appointments only during an intersession “recess” that occurs between annual sessions of Congress, and that recess appointments also cannot be made unless the position becomes vacant during the Senate’s valid intersession recess. This brings up huge questions for all the unconstitutional appointees who have now been declared invalid—and the regulations they have created during their time in office.
There’s the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which had two members appointed in this way. Gaziano notes that “13 months’ worth of rulings, regulations, and other actions by the NLRB are now in question, because without the illegal recess appointments the NLRB lacked a quorum to act during all that time.”
And then there’s the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), whose director, Richard Cordray, was another of these invalid appointments. The bureau has been regulating away for the past year, but Gattuso writes that “the new rules adopted by the CFPB under Cordray will likely be invalidated.”
Gattuso describes the CFPB as “perhaps the least accountable entity in the federal government”—so this is good news.

The odds are that this imbroglio will stall the CFPB’s regulatory agenda for some time. That, however, is no bad thing for consumers. The rules adopted by the CFPB, by limiting lender activity, decrease options for consumers and increase costs for mortgages and other loans. Reining them in could actually be a boon for consumer welfare.

There’s a reason the Senate is supposed to confirm these nominees—and in the case of the CFPB, the agency itself merits closer scrutiny. The judges’ decision is a welcome check on Obama’s abuses of power.
LEARN MORE:
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Its Non-Director: What Now? by James L. Gattuso
Quick Hits:

• Another Obamacare “glitch” has come to light—and this one means that “some families could get priced out of health insurance,” according to the Associated Press.
• Federal agencies aren’t doing a very good job of listening to the public about new rules and regulations. And when they do receive comments, bureaucrats are likely to ignore them.
• In honor of School Choice Week, the Acton Institute answers some frequently asked questions about school choice.
• Another Cabinet position is opening up: the Secretary of Transportation is leaving.
• Ernest Istook has a new co-host on Istook Live!: C.J. Wheeler. Listen in this morning from 9 a.m. to noon ET as they continue the conversation about the push for gun control.

Posted in Enterprise and Free Markets, Rule of Law

 

 

 

Amy Payne

It’s Time to Balance the Budget

Today, the House will vote on a proposal that would suspend the debt ceiling until May 19, buying a bit more time for the overarching budget debate. This puts off the difficult decisions that are needed to get the country’s fiscal situation in order. Heritage’s vice president for domestic and economic policy, Derrick Morgan, wrote recently:

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Never leave that till tomorrow which you can do today.” That’s why Congress should not raise the debt ceiling unless it includes immediate reforms today that put us on a sure path to balance, keep us in balance over time, provide for the common defense—and do not raise taxes.

Yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) took up an idea promoted by a coalition of conservative organizations including our sister organization, Heritage Action for America.
They pledged to produce a path to balance—a balanced budget in 10 years.
In a Politico op-ed January 15, Heritage Action for America CEO Michael Needham joined Family Research Council President Tony Perkins and Club for Growth President Chris Chocola in leading the call for Congress to balance the budget—and use the debt ceiling negotiations to do it.
“While we as fiscal, social and foreign policy conservatives have differing priorities, we can certainly find immediate savings in the discretionary budget,” they wrote. “Programs that benefit only a few—agriculture subsidies, green energy handouts, Planned Parenthood, etc.—have at least the appearance of cronyism and special interest handouts.”
The conservative leaders called for a plan that would balance the budget in 10 years, explaining:

Ten years is not a random horizon, but the traditional congressional budget window. Nor is this demand the result of mere whimsy—it is a moral obligation. No American should have to tell an 8-year-old child that we cannot get our nation’s house in order by the time she goes to college. There are many ways to get to a balanced budget and both Democrats and Republicans have an obligation to explain what path they will choose.

Following their call, 41 leaders of conservative organizations signed a memo urging Congress to produce a 10-year path to balance. Now, Boehner has taken up that call.
Of course, before you can have a balanced budget, you have to have a budget. Boehner and his Republican colleagues in the House have also put the Senate on notice: It’s time to produce a budget.
The Senate has failed to pass a budget for the past three years. The bill the House will vote on today includes a provision that would withhold pay for Members from either chamber if it fails to pass a budget.
It’s good to hear Members of Congress getting serious about financial responsibility. After the fiscal cliff deal, however, any “deal” cannot just promise budget reforms will happen in the future—it must include those reforms. As Heritage’s Emily Goff said yesterday:

[C]onservatives should not capitulate again on tax hikes. In the imminent debt limit debate, they should remind the country that we have a spending problem and communicate concrete ways to reduce federal spending. They can start with bipartisan reforms to Medicare and Social Security and thus lay the groundwork for bolder entitlement program reforms in the future.

Now let’s see these plans for a balanced budget—because the details are important. The needed spending cuts and entitlement reforms will have to become concrete realities.
To see Heritage’s plan that balances the budget in 10 years, check out Saving the American Dream.

by : Amy Payne