The Health Care Crisis: Patriots For Responsible Government

Patriots For Responsible Government.

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Two Dems defect in NY Senate, control flips to GOP

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Two Dems defect in NY Senate, control flips to GOP.

If the republicans in the U.S. house and senate could just get some defections by democrats that are conservative and fiscally responsible, perhaps we could see some changes way before the expected time.   

posted at 4:45 pm on June 8, 2009 by Allahpundit

Yes, yes, the usual caveats about Rasmussen polls apply, but we do after all have some timely corroborating evidence on this.

I don’t want to freak out the HA faithful with uncharacteristic optimism but I’m starting to feel hope-y about this change-y.

This is the first time in over two years of polling that the GOP has held the advantage on this issue…

Republicans also now hold a six-point lead on the issue of government ethics and corruption, the second most important issue to all voters and the top issue among unaffiliated voters. That shows a large shift from May, when Democrats held an 11-point lead on the issue…

For the eighth straight month, Republicans lead on national security. The GOP now holds a 51% to 36% lead on the issue, up from a seven-point lead in May. They also lead on the war in Iraq 45% to 37%, after leading by just two points in May and trailing the Democrats in April…

Democrats continue to hold the lead on the issues of health care, Social Security and education. While Democrats have a 10-point advantage on health care, that’s down from the 18-point lead the party had a month ago.

Too good to check? I get why the Democrats’ lead on health-care might have eroded; the GOP’s congressional leadership and righty pundits have finally started to make some noise. I get why the national security spread might have widened too; thank Dick Cheney for that. What I don’t get is the spread on ethics. Why the huge swing? Murtha’s been in trouble lately for his lobbyist sleaze but that’s hardly a major national story. Pelosi’s hedging about waterboarding probably hurt but that would seem to speak more to national security than to a classic ethical issue. Smells like Rasmussen simply might have gotten a bum sample here. Am I wrong? Convince me, please; I want to believe. Exit quotation from via Frank Fleming: “If the GOP is smart, they should build on this to create or save a political party.”

U.N. Nuke Watchdog Finds ‘Manmade’ Uranium in Syria – International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News – FOXNews.com

U.N. Nuke Watchdog Finds ‘Manmade’ Uranium in Syria – International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News – FOXNews.com.

Friday, June 05, 2009 

The U.N. nuclear watchdog has discovered traces of “manmade” uranium at a second site in Syria, FOX News has confirmed, causing fresh concern about possible undeclared atomic activity in the Arab state.

The information comes from reports released Friday by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and will be taken up at the IAEA Board of Governors meeting set to begin in Vienna on June 15.

The IAEA has been examining U.S. intelligence reports that Syria had almost built a North Korean-designed nuclear reactor meant to yield bomb-grade plutonium before Israel bombed the facility in 2007.

Click here for more on rogue regimes pursuing nuclear weapons.

This latest report also confirms that Iran is boldly pursuing its own nuclear program. Iran has expanded the number of centrifuges enriching uranium to almost 5,000, making it harder for U.N. inspectors to keep track of the disputed nuclear program, according to an IAEA report obtained by Reuters.

The IAEA report also said Iran had increased its rate of production of low-enriched uranium material, boosting its stockpile by 500 kg to 1,339 kg in the past six months.

Most Western analysts believe Iran does not yet have the technology to produce nuclear weapons, including warheads for long-range missiles. The U.S. released an intelligence report about 19 months ago that said Iran abandoned a secret nuclear weapons program in 2003 under international pressure and has not restarted it.

Israel and several other countries have disputed the finding, but many in the West at least agree that Iran is seeking to develop the capability to develop weapons at some point. A group of U.S. and Russian scientists said in a report issued Tuesday, May 19, that Iran could produce a simple nuclear device in one to three years and a nuclear warhead in another five years after that.

The study published by the nonpartisan EastWest Institute also said Iran is making advances in rocket technology and could develop a ballistic missile capable of firing a 2,200-pound nuclear warhead up to 1,200 miles “in perhaps six to eight years.”

Related Stories

• Iran’s Former Nuclear Negotiator Slams Ahmadinejad, Calls Him ‘Demagogue’

Iran says its missile program is merely for defense and its space program is for scientific and surveillance purposes. It maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian energy uses only.

GOP seeks to trim stimulus, cut deficit – Washington Times

GOP seeks to trim stimulus, cut deficit – Washington Times.

Economy improves with billions unspent

By Donald Lambro (Contact) and S.A. Miller (Contact) | Monday, June 8, 2009

With the economy showing signs of recovery, fiscally conservative economists and Republican lawmakers are suggesting that the large unspent portion of the nearly $800 billion stimulus fund should be redirected to slash this year’s nearly $2 trillion annual deficit.

Democratic lawmakers, Obama administration officials and many economists doubt the wisdom of truncating the stimulus program so soon after it began. But Republican congressmen and economists who were not thrilled with the stimulus effort are increasingly calling for it to be foreshortened as a return to economic growth appears closer at hand.

Administration accounting shows that relatively little of the stimulus funds that would directly create jobs have been spent. The White House says $112 billion from the stimulus account has been spent or obligated. In addition, much if not most of the economic recovery expenditures have been spent to pay for state assistance, unemployment and Medicaid benefits, and other safety net programs that would create few if any new jobs.

Nevertheless, there are increasing reports that key sectors of the economy are beginning to show modest signs of recovery.

TWT RELATED STORY:
• Obama looks to ‘accelerate’ stimulus

Construction spending is up slightly for the second straight month, factory orders rose 0.7 percent in April, existing home sales were up three months in a row, and banks have begun raising capital again and showing signs of growth. These and other economic signals have sparked a rally on Wall Street that has raised stock values by more than 30 percent since March.

No one suggests the economy is out of the woods. The unemployment rate, always the last economic figure to show improvement in the aftermath of recessions, continues to climb, rising from 8.9 percent in April to 9.4 percent in May — though the figure of 345,000 jobs lost last month was sharply below economic forecasts and marked the fourth straight month that the pace of layoffs has slowed.

That is one of the reasons why top economists such as Ben S. Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve, see the pace of the nation’s economic contraction slowing and entering a recovery stage later this year. A survey of 45 economists by the National Association for Business Economics (NABE) Outlook reported late last month that the end of the recession is near.

“The good news is the NABE panel expects economic growth to turn positive in the second half of this year, with the pace of job losses narrowing sharply over the remainder of this year and employment turning up in early 2010,” NABE President Chris Varvares said. Nearly three out of four of the panel’s economists said they expected the recession would end by the third quarter.

But some economists think President Obama’s stimulus plan has had little if anything to do with the economy’s new signs of life, that a lot of the heavy lifting in the recovery is a result of actions taken by the Federal Reserve, and that once the recession ends, the remaining funds, estimated to be in the hundreds of billions of dollars next year, should be returned to the U.S. Treasury.

High court asked to block Chrysler sale – Washington Times

High court asked to block Chrysler sale – Washington Times.

Three Indiana pension funds and a collection of consumer groups Sunday asked the Supreme Court to block the sale of Chrysler to Italy’s Fiat, threatening a major component of President Obama’s plans to restructure the nation’s troubled automotive sector.

An appeals court in New York approved the sale Friday, but gave objectors until Monday afternoon to convince the Supreme Court to intervene.

Auburn Hills, Mich.-based Chrysler LLC wants to sell the bulk of its assets to a group led by Italy’s Fiat Group SpA as part of its plan to emerge from bankruptcy protection.

The emergency requests were sent to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who handles such matters from New York, where the case originated. She can act on her own or refer it to the entire court.

Federal bankruptcy Judge Arthur Gonzalez on May 31 approved the sale of most of Chrysler’s assets to Fiat.

The judge said in his ruling that a speedy sale was needed to keep the value of Chrysler from deteriorating and would provide a better return for the company’s stakeholders than if the country’s third-largest automaker had been forced to liquidate

But the Indiana State Police Pension Fund, the Indiana Teachers Retirement Fund and the state’s Major Moves Construction Fund argue that the sale unlawfully rewarded unsecured creditors, such as the union, ahead of secured lenders.

Attorneys for the funds also questioned the constitutionality of the Treasury Department’s use of money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to supply Chrysler’s bankruptcy protection financing.

The funds hold about $42 million of Chrysler’s $6.9 billion in secured loans.

Chrysler had argued that it would be forced to sell its assets piece by piece unless the sale to the Fiat Group SpA was approved.

Mr. Obama has pushed for Chrysler and fellow Detroit car maker General Motors to file for bankruptcy in a drastic attempt to restructure and resurrect the deeply troubled U.S. auto industry.

As part of Chrysler’s restructuring plan, a United Auto Workers retiree health care trust would receive a 55 percent stake in the new company, while Fiat would get a 20 percent stake that can increase to 35 percent.

The remaining 10 percent of the company would be owned by the U.S. and Canadian governments. Ottawa became involved because a significant portion of the Chrysler work force is Canadian.

The Chrysler case also could set a precedent for General Motors, which is using a similar quick-sale strategy in its bankruptcy in New York.

In the deal with GM, which filed for bankruptcy last week, the Treasury Department will hold an initial stake of 60 percent in GM.

In the days leading up to Chrysler’s Chapter 11 filing, the automaker struck a deal with the majority of secured lenders to give them $2 billion in cash, or 29 cents on the dollar, to erase the $6.9 billion in debt. But some of the debt holders protested, and the automaker was forced to file for bankruptcy protection April 30.

Chrysler — which has produced such iconic American “muscle cars” as the Plymouth GTX and Road Runner, as well as the Dodge pickup-truck line — has pledged to reinvent itself as a leaner company more responsive to U.S. consumer tastes, including an increasing appetite for smaller, more fuel-efficient models.

Fiat, Italy’s largest automaker, which produces a range of models from small “microcars” to high-end sports cars such as Ferrari and Maserati, has the option of pulling out if the deal does not close by June 15.

Treasury Plans Wider Oversight on Compensation – NYTimes.com

Treasury Plans Wider Oversight on Compensation – NYTimes.com.

By LOUISE STORY and ERIC DASH

 

Published: June 7, 2009

The Obama administration plans to require banks and corporations that have received two rounds of federal bailouts to submit any major executive pay changes for approval by a new federal official who will monitor compensation, according to two government officials.

Skip to next paragraph

Enlarge This Image

Doug Mills/The New York Times

Compensation is a minefield for President Obama and Timothy F. Geithner, the Treasury chief.

Related

Times Topics: Executive Pay | Kenneth R. Feinberg

 Back Story with The Times’s Louise Story

The proposal is part of a broad set of regulations on executive compensation expected to be announced by the administration as early as this week. Some of the rules are required by legislation enacted in the wake of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and they would apply only to companies that received taxpayer money.

Others, which are being described as broad principles, would set standards that the government would like the entire financial industry to observe as banks and other companies compensate their highest-paid executives, though it is not clear how stringent regulators will make them.

Citigroup, Bank of America, the American International Group, General Motors and its finance arm, GMAC, which all received two taxpayer infusions, will face the strictest scrutiny from the new federal official charged with vetting compensation, Kenneth R. Feinberg. He is known for overseeing payouts to the families of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

In the past, banks had free rein to determine the base salary and bonuses they awarded their employees. When the economy was riding high, bonuses for top Wall Street executives and traders soared to tens of millions of dollars. Critics say the bonuses often encouraged excessive risk-taking since star bankers could walk away with more money even if the bets they took failed to pay off.

But executive pay has been a delicate issue for the Obama administration and Congress, particularly since it was revealed that A.I.G., the recipient of at least $180 billion in taxpayer money, was handing out $165 million in bonuses. The episode left officials struggling with just how to balance public anger with compensation rules that would not put the industry at a competitive disadvantage or derail other economic recovery initiatives.

With the government handing out billions in bailouts, Congress passed legislation banning all companies that received support from the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, from paying their top 25 executives bonuses greater than a third of their salary, though they were not subject to specific salary cap.

 

The banking industry had been lobbying the Obama administration to exclude traders and other highflying salespeople from the top 25, fearing it would lose top talent to competitors not constrained by the rules of a taxpayer bailout. A number of bankers at Citigroup and Merrill Lynch have already fled to higher-paying jobs with rivals. But officials say that the guidelines will apply to the top 25 earners, including the traders.

Banks that received money from the relief program must also curb outsize severance packages, and pull back bonuses that were based on fraudulent or misstated results.

But without clear rules, many banks have been altering their compensation policies, with some ratcheting up salaries to get around the restrictions until the legislation was codified. The industry has eagerly awaited the fine print.

“Some of the provisions on the pay restrictions on relief TARP recipients are punitive, intended to emphasize that this is government money and we don’t you want you giving it to executives,” said Michael S. Melbinger, a lawyer at Winston & Strawn who specializes in executive compensation.

In a sign of how eager corporations are to escape government diktats on pay, at least nine of the nation’s biggest banks have asked to repay bailout money. The administration is expected to start granting approvals as early as Tuesday, allowing banks to leave the bailout program far earlier than many had envisioned. The early approvals are a sign that regulators and the banking industry believe that the worst of the crisis may have passed, even though the economy remains fragile.

Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and a handful of others have worked to rid themselves of their ties to the government in order to shed restrictions on pay that they say put them at a competitive disadvantage.

But under the administration’s new plans, even companies that repay the taxpayer money will not escape some form of oversight on their compensation structure.

“The industry has already adapted to the political and economic realities,” said Scott E. Talbott, the chief lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group made up of the nation’s biggest banks and insurance companies. “If they are draconian, they could put the financial services industry at a distinct disadvantage in attracting and retaining top personnel. If they are just principles, they will be redundant because the industry has already moved to connect employee compensation with the long-term health of the company.”

The set of broad pay principles being drafted by the Treasury Department would authorize regulators to tell a bank to alter its compensation arrangements if it is found to encourage too much risk-taking. It is not clear how the government will define too much risk.

According to the two government officials, the new principles will not include bonus restrictions, although they will encourage banks to set compensation in a way that avoids rewarding risk-taking through short-term bonus awards. They will apply to a broad swath of financial companies, even the United States operations of foreign banks, as well as private companies like hedge funds and private equity firms.

“This is the government trying to tell the TARP banks not to worry, because everyone else’s compensation will be monitored, too,” Gustavo Dolfino, president of the WhiteRock Group, a financial recruiter, said of the industrywide principles. “We’re in a world of TARP and non-TARP.”

The strictest oversight of all will come from Mr. Feinberg, the administration’s compensation czar, who will actively vet all executive compensation changes at the companies that have received more than one taxpayer lifeline.

On Thursday, the House Financial Services Committee will hold a hearing to examine how compensation practices contributed to the financial collapse and encouraged excessive risk-taking.

Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner plans to testify on compensation on June 18, and that may be when he outlines the principles for the entire industry. Those principles will be permanent: when bailed-out companies return the government money, they will still have to follow those principles.

Democrats Weigh Health Mandate as Obama Urges Taxing Wealthy – Bloomberg.com

The socialist plan is coming along nicely.  Tax the heck out of the rich, take away tax deductions, the wealthy stops contributing to charity since they have no incentives for giving, charities have to close, businesses have to fire people in order to pay these taxes; government have to grow larger in order to help these people that used to be helped by the charities and those that have been fired in order for the employees to be able to pay their taxes.

Democrats Weigh Health Mandate as Obama Urges Taxing Wealthy – Bloomberg.com.

By Laura Litvan and Ryan Donmoyer

June 7 (Bloomberg) — President Barack Obama wants Congress to consider taxing the wealthy instead of workers to pay for a health-care overhaul, as House Democrats discuss a plan to require health insurance for most Americans.

The Obama administration stepped up efforts to influence health-care legislation today as advisers David Axelrod and Austan Goolsbee appeared on television talk shows to discuss the issue.

The president is trying to avoid broad-based levies such as a Senate proposal to tax some employer-provided health benefits Axelrod said. Instead he is urging lawmakers to reconsider limiting all tax deductions for Americans in the highest tax brackets.

“He made a very strong case for the proposal that he put on the table, which was to cap deductions for high-income Americans, and he urged them to go back and look at that,” Axelrod said on the CNN’s “State of the Union.” Goolsbee, appearing on “Fox News Sunday,” said Obama is “mindful” about how “ordinary Americans are able to foot the bills” and never proposed taxing employee benefits.

House Democrats are weighing a new proposal in response to Obama’s call for legislation to be enacted by August. An outline of the plan obtained by Bloomberg News would require Americans to have insurance with some exceptions.

It would probably exempt those who can prove they can’t find an affordable policy. There could be a tax penalty for those with adequate financial resources who don’t elect to get insurance, according to the outline.

Group Rates

The outline suggests consumers who have individual health insurance policies that they like could keep them. Still, it says that “by and large” the nation’s market for individually purchased health insurance policies would move to a new federally operated exchange. It would permit both individuals and employees of small firms to buy policies at less expensive group rates.

“States will have the option to run a state exchange but the default will be a national exchange,” according to the outline.

Karen Lightfoot, a spokeswoman for House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat whose panel is working on a proposal, said the document that is circulating is not the official work of the committee.

All House Democrats will be briefed June 9 on the details of a single piece of legislation that three House committees will work on, with the House slated to act by the end of July. The proposal is part of a broader push by Democrats in Congress to complete a revamp of the U.S. health-care system by an early fall timetable set by Obama.

Kennedy’s Approach

In the Senate, health committee chairman Edward Kennedy has an early draft of legislation that also includes a so-called “individual mandate,” and would require all employers to supply health insurance for workers or contribute to the cost of a plan.

Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat, would also create a public health plan to compete with private insurers, a priority of Obama’s that is opposed by Republicans, and would bar insurers from limiting coverage.

The effort to overhaul health-care would affect a sector that makes up 17 percent of the U.S. economy. The goal of Democratic supporters is to provide insurance to most of the nation’s 46 million uninsured, and lower the soaring cost of care. A key challenge is the potential impact of legislation on an already rising U.S. budget deficit that may reach $1.8 trillion this year.

Axelrod, speaking on CNN today, said the ultimate goal of legislation is to reduce costs.

“We have to bring down the cost of health care,” he said. “If we do that and make it affordable, people are going to buy it, mandate or no mandate.”

Burdens on Business

Google Inc. Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, speaking on Fox, said reducing costs would also ease burdens on business.

“The only way to really address this is to address the combination of coverage and cost,” Schmidt said. “So anything that the Congress and the president does has to do that. And from my perspective, the sooner the better.”

“You won’t fundamentally solve the problems in business until you solve the problem of spiraling health-care costs, which is driving everybody crazy,” he added.

Lawmakers have a plethora of proposals to raise the hundreds of billions estimated to be needed for an overhaul, including new taxes on soda, beer, and wine, and a partial tax on employer-provided health insurance for the first time. The tax-free nature of employer-provided insurance is the biggest tax expenditure in the federal budget.

Taxing Cap Deductions

Obama’s own proposal would set a 28 percent cap on tax deductions for items such as mortgage interest, investment expenses and charitable gifts for Americans in the two highest tax brackets, which would be 36 percent and 39.6 percent under his proposals. Without the cap, they would be able to deduct 36 cents and 39.6 cents on the dollar for those expenses, respectively.

Obama also proposes new taxes on securities dealers and life insurers, and to raise revenue by prohibiting certain estate-planning techniques.

House Democrats intend, like Kennedy, to include a new government program to provide health-care to a portion of the uninsured who don’t already qualify for Medicare or Medicaid, according to the outline.

While the lawmakers continue working out the details, they intend the new program to operate through the exchange and for both the public program and private insurance policies to have the same basic benefits.

Helping the Poor

House Democrats want to improve the Medicaid health-care system for the poor, including a uniform benefits package and “improved” provider payments. They are weighing whether to add people who are near the poverty level to Medicaid or to provide subsidies to allow them to purchase their own policies.

The plan would place new restrictions on private insurers, including a bar on excluding coverage for those with “pre- existing conditions.”

The legislation would seek to get some cost savings from Medicare and Medicaid, including incentives for doctors to coordinate their care and get bonuses for improving quality, according to the outline.

To contact the reporter on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: June 7, 2009 13:43 EDT

Internet radio host Hal Turner arrested | KansasCity.com Prime Buzz

Acorn didn’t get arrested when bus loads of them stormed the AIG employees homes to harass them. 

Internet radio host Hal Turner arrested | KansasCity.com Prime Buzz.

(c) 2009, The Hartford Courant

 Internet radio host Hal Turner — accused of inciting Catholics to “take up arms” and singling out two Connecticut lawmakers and a state ethics official on a Web site — was taken into custody in New Jersey late Wednesday after state Capitol police in Connecticut obtained a warrant for his arrest.

Turner, who has been identified as a white supremacist and anti-Semite by several anti-racism groups, hosts an Internet radio program with an associated blog. On Tuesday, the blog included a post that promised to release the home addresses of state Rep. Michael Lawlor, state Sen. Andrew McDonald and Thomas Jones of the State Ethics Office.

 “Mr. Turner’s comments are above and beyond the threshold of free speech,” Capitol Police Chief Michael J. Fallon said in an e-mail announcing the warrant. “He is inciting others through his Web site to commit acts of violence and has created fear and alarm. He should be held accountable for his conduct.”

 The remarks on the blog were a reaction to the recent controversy over a Connecticut bill that would have changed the way the Roman Catholic Church is governed, taking power away from church officials and turning it over to lay members. It was pulled in mid-March following an outcry from Catholics across the state and questions about its constitutionality.

 Last week, the controversy flared again when the Diocese of Bridgeport filed a federal lawsuit against state ethics officials, who are investigating whether church officials violated lobbying laws by organizing a rally at the state Capitol to protest the measure earlier this spring and not registering as lobbyists. 

The blog of the “Turner Radio Network” recounted the matter, then included the following remarks in a section labeled “commentary“: “It is our intent to foment direct action against these individuals personally. These beastly government officials should be made an example of as a warning to others in government: Obey the Constitution or die.” 

The post continued: “If any state attorney, police department or court thinks they’re going to get uppity with us about this, I suspect we have enough bullets to put them down, too.” 

Turner has been branded a racist by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League. Elsewhere on the blog, the recent fatal shooting of a Kansas abortion provider is called “a righteous act.” 

The blog said the “Hal Turner Show” would publicize the home addresses of the Connecticut officials Wednesday night, but Turner, 47, of North Bergen, N.J., was taken into custody before that could happen.

Turner was accused in the warrant of inciting injury to persons or property and will be presented in a New Jersey courthouse Thursday for extradition to Connecticut.

Bishop William E. Lori of the Bridgeport diocese issued a statement on his blog Wednesday that thanked parishioners for supporting the lawsuit and denounced violence.

“We deplore and condemn hateful language and advocacy of violence of any kind,” Lori wrote. “Such speech is contrary to the civil and respectful discourse that reflects the Christian values we hold so dear.”

Submitted by Bill Dalton on June 4, 2009 – 2:59pm.