Category Archives: Politics: National

This Guy, The Incredulity

Posted on April 17, 2013 | Leave a comment

Barack Obama

Tonight Obama loses.  The rest of us…?  Mixed bag.  There were good things in the gun bill that was defeated, but there were others not so good.

But Obama?

After the vote, a defiant Obama appeared in the White House Rose Garden with former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), Vice President Biden and family members of victims in last year’s Newtown, Conn., shooting rampage, which killed 20 children.

A visibly irritated Obama ripped the GOP and groups that opposed the Manchin-Toomey amendment, saying they “willfully lied” about the contents of the background-check bill. He added that the vote represented a “pretty shameful day for Washington.”

Having lied his way through the Obamacare debate, I find it ironic that The Barackness Monster would feel shocked, just SHOCKED I tell you, that someone lied.

As if.

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Obamacare – That Plan You Can’t Keep

Posted on April 10, 2013 | 4 comments

Barack Obama

We’re getting closer and closer to full implementation of Obamacare.  Remember this doozy?

If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.

That was Barack Obama touting his new health care legislation.

The truth?

Most individual health insurance isn’t good enough for Obamacare

Just over half of the individual plans currently on the market do not meet the standards to be sold next year, when many key provisions of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act kick in, according to a University of Chicago study. That’s because the law sets new minimums for the basic coverage every individual health care plan must provide.

…

So what happens to the plans that don’t meet the new minimum standards? They will likely disappear. A handful of existing plans will be grandfathered in, but the qualifying criteria for that is hard to meet: Members have to have been enrolled in the plan before the ACA passed in 2010, and the plan has to have maintained fairly steady co-pay, deductible and coverage rates until now.

Look for more awesomeness to come.

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Housing Bubble – Government Creation?

Posted on April 10, 2013 | 4 comments

Housing Bubble

With Obama’s announcement that he is interested in creating conditions that will lead to another housing bubble, it’s interesting to go back and revisit the conditions that led to the most recent bubble.

It has long been my position that it was the government that was responsible for the conditions that created the housing bubble that burst in 2007.  That it was the government’s role in pushing home ownership levels to higher and higher values that eventually led to the condition where people who couldn’t afford homes finally began to default resulting in the crisis.  A crisis that we haven’t truly recovered from.

To be sure, there were private industry players that contributed to the crisis.  There were vehicles that were created that also led to that crisis.  But, in the end, it was the government’s desire to increase home ownership among lower income and “at-risk” households that drove the poor behavior of those private individuals and the creation of those vehicles.

Not everyone agrees with me.  In fact, blog favorite Scott Erb often takes me to task, most recently in the comments of the above post.  More specifically, he’s pointed me to a book that he claims supports his position: “All The Devils Are Here”.

As part of my attempt to make MY case, I’ll be quoting from this book in an effort to show that it was government goals that was the genesis of the whole meltdown.

Here’s the first such example:

Here’s a surprising fact: it was the government, not Wall Street, that first securitized modern mortgages.  Ginnie Mae came first, selling securities beginning in 1970 that consisted of FHA and VA loans, and guaranteeing the payment of principal and interest.  A year later, Freddie Mac issued the first mortgage-backed securities using conventional mortgages, also with principal and interest guaranteed.    In doing so, it was taking on the risk that the borrower might default , while transferring the interest rate risk from the S&L to a third party party: investors.  Soon, Freddie was using Wall Street to market its securities.  Volume grew slowly.  It was not a huge success.

In the example above, it would be my position that the government created the conditions that eventually led to Wall Street marketing those loans in the early 70’s.  Did Wall Street actors engage and participate in the process?  Sure, it’s clear they did.  Were they all above board?  Perhaps but likely not.  However, the initial push, the lighting that struck primordial mud and created carbon life was government.

And it’s my case that the same thing happened long ago that resulted in the crash of 2006-2007.

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Posted in Government, Politics: National

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When Government Agencies Communicate

Posted on April 6, 2013 | 2 comments

Handcuffs

I was over at Poison Your Mind today discussing benefits when I remembered this proposition introduced by republicans here in North Carolina:

Raleigh, N.C. — County Departments of Social Service would be required to conduct criminal background checks on those applying for federal benefits under a bill that cleared the House Health and Human Services Committee on Tuesday.

If someone applying for Food and Nutrition Assistance, what many people call food stamps, or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, which are cash payments, is found to have an outstanding warrant, social service workers would be required to report them to local law enforcement under House Bill 392.

“Local law enforcement and all county agencies should work together to keep the public as safe as possible,” said Rep. Dean Arp, R-Union. He said federal law already prohibits benefits from going to fleeing felons and parole and probation violators.

The fact that this isn’t already the case, that it requires a law to make that conversation takes place, comes from a mindset that entitlement benefits should be extended to as many people as possible in amounts that should have no upper limit and have no brake in place that would conceive of an ending to these benefits.

As I mentioned at PYM, I can acknowledge a contract between the state and the individual.  A contract that says society will take care of you if you take care of society.

This contract, perhaps only implicit, requires an acknowledgement that if you commit crimes against society, that society can take steps to discourage that behavior.

And among those first steps is the denying of charity.

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Posted in Government, Liberty, Politics: National

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Mark Sanford

Posted on April 2, 2013 | 1 comment

Mark Sanford

I’m dramatically less interested in Mark Sanford than I was 4 years ago.  Remember, back then Sanford was an up and coming republican star.  Two term governor of a southern red state.  In my mind, he was on the short list of the top contenders for the 2012 ballot.

The came Argentina and the Appalachian Trail.

Sanford rightly was banished from American politic and finished his term in disgrace.  Many, me included, thought that his career was over.

Well, not yet:

Former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) has won his House primary runoff, setting up a high-profile special election against businesswoman Elizabeth Colbert Busch (D), the sister of comedian Stephen Colbert.

Sanford led attorney Curtis Bostic (R) by 57 to 43 percent as of 8:40 p.m., with 96 percent of precincts reporting. The Associated Press has called the race.

The win is the latest step in Sanford’s rehabilitation after an extramarital affair derailed his political career in 2009 — but his biggest test lies ahead in the Republican-leaning district.

Since he has mounted his comeback, Sanford is 2 for 2.  He “won” the first runoff but failed to obtain the 50% he needed to avoid the second runoff.  And he won this one going away.

The first PPP polling shows the race a toss-up:

PPP’s first look at the special election in South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District finds a toss up race. Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch leads Republican Mark Sanford 47-45 and ties Curtis Bostic at 43.

This is a Republican leaning district and Barack Obama’s approval rating in it is only 41% with 57% of voters disapproving of him. But Democrats are far more unified than the Republicans are. Busch is winning 87-89% of the Democratic vote while Sanford (76%) and Bostic (72%) are both earning less than 80% of the GOP vote. Busch is also up by 16-18 points with independent voters.

…

Focusing in on the potential race between Busch and Sanford it’s surprisingly close for one simple reason- voters like Busch and they continue to strongly dislike Sanford. 45% of voters see Busch favorably to only 31% with a negative opinion. On the other hand Sanford is still stuck with a 34% favorability rating and 58% of voters seeing him in a negative light.

I’m betting that right now, Sanford is experiencing his lowest polling numbers of the election.  He’s a veteran of 5 winning elections and is unlikely to make an unforced error.  Further, every single skeleton has likely been exposed.  I’m guessing that he wins relatively easily.

What this means in the larger picture however, is kinda ho-hum.  The seat was republican and, as I mentioned, will probably stay republican.  Both senators are republican and are unlikely to turn blue anytime soon.  He’ll probably never hold the governor’s mansion again, so I don’t see much upside for him outside of his house seat.

Then again……

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Obamacare and Cost Savings

Posted on April 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

health care

Remember when proponents of Obamacare told us that government run health care models were better than private ones because they wouldn’t have to spend money on things like profit?

Or marketing?

So far California has received $910 million in federal grants to launch its new health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”).

The California exchange, “Covered California,” has so far awarded a $183 million contract to Accenture to build the website, enrollment, and eligibility system and another $174 million to operate the exchange for four years.

The state will also spend $250 million on a two-year marketing campaign.

Two hundred fifty million on marketing.

Not to mention the $143 million extra to start the thing:

Privately funded Esurance began its multi-product national web business in 1998 with an initial $5.5 million round of venture fund investment in 1999 and a second round of $34 million a few months later.

I’m not sure that we’ll ever be able to fix this thing we call Obamacare.  But it sure is gonna cost us if we don’t.

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Gay Marriage And States Rights

Posted on March 27, 2013 | 15 comments

Gay Marriage

Watching the story surrounding the arguments before the Supreme Court is fascinating.  I love hearing the back and forth not only among the partisans but the “experts” as well.

Some thoughts.

I love President Obama being called out:

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and some of the other more conservative justices expressed irritation that the case was before them at all and said President Obama’s stance – to enforce the law but not defend it – contradicted itself.

“I don’t see why he doesn’t have the courage of his convictions” and not enforce the law if he thinks it is unconstitutional, the chief justice said.

This goes to the decision by the President that the law was unconstitutional and that his Justice Department wouldn’t defend the law in court.  However, Obama is still enforcing the law and when the law was struck down by a lower court, Obama appealed it to the Supreme Court.

 Then, I never would have thought I’d see the day when a liberal Justice would appeal to the concept of state’s rights:

“It’s not as though there’s this little federal sphere … you’d be really diminishing what the state has said is marriage,” Ginsburg said.

I think that if Ginsburg rules DOMA unconstitutional because of state’s rights, the left is going to have a hard time fighting state efforts to ban gay marriage.

As for me, I think that gay marriage is protected federally in the same way that interracial marriage is protected federally.

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Posted in Liberty, Politics: National

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There Are No Journalists Anymore: Version 12,567

Posted on March 27, 2013 | Leave a comment

AP

I’m sure there are example on both sides of the ideology spectrum; right and left.

But this one’s a doozy:

RICHMOND, Va. –  Gov. Bob McDonnell has signed legislation into law that will require voters to carry photo identification with them to the polls, starting next year in Virginia.

Virginia joins four other states that have strict photo ID requirements in place for elections, an action Democrats decried as a Jim Crow-era tactic to suppress the votes of the elderly, minorities and the underprivileged.

“This is merely a continuation of attempts by Republicans to suppress the vote of individuals who are not likely to support their right-wing agenda. I guess it’s true that if you can’t win elections the right way, cheat,” said Sen. Mamie Locke, D-Hampton and chairman of the Virginia Legislative Black Caucus.

Republican majorities in the Virginia House and Senate pushed the bill to passage one year after a more modest GOP-sponsored voter identification law failed to prevent President Barack Obama from winning Virginia for the second presidential election in a row and a Democratic U.S. Senate victory.

Serious.

I think it is entirely fair to point out that one side, one team, feels the republicans are pushing this law through for the exact reasons mentioned above.  I have no issue with that.  And, in fact, that point was made by inserting the quote from Locke.  And further in the article, next paragraph, the reporter points out that republicans have their reasons for passing the law.

But the editorial section is totally out of line.

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Wealth Inequality In America

Posted on March 21, 2013 | Leave a comment

income disparity

The Youtube video is viral, you have to have seen it.  I’ve seen it posted at least a dozen times.  The one about wealth inequal — yeah, you saw the title.

Anyway, listen to what the narrator says at about minute 1:40 through 2:30

The money line is at 2:25

And let’s distribute it, among our 100 Americans.  Well-here’s socialism; all the wealth of the country distributed equally.

Now, for a long time I’ve noticed that the left has critiqued the right for the incorrect use of the term “socialism”.  And I’ve largely agreed with them that the term has been used incorrectly.  The argument that they haven’t been able to identify a word that means “redistribution of wealth” doesn’t change the fact that socialism really means the state ownership of production.

But this is the first time I can remember an actor of the left using the term in the way someone from the right would.

Interesting.

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Obamacare Is Here

Posted on March 21, 2013 | 2 comments

health care

I saw an article that democrats no longer feel that Obamacare can effectively be used against them as a weapon.  In essence, the law is here to stay and it is what it is.

I wonder if folks working at CVS knew what was in store:

In the wake of the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, CVS is telling its employees they need to reveal their height, weight, body fat percent and other personal information for health insurance purposes.

The Rhode Island-based company, which employs around 200,000 individuals, is telling workers who use its health insurance they need to have a wellness review done — or pay up.

…

The idea is to incentivize healthy living. CVS says the idea is nothing new.

“The idea of an employee wellness plan is perfectly legal under the ADA. Courts held up these plans,” said Joshua Kersey, a Tampa labor attorney. He says with “Obamacare” looming in 2014, practices like this wellness review are likely to become more common, because a lot of employers are expecting to pay more for their workers’ health insurance.

“The more money it’s going to save the employer, the more incentive the employer has to affect these types of programs,” he said.

In CVS’s case, workers not comfortable getting the review done will have to pay a $600 annual penalty.

Subject yourself to the wellness plan or face $600 in penalties.

This is the face of “free” healthcare.

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