Policy Papers
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Health Care Policy Update: Applying for Health Care – More Complex than Taxes
This Saturday marks three years since Democrats passed their widely unpopular health care law. Since then, over 20,000 pages of regulations have been issued, and more Americans are uncertain and anxious about how the law will affect them. Over the next nine months, families and employers must make important decisions about their health care coverage. Supporters of the President’s health care law promised that choosing a health insurance plan would be as easy as shopping online. The... Continue Reading
March 19, 2013
The Budget: Senate Democrats vs. House Republicans
The Senate Democrats’ budget would grow government, not the economy. It includes the largest tax increase in the history of the United States, fails to address the sequester, and never balances – forgoing a healthy economy, job growth, and opportunity. Continue Reading
March 14, 2013
Health Care Policy Update: Keep Your Insurance Plan and Doctor? Not So Fast
The President and Washington Democrats want the American people to think that insurance coverage offered in the health care law’s exchanges will look identical to generous employer-sponsored insurance options offered in today’s market. This may not be the case. A recent Wall Street Journal article says that health insurance companies are now starting to create and price new insurance plans to sell in the exchange. To satisfy consumer demands to keep costs down, insurers want... Continue Reading
March 12, 2013
2013 Budget – Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going
*post sequester Source: CBO historical data and FY 2013 baseline projections Spending, Revenue, and Deficits, FY 2007 - 2013 The Status Quo is Not an Option Even Skyrocketing Revenue Can’t Close Spending Gap As the Associated Press reported on March 12, 2013 “barring a major fix by the president and Congress, the government's finances will start to worsen again as the three major entitlement programs — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — become more and more... Continue Reading
March 12, 2013
Washington Democrats Deny Fiscal Facts
The President continues to provide false choices to Americans on the debt and deficit instead of giving them fact-based answers they deserve. Below are the facts on some of the biggest Washington spending items today that affect American taxpayers now. Whether the President wants solutions or campaign issues is up to him. Fiscal stability The President’s budgets have done little to restore long-term fiscal discipline. Under his last budget, the federal government would spend $46 trillion... Continue Reading
March 12, 2013
2013 Sequester in Perspective
March 8, 2013
February 2013 Unemployment Report
February 2013 Unemployment Rate: 7.7 percent Unemployed Americans: 12.0 million “Real” Unemployment The “real” unemployment or U-6 rate is 14.3 percent for February 2013. This is the total percentage of unemployed and underemployed workers. The “real” number of unemployed Americans is 22.6 million. These are people who are unemployed... Continue Reading
March 7, 2013
Health Care Policy Update: Taxing Health Insurance Makes It More Expensive
President Obama’s health care law imposes more than $1 trillion in new taxes on employers, manufacturers, and middle class families. According to the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT), the law violates the President’s pledge not to raise taxes on families making less than $250,000 per year. The health care law’s tax hikes come as our nation’s fragile economy continues to struggle. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that unemployment will remain above seven percent... Continue Reading
March 6, 2013
The Sequester Begins
Last Friday, OMB released its sequestration report. The appendix details the cuts required to each budget account. The report does not detail cuts at the “program, project, and activity” (PPA) level as required by the Budget Control Act and the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law. So the report does not resolve the question of how much discretion the Administration has in implementing the cuts. The report does detail the cuts at the account level and it also gives the percentage and... Continue Reading
March 5, 2013
Are Taxpayers Getting Their Money’s Worth?
The federal government has grown too big, too unaccountable, and too wasteful. The American people, the President, and independent evaluators have all put forward programs for termination, yet many of these programs continue on, with little action from Congress. The federal government will spend $31,000 per household this year, among the highest in American history, and $5,000 more than in 2008. The question has to be asked: are we getting our money’s... Continue Reading
March 5, 2013
Parade of Pinocchios
In less than one week, the Washington Post Fact Checker closely examined at least five statements from Obama Administration officials regarding the impact of sequestration. The Post concluded that four statements were completely misleading and the jury is still out on the fifth: At the end of last week, President Obama finally conceded that the sequester “is not going to be an apocalypse, I think, as some people have said.” Meanwhile, the American people are still waiting to find... Continue Reading
March 4, 2013
Caitlin Halligan’s Record of Activism
Last Congress, the Senate expressed its will and rejected the nomination of Caitlin Halligan to the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. This Congress, President Obama ignored the Senate’s advice and re-nominated Ms. Halligan. The Senate is expected to take up consideration of this nomination in the near future. Ms. Halligan’s well-documented record as a committed advocate of extreme positions suggests she would not be a fair and impartial... Continue Reading
March 1, 2013
Health Care Policy Update: Health Care Law’s Premium Bills Come Due
This week, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and U.S. News and World Report all noted that Americans – particularly young adults – should brace for very high health insurance premiums starting next year. Why? President Obama’s health care law. Recall that in 2009, while the health care battle raged in Congress, leading accounting and actuarial firms (Oliver Wyman, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Hay Group, Milliman) released reports quantifying how much the President’s plan... Continue Reading
February 28, 2013
Obama Sequester Exacerbates Obama Defense Cuts
Democrat plans to reduce the deficit entail nothing more than cutting defense spending massively and enacting class warfare tax hikes on hardworking Americans. Defense Cuts Proposed Prior to Sequestration In its fiscal year 2012 budget request, the Department of Defense committed to cutting its own budget by $78 billion over the next five years. Two months later, President Obama announced his intention to seek an additional $400 billion in defense cuts over the next 12 years. In effect, the... Continue Reading
February 26, 2013
Anatomy of the Sequester
February 26, 2013
Too Much Waste in Washington
President Obama and Senate Democrats have been bewailing the effects of the $85 billion sequestration. What they have not done is offer a serious alternative in the four months since the President declared sequestration “will not happen.” Instead of moving the goalposts, they need to follow (not misinterpret) the law of what sequestration is: to cut spending (not increase taxes). For years, the President has paid lip service to cutting wasteful spending in Washington. But when it... Continue Reading
February 25, 2013
Fed Monetary Assistance Not Easing Soon
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke will provide Congress its biannual “Humphrey-Hawkins” monetary policy report tomorrow. The Fed continues to provide monetary assistance in part due to the President’s failed fiscal policies. For the first month of 2013, the Labor Department announced an increase in the unemployment rate to 7.9 percent. The national unemployment rate has been hovering around eight percent for more than a year now. All indications are there will be little to... Continue Reading
February 13, 2013
Questions for Treasury Secretary Nominee Lew
The Constitution requires the Senate consent to many senior executive branch nominations, which provides the Senate a fixed and critical point to review the President’s policies. Nominee Jack Lew has served as White House Chief of Staff and Office of Management and Budget Director in the Obama Administration. The Administration’s budget failures are well known. Here are a set of questions related to how Jack Lew, if confirmed as Secretary of the Treasury, might advise the President... Continue Reading
February 12, 2013
North Korea Continues to Test Obama’s World View
North Korea, in the form of an underground nuclear explosion today, presented another test to President Obama’s efforts to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and his dream of a world without nuclear weapons. Early reports indicate the test is North Korea’s most powerful to date using the smallest device so far. Under President Obama’s watch, North Korea: Sank a warship of ally South Korea, causing the murder of the 46 sailors aboard. Conducted three separate tests... Continue Reading
February 12, 2013
Democrats’ Ideas on the Sequester: More Taxes
All indications are that Democrats will propose a sequester delay that is just more taxes on hardworking taxpayers. The tax increases buzzed about among Democrats in Congress and the White House so far include: Buffett Rule: $5.00 billion in first year Oil Tax Provisions: $4.75 billion in first year Carried Interest: $1.30... Continue Reading