Three years ago, President Obama cut a secret deal with pharmaceutical company lobbyists to secure the industry’s support for his national health care law. Despite Obama’s promises during his campaign to run a transparent administration, the deal has been shrouded in mystery ever since. But internal emails obtained by House Republicans now provide evidence that a deal was struck and GOP investigators are promising to release more details in the coming weeks.
“What the hell?” White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina, who is now Obama’s campaign manager, complained to a lobbyist for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in January 15, 2010 email. “This wasn’t part of our deal.”
This reference to “our deal” came two months before the final passage of Obamacare in an email with the subject line, “FW: TAUZIN EMAIL.” At the time, Billy Tauzin was president and CEO of PhRMA.
The email was uncovered as part of investigation into Obama’s closed-door health care negotiations launched by the House Energy and Commerce committee’s oversight panel.
“In the coming weeks the Committee intends to show what the White House agreed to do as part of its deal with the pharmaceutical industry and how the full details of this agreement were kept from both the public and the House of Representatives,” the committee’s Republican members wrote in a memo today.
On June 20, 2009, Obama released a terse 296-word statement announcing a deal between pharmaceutical companies and the Senate that didn’t mention any involvement by the White House.
“The investigation has determined that the White House, primarily through Office of Health Reform Director Nancy Ann DeParle and Messina, with involvement from Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, was actively engaged in these negotiations while the role of Congress was limited,” the committee members wrote. “For example, three days before the June 20 statement, the head of PhRMA promised Messina, ‘we will deliver a final yes to you by morning.’ Meanwhile, Ms. DeParle all but confirmed that half of the Legislative Branch was shut out in an email to a PhRMA representative: ‘I think we should have included the House in the discussions, but maybe we never would have gotten anywhere if we had.’”
Read the full memo here.
Tag Archives: economy
Bank of America to gun company: Find another bank, it’s for political reasons…
Via The Daily Caller:
McMillan Fiberglass Stocks, McMillan Firearms Manufacturing and McMillan Group International have been collectively banking with Bank of America for 12 years. But no more: In a recent meeting, the mega-bank told the firearms company that its business is no longer welcome.
Operations director Kelly McMillan told the Daily Caller that his company has never been late on a payment and has never bounced a check. The debt outstanding on its line of credit is at 61 percent.
But at the bank’s request, he said, the McMillan group of companies would soon be paying off its credit line and closing its accounts.
On Thursday, the Director of Operations Kelly McMillan explained on McMillan’s Facebook page:
Today Mr. Ray Fox, Senior Vice President, Market Manager, Business Banking, Global Commercial Banking [of Bank of America] came to my office. He scheduled the meeting as an ‘account analysis’ meeting in order to evaluate the two lines of credit we have with them. He spent 5 minutes talking about how McMillan has changed in the last 5 years and have become more of a firearms manufacturer than a supplier of accessories.
At this point I interrupted him and asked, ‘Can I [possibly] save you some time so that you don’t waste your breath? What you are going to tell me is that because we are in the firearms manufacturing business you no longer what my business.’
‘That is correct’ he [said].
I replied ‘That is okay, we will move our accounts as soon as possible. We can find a 2nd Amendment friendly bank that will be glad to have our business. You won’t mind if I tell the NRA, SCI and everyone one I know that BofA is not firearms industry friendly?’
‘You have to do what you must’ he said.
‘So you are telling me this is a politically motivated decision, is that right?’
Mr Fox confirmed that it was. At which point I told him that the meeting was over and there was nothing let for him to say.
The Blaze is reporting that Bank of America is denying all of this on their Facebook page. Who do you believe?
Food Stamp Spending Doubled Since 2008. Welfare Spending Nearing $1 Trillion a Year
Much of this is due to the Democrat’s repeal of the very successful Gingrich/Clinton Welfare Reform Law. Welfare Reform’s repeal was buried in the Obama Stimulus Bill.
UPDATE: 5.4 Million Join Disability Rolls Under Obama – LINK.
The number of Americans on food stamps (or, as it is now called, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP) is higher than ever before, according to a new Congressional Budget Office report. Since 2007, rolls have grown by 70 percent. And participation rates are expected to increase over the next two years.
While some of the growth can be attributed to the recession, participation rates were steadily climbing prior to the recession. Since 2000, the number of Americans on food stamps has jumped by roughly 260 percent, from 17.2 million to 44.7 million in 2011.
Naturally, government spending on food stamps has also jumped, from approximately $20 billion in 2000 to a whopping $78 billion last year, a nearly 400 percent increase.
The growth in participation rates seems to be part of the federal government’s goal, as a report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture released just this month explains.
The food stamps program is just one part of an ever-expanding government welfare system that includes not only 12 food assistance welfare programs but a total of 79 federal welfare programs. These programs provide not only food assistance but cash, housing, energy and utility assistance, education services, child care, medical care, and so forth.
The total cost of these programs reached $927 billion last year. Welfare is now the fastest growing part of government spending, and despite welfare costs increasing 16-fold since the War on Poverty began in the 1960s—and total spending on cash, food, and housing assistance now twice the amount necessary to pull all Americans out of poverty—President Obama wants to spend more. Aggregate welfare costs are projected to reach over $1.5 trillion in 2022.
As Heritage senior fellow Robert Rector said last week at a House Budget Committee hearing, out of control welfare costs are contributing to “ruinous and unsustainable future budget deficits.”
Obama IRS Makes New Regulations to Shut Down Small Tax Preparers
Yet another example to our leftist friends that “regulations are not made by Angels for the people’s benefit, they are made at the direction of corrupt politicians to pick winners and losers”.
So imagine that you are a small tax preparer and are a minority owned small business. Like so many of these small businesses they train tempts to do some of the work when tax season comes so as to be able to handle the work load.
H&R Block doesn’t like the competition so H&R Block creates a Political Actin Committee (PAC) that spreads around campaign cash to Members of Congress and the parties, spends a few million on lobbying.
What did they buy? New regulations that make even the temporary employees get fully licensed, have to attend a government certified course, AND attend continuing education classes every year. What small business can afford that? BUT WAIT…. you really didn’t think it ended there do you? The large tax preparers are exempt from some of the most burdensome requirements on their seasonal employees…..
So Sabrina Loving of Chicago is suing the IRS with help from the Institute for Justice.
See the video HERE.
Why Obama Hates Paul Ryan
A great piece from American Spectator (excerpt):
In other words, Obama’s speech itself tells us this is all made up. Obama’s minions calculated the percentage of total spending cuts in Ryan’s budget, and then applied that same percentage to every politically sensitive line item in the budget. But as Ryan has said publicly, that is not what his budget does. The long overdue spending cuts are outlined in hundreds of pages on the House Budget Committee website.
What Ryan’s budget does is just return federal spending to its long–term, historical, postwar average at 20 percent of GDP, which prevailed for 60 years before President Obama and his runaway spending. With that manageable federal spending, America prospered as the richest and mightiest nation in the history of the planet.
But President Obama hysterically and falsely claims just doing that will lead to all of the above disastrous results, and further that “by the middle of the next century funding for the kinds of things I just mentioned would have to be cut by 95%,” which is another fabrication. Just returning to that long term, historical, postwar average of federal spending as a percent of GDP, Obama claims, is “really an attempt to impose a radical vision on our country… thinly veiled social Darwinism… antithetical to our entire history as a land of opportunity and upward mobility.” This from the long-time radical who ran on fundamentally transforming America, not restoring our history. Obama’s wild, false rhetoric is not even an honest, intelligent discussion of the budget issues.
What this means is Obama adamantly opposes restoring traditional, long-term control over federal spending, and won’t do that if reelected. Instead, on our current course under Obama and the Democrats, according to CBO, federal spending soars to 30 percent of GDP by 2027, 40 percent by 2040, 50 percent by 2060, and 80 percent by 2080. Actually, it would be higher than that, as GDP would collapse under that burden. Add in another 15 percent of GDP for state and local spending, and we are at full-blown communism.
Read the rest HERE.
Gas Prices Grow More Under Obama than Carter
Marking the similarities between President Barack Obama’s time in office and former president Jimmy Carter’s is nothing new. But as of Monday, Obama has hit one more Carter benchmark – both saw gas prices double in their first term of office. [See Where Gas Prices are Spiking the Most]
In fact, while just barely, Obama has seen an even higher gas price increase than Carter dealt with under his administration.
Under the Carter administration, gas prices increased by 103.77 percent. Gas prices since Obama took office have risen by 103.79 percent. No other presidents in recent years have struggled as much with soaring oil prices. Under the Reagan administration, gas prices actually dropped 66 percent. When Bill Clinton was president, gas prices grew by roughly 30 percent, and under both Bush presidencies, gas prices rose by 20 percent.
Chuck DeVore: Texas vs. California, Revisited
An absolute MUST read from Chuck DeVore.
Across America, spending on local and state governments made up 19.8 percent of the average state’s economy in 2008. California spent 22.5 percent, compared with Texas’s 15.4 percent. Simply put, Californians spend 46 percent more of their income on their government than do Texans.
Comparing major categories of spending really brings home the difference.
The average state spends 5.7 percent of its economy on education. Neither California (at 5.6 percent) nor Texas (5.4 percent) deviates far from the average. But Texas stretches its spending much further, employing 17 percent more educators per capita than does California, with its strong teachers’ unions and highly paid teachers.
Welfare spending shows a shocking contrast, with California spending 5 percent of its economy on wealth-transfer programs, compared with the national average of 4.6 percent and Texas’s 3.1 percent.
California also spends more than Texas on law enforcement and prisons, 1.5 percent to 0.9 percent, as well as parks, recreation, and natural resources, 0.7 percent to 0.3 percent.
Mass transit and other state and locally run utilities constitute 1.4 percent of the average state’s economy. California spends 1.9 percent here, Texas, 1.2 percent. California’s proposed high-speed-rail system will significantly grow this outlay. By comparison, heavily urbanized New York, with its mass-transit systems and extensive network of government-run toll roads, outlays 2.2 percent of its economy towards government-run utilities.
Texas manages to spend more in one category than does California: roads. Though Texas has diverted as much as $1.2 billion from its highway fund lately, it still manages to spend 1.2 percent of its economy on highways, compared with California’s outlay of 0.9 percent. The national average is 1.1 percent. California used to spend far more on its roads, but cut back in the 1970s, the last time Jerry Brown was governor — he suggested then that if you build road and water infrastructure, they will come. California stopped building but they came anyway.
The spending category showing the largest divergence between California and Texas should come as no surprise to anyone following the impending bankruptcy of Stockton, California’s 13th-largest city: spending for government-employee benefits. Nationwide, states spend an average of 1.6 percent of their economy in this area. California spends 2.2 percent of its economy — $1,105 for every person in the state — to keep government employees comfortable in their golden years. Texas spends 0.9 percent of its economy for this purpose — $467 for each man, woman, and child in the state. While most Texas civil servants don’t have collective-bargaining rights, they experience about one-third the job-turnover rate of private employees, showing that the State of Texas is seen as a good employer.
Last month, Texas added 27,900 jobs. The official unemployment rate is 7.1 percent in Texas, compared with 8.3 percent nationally. California added 4,000 jobs and has an official unemployment rate of 10.9 percent.
Obama and Democrats Create More Debt Than All Previous Presidents Combined
Obama campaigned on cutting the deficit in half from the levels under Bush, which were a pittance compared to the spending and debt that is going on now.
CBO: OOPS Our $940 Billion Number Was Wrong – ObamaCare to cost $1.76 trillion over 10 yrs – UPDATED!
Remember when Obama and the Democrats went on and on saying that ObamaCare would only cost $900 Billion so that it would be revenue neutral (not ad to the deficit)?
It wasn’t just this writer back in his college days who said that this number was a pipe dream. Many conservatives who ran the numbers said it would cost over $2 trillion as I reported in my college days (1, 2, 3, 4).
But it gets worse, the CBO is still underestimating the cost. Why? ObamaCare doesn’t start to spend huge money until the last phase of it’s implementation in 2014, but the new taxes are already starting to be phased in and really ramp up in 2013 just after the election. So ObamaCare is taking in money for over a year before the large expenses start incurring. If we take that into account and start the ten years in 2014, which is much more honest, the expense according to my estimates will be close to $2.3 trillion over ten years. Feel free to mark me on this readers, as I am certain others will verify this in time, as my earliest predictions about ObamaCare have been spot on so there is no reason to believe my estimate will prove to be any different (the Examiner piece below mentions the nine year issue as well).
Remember the adverse selection “death” spiral we spoke of in posts below? The longer ObamaCare goes on the more the costs will rise exponentially as that is exactly what it is designed to do. If Democrats manage to prevent an ObamaCare repeal, they know darn well they will have to replace it with a total government take over soon or the system will blow up in a short time.
President Obama’s national health care law will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released today by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.
Democrats employed many accounting tricks when they were pushing through the national health care legislation, the most egregious of which 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.
Today, the CBO released new projections from 2013 extending through 2022, and the results are as critics expected: the ten-year cost of the law’s core provisions to expand health insurance coverage has now ballooned to $1.76 trillion. That’s because we now have estimates for Obamacare’s first nine years of full implementation, rather than the mere six when it was signed into law. Only next year will we get a true ten-year cost estimate, if the law isn’t overturned by the Supreme Court or repealed by then. Given that in 2022, the last year available, the gross cost of the coverage expansions are $265 billion, we’re likely looking at about $2 trillion over the first decade, or more than double what Obama advertised.
UPDATE – ObamaCare to force increases in state Medicaid programs:
Again, this is something I wrote about and you can find on my old college blog in the four links above. One of the ways that the costs of ObamaCare was hidden is that some of it’s implementation is through unfunded mandates to state medicaid programs.
CBO boosts its Obamacare Medicaid cost estimate
The CBO now projects that from 2012 through 2021 the federal government will spend $168 billion more on Medicaid than it expected last year, $97 billion less on subsidies for people to purchase insurance on government-run exchanges and $20 billion less on tax credits to small employers. That works out to a $51 billion increase in the gross cost of expanding coverage from what the CBO estimated a year ago. However, the CBO also expects the federal government to collect more revenue from penalties on individuals and employers, as well as other taxes. These revenue increases will more than offset the spending increases, according to the CBO, so it now expects the cost of Obamacare during those years to be $48 billion lower.
It’s also worth noting that we were told time and again during the health care debate that the law didn’t represent a government takeover of health care. But by 2022, according to the CBO, 3 million fewer people will have health insurance through their employer, while 17 million Americans will be added to Medicaid and 22 million will be getting coverage through government-run exchanges.
Check out the full CBO report here.
Survey: Health Care Reform Driving Up Health Plan Costs for Employers
Of course, this very writer was predicting this from mid 2009 and onward (2) as ObamaCare is phased in more and more people and businesses are seeing the results. So much for Obama’s promise that ObamaCare would save you $2,500 a year.
NEW YORK–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Compliance with health care reform is already driving up costs for some employers’ group health plans, and a majority of employers expect price increases to be passed on to employees, according to a health care reform survey released today by the Willis Human Capital Practice, a unit of Willis Group Holdings (nyse:WSH), the global insurance broker.
“The survey suggests employers realize that costs of providing medical benefits will increase and that they will likely have to pass those costs on to their employees.”
This is what will hurt you most:
Employers expect that similar employers will pass increased costs on to employees: More than half of the responding employers felt that other, similar employers would pass more of the cost for dependent coverage on to their employees. One-third of respondents thought other, similar employers would reduce coverage to the lowest-cost package to avoid the “pay-or-play” penalty, and a majority of employers also thought that wellness programs would be expanded in scope. Finally, nearly two-thirds of the employers expected that employee contributions would be increased.
You read that correctly, the result will be increased costs to you AND reduced coverage.
Gov. Mitch Daniels: ‘Terrifying Rate’ at Which U.S. Debt Is Accumulating ‘Will Lead to National Ruin’
Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said Tuesday that the size of the U.S. national debt and the rate at which the debt is accumulating will lead the United States to “ruin” — and no other outcome is mathematically possible.
“Whether one believes in a large, very active government or something more limited, mathematically, the amount of debt we already have and the terrifying rate at which it is accumulating will lead to national ruin,” Daniels said.
“There’s no other outcome arithmetically possible,” he added.
As of February 2012, according to monthly U.S. Treasury statements, our national debt is $15.48 trillion, about a $130 billion more from the month prior when the national debt was $15.35 trillion.
The Hoosier governor made his remarks in a conference call hosted by No Labels, a group of Democrats, Republicans, and independents “dedicated to making government work again.”
Daniels said that Congress has become dysfunctional in terms of dealing with our economic and fiscal situation — and picked a “lousy time” to become dysfunctional, since the United States has never faced “a non-military danger or threat as large as the one we face today.”
Daniels said that when addressing the problem of the national debt and trying to level with audiences, he usually asks them to put ideology aside for the moment and focus on the math surrounding our national debt – something he said no longer “works.”
“Look, let’s put the ideological debate off (to) tomorrow,” Daniels said. “You know, for today, can we agree that the math here does not work?”
Mathematically speaking, Daniels said, it all breaks down.
“There is absolutely no way” that cutting or taxing our way out our fiscal problems are the solutions. Instead, we need a private economy that grows much faster, and meaningful entitlement reform, Daniels said.
Businesses Flee: California Tax Revenue Plunges 22%
Compared to last year, State tax collections for February shriveled by $1.2 billion or 22%. The deterioration is more than double the shocking $535 million reported decline for last month. The cumulative fiscal year decline is $6.1 billion or down 11% versus this period in 2011.
While California Governor Brown promises strong economic growth is just around the corner, State Controller John Chaing proves that the best way for Sacramento politicians to hurt the economy and thereby generate lower tax revenue, is to have the highest tax rates in the nation.
California politicians seem delusional in their continued delusion that high taxes have not savaged the State’s economy. Each month’s disappointment is written off as due to some one-time event.
The State Controller’s office did acknowledge that higher than normal tax refunds for February might have reduced the collection of some personal income taxes. Given that 2012 has an extra day in February for leap year, there might have been one day more of tax refunds sent out. But the Controller’s report shows personal income tax collections fell by $325 million, or 16% versus last year. Furthermore, leap year would have added another day for retail sales and use tax collection, but those revenues also fell during February-by an even larger $813 million, 25% decline from 2011.
The more likely reason tax collections continue falling is that businesses and successful people are leaving California for the better tax rates available in more pro-business states.
Derisively referred to as “Taxifornia” by the independent Pacific Research Institute, California wins the booby prize for the highest personal income taxes in the nation and higher sales tax rates than all but four other states. Though Californians benefit from Proposition 13 restrictions on how much their property tax can increase in one year, the state still has the worst state tax burden in the U.S.
Spectrum Locations Consultants recorded 254 California companies moved some or all of their work and jobs out of state in 2011, 26% more than in 2010 and five times as many as in 2009. According SLC President, Joe Vranich: the “top ten reasons companies are leaving California: 1) Poor rankings in surveys 2) More adversarial toward business 3) Uncontrollable public spending 4) Unfriendly business climate 5) Provable savings elsewhere 6) Most expensive business locations 7) Unfriendly legal environment for business 8) Worst regulatory burden 9) Severe tax treatment 10) Unprecedented energy costs.
Vranich considers California the worst state in the nation to locate a business and Los Angeles is considered the worst city to start a business. Leaving Los Angeles for another surrounding county can save businesses 20% of costs. Leaving the state for Texas can save up to 40% of costs. This probably explains why California lost 120,000 jobs last year and Texas gained 130,000 jobs.
California Governor Jerry Brown’s answer to the State’s failing economy and crumbling tax revenue is to place a $6 billion tax increase initiative on the ballot to support K-12 public schools. He promises to only “temporarily” raise personal income rates by 25% on any of the rich folk who haven’t already left.
Read more HERE.
Obama: Largest Wall Street Money Recipient, Hands Out Jobs to Contributors
There are two sources for today’s story, one is a devastating piece from the normally Obama friendly Washington Post, the other is from an Iowa PAC called the American Future Fund. President Obama was the largest recipient of Wall Street cash of any presidential candidate in 20 years. While Obama was a Senator he took more money from Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae than anyone in the Senate with the exception of who many call the architect of the financial collapse Christopher Dodd.
The Influence Industry: Obama gives administration jobs to some big fundraisers
Big donors considering whether to work the phones raising money for President Obama’s reelection campaign might consider the fate of his 2008 bundlers. Many of them, it turns out, won plum jobs in his administration.
Obama campaigned on what he called “the most sweeping ethics reform in history” and has frequently criticized the role of money in politics. That hasn’t stopped him from offering government jobs to some of his biggest bundlers, volunteer fundraisers who gather political contributions from other rich donors.
More than half of Obama’s 47 biggest fundraisers, those who collected at least $500,000 for his campaign, have been given administration jobs. Nine more have been appointed to presidential boards and committees.
At least 24 Obama bundlers were given posts as foreign ambassadors, including in Finland, Australia, Portugal and Luxembourg. Among them is Don Beyer, a former Virginia lieutenant governor who serves as ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein.
The list goes on HERE.
Related:
Top 20 Industry Money Recipients This Election Cycle – Who is in the back pocket of Wall Street? – LINK.
Top All-Time Donors, 1989-2012 – Hint: Most goes to Democrats – LINK.
Wall St. Made More Money In 2.5 Years Of Obama Than 8 Years Of Bush – LINK.
Corruption You Can Believe In: Failed Sub Primes and Mortgage Fraud Lenders Funneled Money to Dodd & Obama the Most. Fannie & Freddie Gave $200 Million to Partisans-Most Went to Democrats! Dodd, Obama Among Top Recipients. Republicans Attempted to Pass Reforms-Blocked by Democrat Leadership! – LINK.
Hypocrite! Elizabeth Warren Takes Wall Street Cash! – LINK.
Corruption: Most Stimulus Funds Spent in Democrat Districts – LINK.
The taxes Democrats propose to “soak the rich” always seem to miss those who they demagogue for not paying their fair share. They have been “soaking the rich” for decades and keep missing the target. Why? – LINK.
Gallup: Unemployment Up to 9.1%
Underemployment is 19.1%, up from 18.7% in January
In addition to the 9.1% of U.S. workers who are unemployed, 10.0% are working part time but want full-time work. This percentage is similar to the 10.1% in January, but is higher than the 9.6% of February 2011.
Political Arena 