Policy Papers
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Health Care Law Mandates Force Employers’ Hands
The President’s health care law contains a mandate requiring employers with 50 or more employees to offer government-approved insurance or pay a tax. Employers that do not offer health coverage will pay a $2,000 tax per worker. Employers that offer health insurance deemed unaffordable (the cost is more than 9.5 percent of the employee’s family income) will pay a $3,000 tax for every full-time worker who gets a subsidy in the exchange. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the... Continue Reading
May 21, 2013
NLRB “Recess” Appointments Rebuked Again
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled last week that another unilateral appointment by President Obama was unconstitutional. The decision -- NLRB v. New Vista -- agrees with the reasoning of U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. That court ruled in January, in the Noel Canning case, that the President’s authority to make recess appointments is limited to inter-session recesses of the Senate, and not intra-session recesses. “If the Senate refused to confirm a... Continue Reading
May 21, 2013
CFPB: Unaccountable and Unrestrained
Senate Democrats will try to push for a vote this week on Richard Cordray to be the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director. Senate Republicans are pushing for commonsense solutions to an unaccountable and unrestrained bureau. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) raised concerns since its creation due to its unprecedented investigative and regulatory authority, its lack of accountability, and the unparalleled authority placed in its sole director. A recent action by the CFPB to... Continue Reading
May 21, 2013
CBO Confirms Obama Budget Shirks Responsibility
Last Friday, CBO released its estimate of the President’s budget, which showed $1.1 trillion in reduced borrowing. That is significantly less deficit reduction than the President’s claim of $1.8 trillion when he released his budget just last month. CBO also shows almost all of the deficit reduction is through higher taxes. The President’s budget would raise nearly $1 trillion in taxes to pay for canceling the nearly $1 trillion sequester. This is nothing new from President... Continue Reading
May 21, 2013
On Obamacare, the IRS Can’t Be Trusted
When Americans hear about the unraveling IRS scandal, they might not automatically think of their health care. But they should. The health care law was allowed to stand by the U.S. Supreme Court only because it was determined to be a tax. Enter the IRS. The IRS now has an Affordable Care Act office, headed by the person who led the IRS’s tax-exempt office. The tax-exempt office is where targeting of non-profit groups, based on politics, took place. But the ACA office cannot actually be... Continue Reading
May 16, 2013
The Road to Peace in Syria Runs Through ... Moscow?
If it wasn’t clear that President Obama’s policy on Syria is simply bizarre, Secretary of State John Kerry’s hat-in-hand trip to Russia last week should lay bare the reality. Asking Russia to support U.S. interests in Syria is like asking the fox to guard the hen house. Russia and the United States announced last week they would host an international conference on Syria. It was originally supposed to be held by the end of May; it now looks like it won’t happen until June.... Continue Reading
May 15, 2013
The Sebelius Shakedown: Private Sector Asked to Fund Obamacare Implementation
Last Friday – May 10 – The Washington Post reported that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had “gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law.” The article explained that “[o]ver the past three months, Sebelius has made multiple phone calls to health industry executives, community organizations and church groups... Continue Reading
May 9, 2013
What President Obama Won’t Tell Women About His Health Care Law
At the health care law’s March 2010 signing ceremony, President Obama predicted that “all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform.” Three years later, the American people are faced with the reality of President Obama’s health care law. Rather than admit his law costs too much and fails to work the way he promised, President Obama just keeps trying to sell it. The White House will hold an event on Friday to promote the law’s... Continue Reading
May 7, 2013
Reid Sequester Bill Is Unserious
Before the recess, and in the midst of the FAA debate, Majority Leader Reid introduced and placed on the Senate calendar S. 788, a bill to cancel the sequester. Instead of a serious debate about priorities, this bill proposes a fake offset – the war spending gimmick – for the higher spending that results from canceling the sequester. Unfortunately, Senator Reid has misled the American people in his attempts to portray his bill as common sense and a responsible way to budget. It is... Continue Reading
May 7, 2013
Obama vs. Obama on Guantanamo
President Obama said at his press conference last week that he was “going to reengage with Congress” on Guantanamo. The President’s history on this subject has been more of a debate with himself over how he wants to proceed and whether Guantanamo is really an issue of governance, or still just a campaign issue. At his April 30th press conference, the President said: “When I was campaigning in 2007 and 2008, and when I was elected in 2008, I said we need to close... Continue Reading
May 7, 2013
Minimum Wage Increase Is Bad Economic Policy
The President is again pivoting back to the economy by launching a series of trips on his economic plans, a focus of which will be raising the minimum wage from the current $7.25 an hour. The first trip will be this Thursday to Austin, Texas. Earlier this year, in his State of the Union address, President Obama called for increasing the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour – an increase of 24 percent – stating that “this single step would raise the incomes of millions of... Continue Reading
May 7, 2013
We Need More Jobs
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, employment rose by 165,000 last month, and the jobless rate fell to 7.5 percent. These April gains favored retail and business services industries, while other major sectors of our economy continue to struggle. Job growth has not been consistent or broad-based enough for the Federal Reserve to pull back in its buying of $85 billion a month in long-term bonds. A broader “real” measure of unemployment, the U-6 rate, increased last month to... Continue Reading
May 7, 2013
On Obamacare: “Glitches or a train wreck? Bet on the wreck.”
Week after week, hardworking taxpayers anxiously watch as policy experts and the private sector confirm the President’s health care law costs too much and fails to work the way Democrats promised. In the meantime, President Obama and Washington Democrats scramble to explain to the American people why their lofty health care promises are not matching reality. President Obama Clueless Regarding Health Law Impact Senate Democrats spent last week lamenting that they created a health care... Continue Reading
May 3, 2013
April 2013 Unemployment Report
April 2013 Unemployment Rate: 7.5 percent Unemployed Americans: 11.7 million “Real” Unemployment The “real” unemployment or U-6 rate is 13.9 percent for April 2013. This is the total percentage of unemployed and underemployed workers. The “real” number of unemployed Americans is 21.9 million. These are people who are unemployed (11.7... Continue Reading
April 26, 2013
Syria’s Pink Line & Iran’s Nuclear Program
In August 2011, President Obama called on Syrian President Assad “to step aside.” It was one year ago, in March 2012, that Secretary of State Clinton said it was only “a matter of time” before the Assad regime fell. At the beginning of this year, the United Nations estimated more than 60,000 people had died so far in this Syrian conflict. In diplomatic practice, drawing a “red line” is similar to drawing a line in the sand. Crossing that line—engaging in... Continue Reading
April 26, 2013
The Obama Economy Continues to Struggle
Today we learned the U.S. economy has continued its weak and uncertain recovery under President Obama. Real GDP grew at an annualized rate of 2.5 percent in the first quarter of 2013, below expectations of 3.2 percent. Since the recession ended in 2009, President Obama’s policies have led to underwhelming results: 2010 real growth was 2.4 percent 2011 real growth was 1.8 percent 2012 real growth was 2.2 percent 2013 Q1 growth is 2.5 percent President Obama’s stagnant economic... Continue Reading
April 25, 2013
Health Care Policy Update: Health Care Law’s Prevention “Slush Fund”
Section 4002 of the President’s health care law put $15 billion into the Prevention and Public Health Fund (PPHF) over a 10-year period. After 10 years, the law mandates the PPHF receive $2 billion per year forever. The Secretary of Health and Human Services has nearly unlimited authority to spend these dollars. The health care law explicitly states that the PPHF must fund innovative prevention and wellness strategies that “help restrain the rate of growth in private and public... Continue Reading
April 23, 2013
Obamacare Federal Exchange – at Odds with the Law
The state of Oklahoma is challenging an IRS regulation allowing the federal insurance exchange to give qualified people a subsidy in order to buy health coverage. Oklahoma argues that the law only authorizes premium subsidies for state-based insurance exchanges. The House of Representatives also has launched inquiries and initiated oversight hearings into the IRS rule. Health experts and legal scholars point out that the IRS rule violates the law’s plain text. In fact,... Continue Reading
April 23, 2013
On Judges, Senate Democrats Lack Evidence
Last week, Senator Grassley set the record straight on Senate Democrats’ false charges of Republican obstructionism on judicial confirmations. The Ranking Member’s call for an end to the “crocodile tears” from Senate Democrats was warranted. For example, just a few hours after one Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing, Senator Coons took to the floor to express unfounded concerns over what he imagined to be a filibuster for the nominee. But in reality, there was no... Continue Reading
April 23, 2013
U.S. Citizen Terrorists
In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings, Senator Feinstein said on Fox News Sunday it would be “unconstitutional” to hold the U.S. citizen bomber as an enemy combatant.1 Commentator Juan Williams later said “the U.S. Supreme Court has never said that someone who’s an American who’s captured here can be treated as an enemy combatant.” In fact, the Supreme Court has specifically held it is constitutionally permissible to hold in military custody a U.S.... Continue Reading