Romney, the son of a politician, has been running for office, holding office or thinking about running for office for more than two decades. “Just level with the American people,” Gingrich growled. “You’ve been running … at least since the 1990s.”

For some reason, Romney can’t do that. Or at least it seems like he can’t. His authentic inauthenticity problem isn’t going away. And it’s sapping enthusiasm from the rank and file.

Goldberg is right, but the underlying theme that voters need to be reminded of is that during so many important debates fromhealthcare, jobs, Wall Street Reform, confirmations, recess appointments, to taxes the culprits to invoke cloture or side with the Democrats typically are the same:  Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe,  and Scott Brown–the trifecta of RINOs. All from the northeast, too.  See where I’m going with this?

Frankly, Romney, who the mainstream liberal media would like to see win the nomination, has yet to unite the GOP base.  His used car salesman pitch simply rubs people the wrong way.  We’ve seen this over and over again–even John McCain pointed this out and won in 2007′s primary–and now supports him–that should speak volumes to my point.  Romney has always been dogged by this and this is why we have such a large ‘Not Romney’ camp on the right side of the aisle.

The GOP is also paying the bitter price for not having anyone in line to succeed GW Bush.  The party’s internal tug of war will be an historical teachable moment and prepare the party for future elections.  The one saving grace is that, while the Democrats have Hillary, they have no one to succeed her at this point in time.  I say Hillary because she seems to be the only power broker left untarnished by Obama–even though she is an Alinsky kinda girl.

Additionally, the GOP presidential candidate will have a two-pronged mission as the nominee:  to beat the MSM and Obama.  However, enlightened voters now know for sure the media is mostly state-controlled, Obama was never vetted, and that his radical leftist ideology drives his policies, appointments, and regulations out of the mainstream.

Furthermore, the MSM needs Romney to offset Obama.  The formula is quite simple:  RomneyCare is to ObamaCare as Obama’s rhetoric is to Romney’s rhetoric all of which cancel each other out according to how the media sees it.

I’m not buying the media hype over who can beat Obama.  The primary is the primary and the game changes in the general.  Voters are more inclined to vote with their wallets.  We have gas prices averaging at almost $4 per gallon across the country, skyrocketing food prices, record foreclosures, record number of people on food stamps, high unemployment, ObamaCare, crippling regulations, and much more.  So if the MSM thinks that the historic 2010 midterm GOP wave was a whim, think again.  The Right accomplished its key mission of splitting the Congress so that Obama’s agenda could not be rammed through anymore.  Would we have liked the Senate, sure, but in 2012, the job will be finished.  My point is that who do we really want in the Oval Office?  A northeastern Republican who disavows the GOP or not.  We already have someone who does not have the consent of the governed.  Are we really going to take that risk again?

Finally, Romney has always touted RomneyCare as a great model for all the states to implement, but the reality is, the only person who implemented RomneyCare was Obama and now we have ObamaCare.  No thanks.

Sensenbrenner was overheard saying that after buying all their “crap” (his word) a woman approached him and praised first lady Michelle Obama. He told the woman that Michelle should practice what she preaches — “she lectures us on eating right while she has a large posterior herself.”

This guy has been around long enough to know that you can’t be saying things like that in a public place. And it’s not a very smart line of attack, either, given that Sensenbrenner isn’t particlarly svelte himself. Predictably, he did the right thing and quickly issued a public, formal apology to Mrs. Obama. But what about his complaint regarding the First Lady’s push for young people to be more healthy?

It’s true that Michelle Obama has been very publicly active in health initiatives, particularly regarding children. Whether it’s organizing a record breaking jumping jacks event, visiting school lunch programs or pushing her Let’s Move initiative, she always seems to be up to something. But none of these really affect legislation or carry any power of the long arm of the government over individual citizens. Even the much maligned “My Plate” program – replacing the food pyramid – was a product of the Department of Agriculture who were under no obligation to adopt her ideas.

Also, she’s far from first First Lady to get involved in such activities. Until the second half of the 20th century the wives of presidents largely acted as hostesses for social events in addition to taking care of their husbands and children. Jaqueline Kennedy was quoted as saying her major role was, “to take care of the President” and added that “if you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much.” She did have an extensive interest in culture and the arts though, and is credited with adding a large number of sculptures and paintings to the White House collection.

After Kennedy, First Ladies seemed to get a lot more involved. Lady Bird Johnson created a Committee for a More Beautiful Capital, with the intent of planting lots of flowers and plants and generally beautifying Washington. (And later, the rest of the country.) Pat Nixon had an initiative to encourage people to perform more volunteer work and Betty Ford traveled the country raising awareness about breast cancer. Nancy Reagan used her time in the White House to lead an international push against drug and alcohol addiction among young people, while both Barbara Bush and Laura Bush actively pushed education in America as their own personal agenda items.

But, again, none of these were areas where the presidents’ wives were actively sticking their noses into the machinery of the government and the business of the people. The only high profile exception to this (and a notable, odious one at that) was Hillary Clinton and her ham handed attempts to insert herself into the health care reform legislative process. And we all know how that worked out.

So for any other members of Congress who may be considering it, no matter how much you like your double bacon cheeseburgers, (and I’m with you 100% on that) going after the First Lady in any fashion is probably a pretty bad move. It’s bad politics and it’s weak in terms of any sort of legal argument. And, most obviously, making remarks about the dimension of her “posterior” is totally off the menu. (Pun intended.)

Defiant Republicans pushed legislation through the House Tuesday night that would keep alive Social Security payroll tax cuts for some 160 million Americans at President Barack Obama’s request—but also would require construction of a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline that has sparked a White House veto threat. [Emphasis added]

Passage, on a largely party-line vote of 234-193, sent the measure toward its certain demise in the Democratic-controlled Senate, triggering the final partisan showdown of a remarkably quarrelsome year of divided government.

So, the Republicans accede to the president’s request but are still somehow the bad guys because there are strings attached, in this case Obama’s signing off on the Keystone XL pipeline. Even if you accept opponents’ arithmetic—that the project will create 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, not 100,000 or more as supporters are claiming—it still reduces dependence on foreign oil. Besides, the bill contains other sweeteners, including another round of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed.

But nothing will stave off the measure’s “certain demise in the Democratic-controlled Senate,” whose leader, Harry Reid, dismissed the pipeline provision as “ideological candy” for the Tea Party set.

Oh, and did I neglect to mention that the government is facing another shutdown on Friday? With the two parties in Congress locked in a stalemate, Democrats, at the president’s urging, are holding up a $1 trillion omnibus bill to fund government for the balance of the fiscal year that began on October 1.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday:

We’ve got a bipartisan agreement on a number of appropriation bills, and the president presumably—in order to create some political issue, which I find difficult to understand—has instructed Democratic senators not to sign the conference report on a bill they support.

A question that naturally arises is when will the liberal-left media, not to mention Democratic leaders in Congress, declare that their own party and the president are holding the government hostage? That is what they did in April, when a governmental shutdown was looming because Republicans, in the words ofDemocratic Whip Steny Hoyer, refused “to compromise on their divisive social agenda.”

Related Articles

• The GOP payroll tax cut proposal as viewed by the party of gorilla dust
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• Jon Stewart: Obama has gone from “Yes, we can” to “You know, whatever” (Video)

The poll gauged popular interest in six headline topics, including:

• the Penn State child abuse scandal that cost coaching legend Joe Paterno his job;
• the economy;
• the 2012 elections;
• the anti-Wall Street protests;
• the announcement that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear legal challenges to last year’s health care reform law;
• the inability of the bipartisan deficit committee to reach a consensus on where to make needed cuts.

The poll found that only 3% followed the news of the deficit panel’s implosion as compared with 27% who followed the ongoing Penn State child sex abuse saga. The second most followed news topic was the economy, at 15%, even though it received only a fourth as much coverage by the media as the collegiate sex scandal.

One might argue that the ostensible apathy toward the budget committee’s failure was more a function of Americans’ weariness over ongoing bad economic news, but as noted earlier the economy as a topic continues to have legs. A more plausible explanation is that many news junkies understood that the committee by design was set up to fail and found the news unsurprising.

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Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

The new tool is picking up some traction in the media already.

Those who download WhipCast will receive the full text of legislation before it is considered on the House floor, the House floor vote schedule, alerts on key votes coming up in the House, and more, all at their fingertips on their iPad, iPhone, Blackberry, or Android.

Downloading this first-of-its-kind app is fast, easy and free, and can be used on almost any mobile device. All you have to do is go to the app store on your iPad, iPhone, Blackberry or Android device and type in ‘WhipCast,’ or, just click on link of the device you’re using right here and it will take you straight to the store to download

Here’s a video that explains more if you’re thinking of installing this.

CBS News explains how the Botox-laden, swamp-draining, small business-stiffing Pelosi made her millions:

The former speaker and her husband have participated in at least eight IPOs, one of which was from Visa in 2008 – just as a troublesome piece of legislation that would have hurt credit card companies began making its way through the House. The Pelosis purchased 5,000 shares of Visa at the initial price of $44 dollars. Two days later it was trading at $64.

…this stock purchase was made as Visa was engaged in a full-court press to lobby Pelosi to stop legislation to curb credit-card swipe fees to vendors.

In 2007, Visa used an army of lobbyists to try to influence Pelosi, including one of her former advisers, Dean Aguillen… In addition to exploiting the revolving door between Congress and lobbying firms, Visa’s political action committee made a $1,000 donation to Pelosi’s re-election campaign… Two days after that donation was made, Pelosi met with Visa executives in her office. Aguillen also contributed $1,000 to Pelosi and another $1,000 to the campaign arm of the House Democratic caucusin the first half of 2008.

Dave Del Dotto could not be reached for comment at press time.

Related:

• Caller to Mark Levin Show Describes How Nancy Pelosi and her Husband Abuse Their Power to Stiff Small Business
• Gallery of Twitches: Stop-Action Photos of Nancy Pelosi as She Faces Blistering Questions

Hat tip: Ace.

He spoke of it again last month, at a meeting of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, where he said:

I wish I had a magic wand and could make this all happen on my own. There are times where—until Nancy Pelosi is speaker again—I’d like to work my way around Congress. [Emphasis added]

A troubling headline this morning suggests that the president intends to grant his own wish. Reuters reports that the White House this week will “announce a series of actions to help the economy that will not require congressional approval, including an initiative to make it easier for homeowners to refinance their mortgages.” The first of these announcements will come later today as Obama begins a three-day swing through western states (taxpayer-funded, bien sûr).

There will also be “a student loan initiative,” details of which will be unveiled on Wednesday. How timely—and how cynical! A student loan bailout is at the top of the anti-Wall Street protesters’ agenda. What better way to win back the hearts and minds of youth-set voters as an election approaches?

How Obama intends to make good on his initiatives remains to be seen. Reuters outlines one of the strategies:

The Obama administration has been working with the Federal Housing Finance Agency, the regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, to find ways to make it easier for borrowers to switch to cheaper loans even if they have little to no equity in their homes. [Emphasis added]

The FHFA intends to loosen the terms of the two-year-old Home Affordable Refinance Program (HARP), which helps borrowers who have been making mortgage payments on time but who have not been able to refinance as their home values have dropped.

Obviously, accomplishing this goal requires forcing lenders who have been dragging their feet to get with the program and issue a new round of high-risk loans. What could possibly go wrong?

As for Congress (remember them?), White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer is quoted as telling The New York Times, “The only way we can truly attack our economic challenges is with bold, bipartisan action in Congress.” In the same breath, Pfeiffer states:

The president will continue to pressure Congressional Republicans to put country before party and pass the American Jobs Act, but he believes we cannot wait, so he will act where they won’t.

Sounds like a plan to me.

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Naturally, this being a special election, Weprin has not yet conceded defeat even though 86 percent of precincts have now reported and show Turner with 54% of the vote to Weprin’s 46%.

So how will this play out in Obamaland? As Ed writes this morning, the lovely and talented DNC chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, is explaining away the loss by claiming “It’s a very difficult district for Democrats.” As Bill Clinton himself might parse, “Depends how you define difficult.”

Needless to say, the real spin doctors have yet to appear in print and on the small screen to explain how the loss of the seat is not a repudiation of the president’s position on Israel, especially his observation in May that the Jewish state should return to its pre-1967 borders.

In the meantime, one indisputable fact facing Democrats and especially congressional campaign leader Steve Israel is that they squandered more than $500,000 on a losing effort to prop up Weprin when the money could have gone to other needy Democratic contenders.

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Mindful of this ageless wisdom, I will say therefore that Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN) is a man who has the courage of his convictions. Unfortunately for Carson—and even more so for those who may be inspired to action by his words—his convictions are sorely in need of work.

After telling a crowd at a Congressional Black Caucus event in Miami that Tea Partiers want to see blacks “hanging on a tree,” Carson stood back from his incendiary words and carefully reassessed them.

Then, in the cool light of day, his passions in check, the congressman appeared on CNN, where he said, “I stand on the truth of what I spoke.”

So Carson truly believes that the Tea Partiers on Congress would “love to see [blacks] as second-class citizens” and want to turn the clock back to the era of Jim Crow.

I realize that Carson is not alone in these absurd notions, but as a member of Congress, his remarks seem to carry the weight of the federal government. “Official” pronouncements like his and those of his fellow CBC members are apt to resonate more in the black community than the views of garden variety community leaders. If their words result in bloodshed, let it be on their heads.

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The video requires little introduction, though one remark is worth singling out. It is a question posed by Rep. Al Green approximately three minutes in when he asks his audience, “Will we allow a minority voices [sic] to speak for the majority?” Wasn’t the entire raison d’etre for the civil rights movement to give the minority an equal voice in the public square and in government? Is it not at least mildly ironic to hear a member of the minority that spearheaded that movement now call for the silencing of another “minority”?

It appears that these lawmakers understand the actual threat the Tea Party poses—namely, a retrenching of the government handouts that help these politicians win reelection by keeping their constituents down.

Will the president call on his colleagues in the legislature to tone down their inflammatory rhetoric? Somehow, I’m not all that optimistic.

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• When Maxine Waters criticizes the Tea Party, she may as well be standing in front of a mirror

Follow me on Twitter or join me at Facebook. You can reach me at howard.portnoy@gmail.com or by posting a comment below.

Congressman Michael Burgess (R-TX and yes, he is also Dr. Burgess) questioned Secretary Sebelius on several key factors, including the unelected 15-person panel, their potential recess appointments to avoid Senate confirmation, and the ultimate effects of this panel in reshaping the health care system.  Burgess does not let Sebelius off the hook, but pushes her on the IPAB’s power and lack of judicial oversight. The entire exchange is worth watching:

Sebelius touts that the IPAB is only a “fail-safe” and only makes recommendations if Congress does not act:

But Sebelius was defiant against claims that IPAB risks usurping the power of Congress to make changes to Medicare. “All final decisions remain in the hands of Congress,” Sebelius said in her prepared statement. “If Medicare costs are rising at an unsustainable rate, it’s Congress’s choice whether to accept those recommendations, or come up with recommendations of its own to put Medicare spending on a stable, sustainable path.” She reiterated her argument from yesterday’s Budget hearing that IPAB serves as a “backstop to ensure Medicare remains solvent for years to come.”

However, former OMB Director Peter Orszag has a quite different analysis regarding the IPAB with this interview, highlighted by Naked Emperor News for Breitbart TV:

Orszag clearly emphasizes ”[the IPAB] has an enormous amount of potential power.”  Orszag goes on to explain, “The proposals take effect automatically unless Congress, not only specifically votes them down, but Congress specifically votes them down (with 67 votes) and the President signs that bill. So, the default is now switched in a very important way.”

Orszag has repeated this in other forums stating that the IPAB was the most important part of ObamaCare (all emphasis mine):

The Medicare Commission, or Independent Payment Advisory Board, would have the power to override Congress if it rejected cuts to the entitlements programme for seniors, said Mr Orszag, a key architect of the reforms signed into law this week.

“This could well turn out to be as consequential for health policy as Federal Reserve policy was for monetary policy,” he said in an FT View from DC video interview. “The commission will put its proposals forward and if Congress does not act on them, or if it votes them down and the president then vetoes that bill, they will automatically take effect. Huge change.”

So, who is right?  Sebelius or Orszag?  My money is on Orszag. The fact is that no matter what Congress does, the IPAB will always have a way to enforce its “recommendations” and override Congress. Sebelius is intentionally misrepresenting the IPAB as being similar to the MedPAC board, which does indeed only give recommendations to Congress. Why would they need to have a duplicative board? Truth is, they are not the same and Sebelius knows it.

With the Democrats zeal to ram through ObamaCare, they created a monster and then stripped themselves of any oversight of said monster as clearly explained by Orszag.  If only the Democrats had read the original ObamaCare bill, didn’t scoff and snear at Republicans’ warnings, and didn’t believe their own rhetoric, it wouldn’t be so imperative to repeal the IPAB.  But wait, can they?

Under a premium support system, the government would pay a percentage toward the insurance premium for each individual; there would likely be more help for low-income and sicker people. And enrollees could (not required) kick in more money to get better coverage.

Henry Aaron, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Robert Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute and former head of the Congressional Budget Office, in 1995 were among the first to explore alternatives to Medicare’s system of paying for individual services. And in 1998, President Bill Clinton’s National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare, chaired by then-Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., and then-Sen. John B. Breaux, D-La., developed a “premium support” idea, but it never became a formal recommendation. Breaux and then-Sen. Bill Frist, R-Tenn., tried unsuccessfully to advance the plan as separate legislation.

Let’s take a look at her ‘confuzzled’ look as she was clearly caught off-guard by Congressman Michael Burgess (R-TX and a physician) as seen here at the July 13 subcommittee hearings (skip to .59 to 2:16):

The Weekly Standard also  reiterates and shreds her original comment:

This, of course, is as ludicrous as it is uncouth. First, the Ryan plan (which wouldn’t affect anyone who is not yet 55 years old) would not give seniors a voucher, as Sebelius well knows. Instead, the government would provide premium support to help seniors purchase private health insurance. Seniors would pick the insurance plan of their choice, and the government would funnel the premium support directly to the insurer — just as it does for Medicare Advantage, the Medicare prescription drug benefit, and the health care system for members of Congress.   

The Ryan plan would require insurers to cover any and all seniors as the condition of their being allowed to compete for seniors’ business. It would provide higher levels of premium support for less healthy and less wealthy seniors, and poor seniors would have every dollar of their care provided at taxpayer expense. The premium support would start at the average level of funding for traditional Medicare ($15,000 a year) and would rise with inflation from there. 

In truth, seniors would likely have better catastrophic coverage under Ryan’s plan than under traditional Medicare. There’s a reason why the vast majority of Medicare beneficiaries buy private Medigap coverage: There’s a whole lot of care that Medicare currently doesn’t cover. Despite that fact, Medicare is going bankrupt, and it desperately needs an infusion of private competition and choice to make it more efficient, cost effective, and affordable.

In short, seniors wouldn’t “die sooner” under Ryan’s plan. But Medicare would die sooner without it.

This is just more proof that Sebelius is nothing more than a partisan mouthpiece.  Her ideology gives away her game with her wanting to insert government into the playing field, and further evidenced the day before by none other than Paul Ryan who grills Sebelius on whether seniors should have control of their own health care and choices for their drug coverage.  Sebelius stumbles at the basic principle of allowing seniors to choose their own plan, but knows that choice is good for competition, and would gladly put the government at the top of that competitive scale.  Watch to the end.

Update: This is not the first time Sebelius has been clueless.

And that makes sense, because it’s the Democrats who occupy indefensible ground.  Essentially, their position is that if Republicans won’t agree to raising the debt ceiling and raising taxes, the president will use his discretion to default on US government debt after 2 August.  They don’t put it that way, of course, but that’s the reality.  If Obama defaults on government debt, it will be because he decided to, not because he had to.  He could be impeached for making such a decision.

The money will be there to meet out debt obligations; it just won’t be there to do that and continue to pay for all the other activities of the government.  Obama could, equally, decide to cut expenditures in wildly unpopular ways like shorting Medicare reimbursements or leaving the troops without their pay, but Democrats in Congress wouldn’t let him get away with that either, any more than Republicans would.  The real option after 2 August is to cut expenditures on other operations of the government, including the programs and subsidies that the Obama administration considers its highest priorities.

All of which is why it’s the Democrats who are most alarmed about having to face the choices after 2 August.  The GOP position is not a precarious one.  It’s a strong and meaningful position, and that’s why Obama and the Democrats are mounting a sustained assault, using every trick in the book to get the GOP to give up the ground it has staked out.  Advertently or not, the Republicans have acted according to the strategic maxim of Bismarck’s military genius, Von Moltke the Elder:

A clever military leader will succeed in many cases in choosing defensive positions of such an offensive nature from the strategic point of view that the enemy is compelled to attack us in them.

Why doesn’t the GOP position look more tough and inspiring?  For one thing, because our imaginations have been so conditioned to Hollywood productions and the 120-minute movie package that we think victories have to be signaled by the devices of video storytelling, or they aren’t victories.

But in real life, it rarely happens that way.  Think back to January and the endless, annoying Cirque du Wisconsin with the runaway Democrats hiding out across the state line in the EconoLodge or wherever it was.  There was no Hollywood victory at the end of that sorry episode.  Eventually the Democrats just straggled back.  On balance, the Wisconsin Republicans have been winning the peace.

But they looked, throughout the pitched confrontation, like a herd of deer caught in the headlights:  bemused, a little shell-shocked, a little quizzical.  A lot of conservatives wrote them off because they were just a bunch of modern legislator schmoes, doing modern legislature stuff.  But while the Democrats and unions are still fighting a vociferous rearguard action, and it ain’t over yet, the momentum has clearly turned to the Republicans’ side.

Consider James Pethokoukis’ reference to Reagan and Reykjavik in 1986 (cited by Ed).  Mikhail Gorbachev offered to raise the Reagan ante on strategic arms cuts, the best counteroffer ever presented by a Soviet leader, but Reagan turned it down because Gorbachev’s condition was that Reagan abandon the Strategic Defense Initiative.

This certainly didn’t resonate as a victory at the time.  We don’t remember it today, but the Western media proclaimed an atmosphere of civilizational doom after the Reykjavik summit.  You couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting an editorial containing the phrase “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.”  Even many of Reagan’s staunchest supporters wondered if the old man had finally gone round the bend.  Reagan was defending territory he had staked out – territory so alarming to the Soviets that it drove them to act, maneuver, change their approach, move off of their position – and to the observers of the time, that looked like disaster.

What we do remember today, however, is that it was Reagan who got what he wanted in the end.

In politics, victory often comes on little cat feet.  I won’t be surprised if the way a GOP budget victory looks to the public is a lot like how it looks in Wisconsin today.  An interim solution rather than a grand bargain; a sense of tension maintained rather than the catharsis of a satisfying conclusion.

There will be work left to do, but a shift of momentum.  An MSM counter-narrative will be retailed relentlessly, on the water-torture principle.  Paroxysms of caterwauling will persist from the Democrats and their constituencies.  From the GOP, no glory, no stirring speeches, no one-liners.  No string crescendo, no pulsating beat.  Nothing but a bunch of Republicans looking weary and dithery, like they just stumbled in from a windstorm – but haven’t forgotten what they went out into it for.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Entitlements are not the problem for the federal debt in 2011.

Now, calm down.  Entitlements are a debt problem.  But they are not the reason the federal debt has increased 35% under Obama.  I’ll say that again.  Entitlements are not the reason the federal debt has increased 35% under Obama.

Obama has not added so dramatically to our national debt by putting new money into Social Security and Medicare.  His multi-trillion-dollar deficit-fest has not pumped cash into Social Security and Medicare.  Do I need to put this in three or four more ways in order to get the point across?  Entitlements are a systemic, long-term debt problem, but they are not what has caused the national debt to spiral from 2009 to 2011.

It’s all the Obama spending on other things – not on the two user-contribution entitlement programs that America’s seniors now rely on – that has caused the debt to skyrocket.  Ed puts it clearly in his excellent post today on the historic trends of revenue and spending:

Had spending increased at a rate of inflation from 2001 forward, we would probably not been in deficit at all. Had it stayed at the rate of inflation from 2006 forward, we’d probably be looking at historically average deficits in terms of GDP.

Those historically average deficits were bad enough, but in the context of historic trends in GDP, they warranted a deliberate, gradual approach to bringing them down, as opposed to stark panic.  The legacy of four years of a Democratic Congress (2007-11), however, two of them under Barack Obama, is a discretionary spending spree that does induce panic (e.g., in David Brooks).

It’s the discretionary, non-military spending that has skyrocketed since 2006 (and especially since 2009), not the entitlement spending.  Discretionary spending is where we have to wield the current-budget axe.  I would never say the Defense Department should be immune to cuts, but we can’t take these cuts primarily out of defense.  They have to come out of subsidy programs and regulatory agencies.  For starters, they should come out of the new spending that dates only to 2009.

None of this means we shouldn’t address Medicare and Social Security as soon as possible.  We should, and the Ryan plan for Medicare looks pretty good to me.  But it is essential to keep our categories in order, and not let emotion and the Democrats’ incoherent political narrative pollute the debate.

Consider what has happened:  Obama came into office with a Democratic Congress, and in two years this combination increased discretionary spending so much that the whole republic has been thrown into a panic about meeting our debt obligations.

But are we talking now about reducing discretionary spending, the variable that has changed the most since January 2009?  No. We’re doing all our talking about everything else.  Defaulting on debt payments, anger and dread about entitlement programs, raising tax rates, increasing revenue – we’re talking about everything except what has actually caused the proximate problem we face in 2011.

We have to stop falling for this.  All the new spending added under Obama is only two years old.  No one who has received money from it is a desperate senior with no other source of support.  Huge portions of it have gone to keeping unionized government employees in their jobs, along with renewable-energy subsidies, a host of “green” (and other) development projects of dubious value, and increases in regulatory planning and administration.  Some of the spending might be worth following through on (e.g., road improvements), but otherwise, it is this spending that ought to be eliminated first.  The House Republicans have been right about that from day one: roll spending back to the level of 2008.

Instead, the president is reportedly approaching today’s budget conference with the posture that it’s time to make cuts to Social Security.  This would be the second major signal in three days that Democrats are perfectly willing to cut entitlement programs – not reform them, just take whacks out of them – rather than forego tax increases and their favorite forms of discretionary spending.

Obama’s priorities – and the other Democrats’ – are clear.  We could cut current discretionary spending, which has spiraled out of control since 2009, in order to meet our debt obligations after 2 August 2011.  But they’re not willing to do that.  They are proposing everything else instead: not just tax-rate increases, but cuts to Social Security and Medicare.  Merely cutting those programs – without a scheme for phased-in reform – would have a terrible impact on today’s seniors.  The point is not whether the Democrats would actually let such cuts take effect; the point is that their leaders are fully prepared to discuss them in public, rather than even consider rolling back Obama’s colossal increases in discretionary spending.

Don’t let this administration set up false alternatives, so that it can induce bad compromises with panic.  The Republicans in Congress are doing the right thing, if not always in the exact way you or I would choose.  Until Obama gets around to discussing the reduction of his monumental increases in discretionary spending, GOP legislators should hold the line.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

Nothing says the administration has the issue of the border well under control, like publicly posted threats towards your chief enforcers of anti-drug smuggling policy. Following on the heels of some disastrous results in the entire keeping-the-illegal-guns-out-of-the-hands-of-these-guys efforts, one wonders how long The One can continue to afford these types of headlines to hit…

…CBS News.

Next thing you know, some mischief maker in the middle east will decide to start sending weapons to Iraq and Afghanistan to give President Obama a bit of encouragement to draw down even faster… Ooooooops!

Parting “Binge Think” Question: Does President Obama even think any of this stuff is real? Or is it like a virtual game of ’24′ for him?

I’m Kevin McCullough and that’s how I “Binge Think.”
I also was the first to say it…

In its own way, the War Powers Act is part of the same problem posed by the NHKMA in Libya: it tries to denature and bureaucratize war.  The principal reason it is bad law derives from the fact that it is unenforceable – and ultimately unnecessary – on its own terms.  To enforce the War Powers Act when a president refuses to comply with it, Congress must do what the Constitution already empowered it to do, before the War Powers Act was ever thought of:  deny funds to the president’s military operations.

The War Powers Act was an attempt to interpolate a less explosive option for stage-managing this form of confrontation, by imposing a deadline by which negotiations would have to start.  The problem with this isn’t the demand for inter-branch negotiation, however – that is actually a given.  The problem is that military action, while it’s in progress, is peculiarly unsuited to being argued about and temporized on in this manner.

Many Americans have recognized – mainly because of the Vietnam War – that the ambivalent use of force, subject to unnatural constraints and open-ended vetoes, is a doomed enterprise.  The War Powers Act tries, however, to impose an inherent ambivalence on any form of military action that does not involve a Congressional declaration of war.

That attempt ignores the summary nature of military action (and does so, ironically, on a principle similar to that governing Obama’s action in Libya).  The War Powers Act pretends that military action can, as a matter of routine, be made subject to arbitrary deadlines, or renegotiated as it goes along, without significant losses to the coherence and strategic integrity of national policy.  It treats the use of force as if it is a fully “domesticable” arm of policy – as if the intrinsic implications of employing force abroad do not require respect and adjustment from partisan politics.

But military force can’t be domesticated in this way, nor should we want it to be.  It gets people killed and summarily resets the relations between nations – and that’s the whole point of it.  If the president and Congress can’t agree on its use, then having recourse only to the Constitution’s “nuclear option,” whereby Congress withholds funds, is the best guarantee that decisions about military action will be made, by both branches, with the prior consultation and the extreme seriousness they merit.

Oddly enough, Obama’s characterization of his action in Libya – so bizarre to the ears of the American people – is the same kind of attempt to treat military action as if it is not the high-risk, transformative barn-burner it inherently is.  When Obama says the US is not engaged in “hostilities” with Libya, he is speaking from the same text used by Samantha Power when she advocated intervening in Libya based on the putative “responsibility to protect” (R2P).  According to this text, it is indeed possible to bomb another country for three months without being in “hostilities”:  the key is pursuing an objective that makes moot the political factors of recognized sovereignty and national borders.

R2P, as defined by its proponents, is just such an objective.  By the R2P formulation, endangered civilian populations (except those in Syria) trump sovereignty.  Bombs and killing are not hostilities, if your intention is to protect a civilian population with them – and if you explicitly disavow any intention of producing regime change with them, as Obama has done.

This rightly seems absurd to us; it is an attempt to redefine some very basic concepts, like sovereignty and hostilities.  Indeed, it’s more than an attempt:  the Obama administration is behaving as if the redefinition is already a fait accompli, in spite of the fact that no such consensus has ever developed among the nations.

But the current result of the NHKMA in Libya is the best counter-evidence to the Obama postulate.  Libya’s civilians are not being protected; NATO, Qaddafi, and the rebel forces have all been killing and injuring them.  Bombs are bombs, and they do what bombs do.  They can’t protect civilians independently of the political situation.  The decisive factor is who has sovereignty over Libya; the quickest, most effective way to improve conditions for Libyans is to do the thing Obama has sworn he won’t use force to do:  change the regime for the better.

That is a human reality that cannot be suspended.  But Obama is trying to redefine the nature of both politics and force, to fit an ideological perspective on the nation-state.  The War Powers Act is also an attempt to redefine the nature of force – to fit internal politics.  Neither enterprise can survive contact with reality.

I agree with those who believe Obama is prosecuting the action in Libya very poorly.  Qaddafi could have been gone 10 weeks ago – or the US could have declined to participate.  Either would have been preferable to the state of affairs Obama’s “leadership from behind” has produced at the 90-day mark.  But compliance with the War Powers Act would not change that for the better.  It would only add a layer of bloviating bureaucratic oversight, which is invariably injurious to the effective use of force.

This doesn’t mean presidents shouldn’t need congressional agreement to commit to military action.  What presidents have done heretofore is present purposes to Congress and seek authorization – which they know they have to do because Congress holds the power of the purse.

Congress saddled itself with the War Powers Act, however, and had to make some kind of gesture at the 90-day mark.  The better option is what Congress can do regardless of whether there’s a War Powers Act or not.  McCain-Kerry is not a bad start, but it will require vigilance and teeth.

Congress should wait, for a time, to see if Qaddafi’s exit can be procured in some way; it might be.  Congress should watch Obama’s commitment of force with a critical eye, and a clear idea of what it has the votes to declare “too much.”  And if Qaddafi hangs on through the summer, and Obama persists in the fiction that NATO dropping bombs on Libya is a sovereignty-neutral means of “protecting civilians,” then Congress can – and should – cut his funding.

All of that can be done based on the original law of our nation.  Using military force is too significant, risky, and inherently transformative an act of policy to be undertaken on the basis of tentative permissions and arbitrary deadlines.  There is no place in it either for exotic philosophical distinctions:  the normal definitions of sovereignty and hostilities, and the traditional justifications for force, are a network of conventions that we rely on to guard against breaches of the peace.

The American people in 2011 seem to understand these things better than those in office, reacting with a traditional and very proper disquiet to the proliferation of military actions abroad.  The people are right about that.  And military force, above all others, is a matter in which a disagreement between the president and Congress merits a crisis of government and an unambiguous resolution.

J.E. Dyer’s articles have appeared at The Green Room, Commentary’s “contentions,” Patheos, The Weekly Standard online, and her own blog, The Optimistic Conservative.

There were already plenty of complaints. Tech guru Nate Anderson cited the skyrocketing cost of Comcast’s 105 Mbps service in Chicago. ($199.95 per month? Are you kidding me?) Subscribers to Jim Geraghty’s Morning Jolt newsletter saw him complaining just this week about Comcast being completely unavailable Monday night and most of Wednesday, impacting his ability to do his job.

So obviously we should get the federal government in here to straighten things out, right? Or just maybe the market will generate something better – not to mention more quickly – and offer consumers a chance to vote with their feet and their wallets. Oh, wait… I think it already happened.

California ISP may render “Net Neutrality” laws unnecessary

Last week, Santa Rosa-based Internet service provider Sonic.net rolled out a blazing fast new fiber optic network that will provide Sonoma County residents with the fastest residential Internet in the United States at an extremely competitive price. Sonic.net’s new offering blasts a hole in the arguments of “Net Neutrality” proponents who fear that ISPs will raise prices and limit quality Internet access without government regulation.

Sonic.net’s fastest service package will be 1Gbps (gigabits per second) at only $70 a month, and will include two phone lines and unlimited long distance calls. It will also offer a 100 megabit per second connection for $40 a month, which will include one phone line and unlimited long distance calling.

Amazing how that works, isn’t it? But, just in case the market tending to its own woes fails to dampen the enthusiasm in Washington for a nanny state solution, House GOP leadership is taking another crack at backing down the FCC using the power of the purse.

House Republicans are trying for a second time to kill the FCC’s net neutrality rules by denying enforcement funding.

The House Appropriations Committee released a draft of its FY12 Financial Services Appropriations bill Wednesday with language that would prohibit money for the agency’s Open Internet Order.

Republicans say the FCC rules amount to government overregulation of the Internet. But net neutrality supporters were quick to criticize the GOP’s move.

“The legislation the majority wrote would allow the largest telecommunications companies to reshape the Internet in their own image, favoring some and disadvantaging others,” Public Knowledge President Gigi Sohn said in a statement.

Hey, Gigi. You might want to sign up for one of those new Sonic.net accounts. It might save you a whole lot of time, embarrassment and heartburn.

But then again, he seems to be defiant thus far. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the top five reasons currently being run up the flag pole in favor of a quick exit stage left, and why Congressman Weiner may choose to ignore them.

1. High profile Republicans are demanding you step down.

So? This is Mr. Weiner we’re talking about. Republicans have been wanting him to step down ever since he became the de facto fill-in host for Willie Geist on Joe Scarborough’s MSNBC show. He’s not exactly known as a “reach across the aisle” kind of guy and probably doesn’t much care what the GOP thinks.

2. Your own party wants to you leave and even Harry Reid threw you under the bus.

Not to be repetitive here, but… so? It’s not like the Democrats in Congress have run up an extensive track record of being influential, nor have they paid anything more than lip service to “draining the swamp.” They’ll say what they need to say to look good on camera, but the Vegas line will be giving long odds that they’d even try for a censure, say nothing of removal.

3. You need to get clear of this and make things right with your wife.

Let me get this straight. You’re in deep Dutch with the wife because she found out that you’re a creepy, oversexed internet perv, right? And you hope to renew her attraction to you by becoming an unemployed, creepy, oversexed internet perv? Let me know how that works out for ya.

4. The voters of New York City will never stand for it.

This is perhaps the most troubling item on the list. While there is no legal provision for recalling him from his congressional seat, he still needs to look to his future and being rejected by his own constituents next fall would be a huge blow to his prospects, slinking off the scene in defeat. And he’s probably watching this closely after the way the voters in the neighboring 15th district booted out Charlie Rangel following his censure for ripping off the nation by not paying his taxes.

Oh, wait… that’s right. Charlie Rangel is still in office and, in fact, won his reelection bid with 80% of the vote after that censure. Somehow I don’t think Anthony Weiner is losing a lot of sleep over that one.

5. You’re a public servant and it’s just the right thing to do, preserving the integrity and moral high ground of the office, if not the specific person holding it.

I’m sorry… did you just say… ughh.. sirueoisourejjjkl*&(#$ hjksh

[EDITOR'S NOTE: We regret to inform you that the author was found slumped over at his keyboard in the midst of some sort of fit or seizure, drooling, hacking and giggling uncontrollably while demanding tequila. We know you all join us in extending good wishes for his speedy and full recovery.]

An extensive study released Wednesday in the journal Business and Politics found that the investments of members of the House of Representatives outperformed those of the average investor by 55 basis points per month, or 6 percent annually, suggesting that lawmakers are taking advantage of inside information to fatten their stock portfolios.

…Despite the GOP’s reputation as the party of the rich, House Republicans fared worse than their Democratic colleagues when it comes to investing, according to the study. The Democratic subsample of lawmakers beat the market by 73 basis points per month, or 9 percent annually, versus 18 basis points per month, or 2 percent annually, for the Republican sample…

…Strict laws ban corporate executives from trading on their insider knowledge, but no restrictions exist for members of Congress. Lawmakers are permitted to keep their holdings and trade shares on the market, as well as vote on legislation that could affect their portfolio values…

Government is the most powerful, unaccountable and monopolistic “corporation” of all. Which is why the Framers created the Constitution the way they did: to constrain government, not us.

Consider the Democrat swamp un-drained.

 
Related: The Secret Garden (and Mansion) of Christopher Dodd

 
Cross-posted at: Doug Ross @ Journal.

Tempers flared in Greece Wednesday night at a party to support Jack Davis in the special election for the 26th Congressional District.

Davis is running as a Tea Party candidate. A volunteer for Republican candidate Jane Corwin showed up at the event in Greece Wednesday night. That volunteer began heckling Davis because he has pulled out of a debate set for Thursday night in Buffalo.

A video of the confrontation was put on Youtube by the Erie County G.O.P. In the video, the cameraman says he was hit by Davis.

The Davis camp is denying the allegations, of course, but that position may prove to be a hard sell with this floating around…

Meanwhile, forces across the nation have mobilized on both sides as we enter the final eleven days of the race. The Speaker of the House is out visiting us this week supporting the Republican nominee.

In bringing in House Speaker John Boehner, the Republican “big gun” aimed at cutting spending and the size of government, Jane Corwin sought to further ally herself with the Conservative cause.

Boehner said, “Jane will work with us to stand up to Nancy Pelosi and the liberals in Washington, D.C., and say “no” to the bailouts, say “no” to the stimulus, and say “no” to the continued tax and spend crowd that’s down there.”

“We need to go out there and start getting our fiscal policies in order. Our country’s going in the wrong direction. We need to turn it around,” said Corwin.

Also, as we hinted in previous coverage, American Crossroads has jumped into the fray with a sizable ad buy in that market. You can view their first offering, currently running across the district, below.

If anything interesting comes from tonight’s debate, we’ll bring you up to date on it tomorrow.

Mr. Obama said that the typical political proposal to rationalize Medicare’s gargantuan liabilities is that it is “just a matter of eliminating waste and abuse.” His own plan is to double down on the program’s price controls and central planning. All Medicare decisions will be turned over to and routed through an unelected commission created by ObamaCare—which will supposedly ferret out “unnecessary spending.” Is that the same as “waste and abuse”?

Fifteen members will serve on the Independent Payment Advisory Board, all appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. If per capita costs grow by more than GDP plus 0.5%, this board would get more power, including an automatic budget sequester to enforce its rulings. So 15 sages sitting in a room with the power of the purse will evidently find ways to control Medicare spending that no one has ever thought of before and that supposedly won’t harm seniors’ care, even as the largest cohort of the baby boom generation retires and starts to collect benefits.

I’d like to take you back in time to highlight some important pieces including this one I broke at Big Government where I warned this was being crafted by the Democrats:

The deliberate setup for the White House power grab is built into the each of the health care bills and, if they fail, little-known twin bills called “MedPAC Reform of 2009” are waiting in the wings.  The bills, S.B. 1110 and H.R. 2718, craftily amend the Social Security Act and transfer the Medicare guideline and rule setting processes, from the legislative branch to the executive branch.  These bills offer cover to one another in case one doesn’t pass the House or Senate, respectively.  Remember, Democrats need to gain executive branch authority by amending the Social Security Act over Medicare regulations and physician fee schedules to transform the health care system in a single-payer, socialized system.

More importantly, Medicare’s regulations and physician fee schedules are the keystone to developing payer systems and reimbursement models across the entire health care industry.  And where Medicare goes, insurers follow.

To further reinforce my analysis, former OMB director, Peter Orszag, stated:

The Medicare Commission, or Independent Payment Advisory Board, would have the power to override Congress if it rejected cuts to the entitlements programme for seniors, said Mr Orszag, a key architect of the reforms signed into law this week.

“This could well turn out to be as consequential for health policy as Federal Reserve policy was for monetary policy,” he said in an FT View from DC video interview. “The commission will put its proposals forward and if Congress does not act on them, or if it votes them down and the president then vetoes that bill, they will automatically take effect. Huge change.”

Enter H.R 452.  With 81 Republican and Democrat co-sponsors to date, this bill would repeal the IPAB and give Congress the oversight it had before the lawmakers stupidly inadvently stripped themselves.  And now they want it back.  Now, if you remember there was a story that circulated in December 2009 that bears more coverage when discussing repealing the IPAB. The catch is the language  found in the law where it stipulates:

“It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection.”

Additionally, back in January 2010, Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) explained that the Senate:

Would effectively be passing health-care legislation that includes a series of rules on how Congress would handle IMAB recommendations, and simultaneously will be keeping future lawmakers from changing it as they desire.
 
“We will be passing a new law,” he said, “and at the same time creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law.
 
“I’m not even sure that it’s constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a Senate rule (and not a law). I don’t see why the majority party wouldn’t put this in every bill. If you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force to – for — future Senates,” DeMint added.
 
“(T)his goes to the fundamental purpose of Senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority — or of future congresses.”
 
The subsection that cannot be repealed or changed contains a number of other stipulations on how Congress will handle the IMAB recommendations, even setting deadlines for specific committees to consider them, which DeMint said were also new rules. “These provisions not only amend certain rules, they waive certain rules and create entirely new rules out of whole cloth,” DeMint alleged.

The CNS article goes on to document an exchange between DeMint and Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and is a must read; Brian Darling of Heritage also provides terrific analysis.

The money question is:  Will the Democrats enforce this section with regards to H.R. 452 or will they let this come to the floor for a vote?  Because while the whole argument went down and the Republicans warned, the Democrats basically said–hey, forget about it.

In response to a YouTube video of a 6-year-old girl receiving a pat-down from a Transportation Security Administration officer, Congressman Jason Chaffetz is drafting legislation that will require parental supervision during the pat-down of a child.

“They claim there is a modified pat-down for 12-year-olds and younger, but when you see those videos, you realize that just isn’t true,” Chaffetz said.

The proposed legislation would require that a parent must give their consent before a child receives a pat-down, and that the child must remain with the parent while the pat-down is performed.  emphasis mine

While the outrage continues over the pat-downs of minor Americans for “security” purposes, what is ironic about this new concern is that the parental consent/notification issues are completely dismissed and ignored when dealing with abortions.  Most recently, LifeNews reported that a 16-year old girl was sent to the hospital after a botched abortion at a Planned Parenthood facility in Everett, Washington:

The Planned Parenthood caller, in the 911 phone transcript, says, “We have a patient bleeding. She’s 16. We just did an abortion on her.”

Hubert is very concerned about the impact this revelation has on concerns about young girls getting abortions without any parental involvement.

“This is extremely important because of a massive loophole in Washington state law which means that a minor of any age who is pregnant may get an abortion without any parental or adult protections or involvement. It could be your daughter,” he explained. “There is no need for anyone to be there with a girl while an intimidating adult at Planned Parenthood bullies them, lies to them, and manipulates them into getting an abortion that will kill their baby and, as we see here, put them in hospital, possibly rendering them permanently infertile.”

It is important to note that Planned Parenthood has not come forward to say that the girl was escorted by anyone and has not been cooperative in providing that information.

The point here is to question whether Americans have become so desensitized to girls having abortions that we direct our outrage at other more “fresh” instances–like the TSA pat-downs?  Would these same people be just as outraged if a 12- or 13-year old girl had abortion without parental consent?  Planned Parenthood has been under fire for some time, but the laws in place protect their business under the guise of health care and choice.  We all know that.  But, when do parents stand up in the states that have no laws on the books for parental consent/notification and say enough with this ruse.  Or, are they only to foot the ambulance and hospital bill after the fact?

States with no parental consent or notification laws include:  CA, CT, IL, ME, MT, NH, NJ, NY, OR, VT, WA, and Washington DC. While I am not suggesting legislation at the federal level (I’m all about states’ rights) but, it is disturbing that so much emphasis is placed on the TSA (and rightly so), and the issue of minor girls having abortions and their parents’ right to know are repeatedly ignored and challenged.

Crossposted at TMR

But we should keep the cuts made in context, because what is happening right now, beside the caterwauling by the left about grandma and cat food, is the ship of state is still filling with the water of increased debt faster than we can bail.  The context?

The federal debt increased $54.1 billion in the eight days preceding the deal made by President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D.-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) to cut $38.5 billion in federal spending for the remainder of fiscal year 2011, which runs through September.

Yes, praise indeed for persevering and getting some manner of cut out of this deal with Democrats fighting the Republicans every step of the way.  Lord knows if the Democrats had actually passed a budget last year we wouldn’t even see the cuts they got.  And keep in mind that we’re talking about the rest of the year’s discretionary spending for the most part – entitlements can’t be cut until and unless the laws controlling them are addressed and that won’t be until later on in this year.

Also remember, what you’re witnessing here is a mere skirmish.  The “war” comes when the president’s budget meets the Republican House’s budget (with the Senate thrown in to completely confuse the situation).  The real war takes place with the 2012 budget.

So for those hollering that the GOP should have gotten more, I’m not so sure that’s a useful argument at the moment.  The fact that they’re in a mode to cut and have done so in this rump year “budget” where they can only have an effect on part of the spending is laudable.  Personally I think it is more important to make that point than to worry about how much we’d prefer they cut.  We need to keep them in that cutting mode and get the American people used to it (and on-board) as well.

The GOP also needs to get their message out there in a way which helps the American people understand the critical nature of cutting spending to our future long term solvency as well as getting government back under control and out of areas in which it doesn’t belong.  Believe it or not, numbers like the above help make that case.  Instead of using them as a downer, they help illustrate the problem and which side abets that problem.

Numbers like those above are startling for most –  their usefulness can’t be overstated. It puts an exclamation point on the argument Republicans have been trying to make.  As hard as the GOP had to work to wring that $38.5 billion out of the spending spree this administration is on, it still managed to spend more than was saved and add to the debt.

There’s a campaign advert in there somewhere.

—
Bruce McQuain blogs at Questions and Observations (QandO), Blackfive, the Washington Examiner and the Green Room.  Follow him on Twitter: @McQandO

“What if the president and your representative saw it coming and could have prevented it from happening?” Ryan said. “What would you think of them if they didn’t?” A hush came over the audience at the American Enterprise Institute, where I am a resident fellow.

It was Ryan’s way of saying that the financial meltdown arrived largely without warning, while the impending fiscal crunch is like a runaway freight train.

“This is the most predictable crisis in the history of our country,” he went on. “We are on our path to a debt crisis” like those we’ve seen recently in Europe, with the national debt as a percentage of gross domestic product rising, under President Obama’s budget, past the 90 percent danger point on its way to 800 percent.

While I admire the efforts of Ryan and his supporters to move boldly in the area of cost cutting, the manner in which the Republican Party leadership is framing and constraining both the proposals on the table and the packaging effort to sell it are still falling short in two areas. And, as usual, it’s ultimately the politics involved which is poisoning the well. There is no need to rehash each line item here, since this is a question of style and approach, not math.

Even under the boldest scenarios for the 2012 budget, where Ryan is talking about cuts which could add up to trillions of dollars over the coming years, the numbers still don’t add up to a surplus. While it’s better than nothing, it still doesn’t turn the ship of state around. It simply means a somewhat slower slide toward hell. So what is the missing piece of the puzzle? Revenue.

Sadly, Republicans are genetically allergic to the idea of increased government revenue. Some areas of this discussion are not going to change in our lifetimes, so the idea of increasing tax rates in any form will probably remain off the table. But that doesn’t mean an answer isn’t out there, and it comes from tax reform. Ryan is already being bold, but why stop there? He can solve the other half of the equation if the GOP is willing to lay out a bold plan for tax reform as part of the budget cutting package. You don’t need to increase tax rates. You need to clean up and fix the tax code so that Washington can actually collect the funds which it should already be taking in. Even if we can’t entirely scrap the current tax system in favor of a fair tax, flat tax, or whichever theory you prefer, we could start by closing a lot of loopholes and streamlining the system.

Without that, we’re forced to rely on the “trickle down” theory to supply the funds needed to get us back in the black. Sadly, that has never performed up to expectations and it’s not going to solve this crisis any time soon. And frankly, we should stop pretending that it will.

The second problem comes in how this plan is being packaged for sale to the public, as well as to the Democratic opponents on the hill. There is a narrative being built out there which is all too familiar. As soon as the GOP got hold of the people’s purse and got ready to start cutting, their first targets were relatively insignificant pockets of money designed to enrage the liberal wing of the country as much as possible. (Speaking, of course, of cutting funding for Planned Parenthood and NPR, among other items.) But where was the “give” on the part of the Republicans? If you only go after the opponent’s rice bowl, you give them every reason in the world to stiffen their spines and push back with a media blitz about how the GOP wants the elderly to live on a diet of cat food and polluted tap water. These tactics make the Republican leadership look like they are not serious about the budget crisis and are only using it as a stunt to push the social conservative agenda.

There need to be cuts offered which will not be popular with parts of your own base if you want the nation as a whole to take you seriously. We could begin by offering to cut massive federal subsidies in areas like agriculture (read ethanol) and, yes, even oil production. Everyone needs to give up something if this is going to work. Target some things near and dear to the conservative base as a show of good faith, demonstrating that the adults are truly back in charge and recognize that the cuts will have to hit everyone, or nobody is going to agree to them.

Massive, painful cuts are required to get across this gap, but they are only half of the required bridge. Increased revenue and the ability to get a sufficient portion of the Democrats along for the ride take us the rest of the way. And half a bridge isn’t a bridge at all. It’s a cliff.

McDowell was on the losing side in that narrow FCC vote three months ago, and he has been warning ever since against the hazy rules he sees developing under the banner of “net neutrality.”

The catch is that the 3-2 FCC vote left open the possibility of “reasonable” network management, and that single word — reasonable — stirs up a hornets nest, McDowell says.

In the linked interview McDowell is asked specifically about the importance of words in such matters.

You have warned that the term “reasonable management” of Internet networks is an accident waiting to happen. What do you fear will occur?

The word reasonable is perhaps the most litigated word in American history. What you are going to see is rule making by adjudication. You’ll see a lot of complaints filed by one competitor trying to block another competitor. There will continue to be lots of questions and uncertainty.

No one knows what this rule does yet. For instance, songwriters in Nashville are confused. Music labels are confused. No one knows how this will impact companies trying to stop music piracy.

When there’s confusion, it starts to chill action. We could inhibit constructive risk-taking.

He also brings up other points, including the well established rule that when Congress attempts to “fix” something which is not demonstrably broken, far more chaos and harm will come in its wake than measurable good. But this entire idea of “reasonable” regulation is absolutely worth another look.

Laws need to be precise, whether you agree with the fundamental concept or not. Failing to meet that bar results in an open window inviting inequity of enforcement. It’s not far afield from another problem – in an entirely different field – where sketchy wording led to a traffic jam in the courts… pornography and obscenity.

Most of us can recall the now famous comments of Justice Potter Stewart in 1964 when he said, “I know it when I see it.” The fact is, if we expect the legal system to deal with terms such as “reasonable” then the judicial branch is the only one of the three equipped to even attempt the task, and then only on a case by case basis. Using the term “reasonable” in any legislation or set of federal rules leaves open far too many interpretations of what is reasonable.

I’m still not entirely settled on the issue of net neutrality or whether or not some form of regulation is required to answer the questions facing the FCC, but I have to agree with Mr. McDowell that that the proposed rules are full of holes one could drive a truck through. If they are to dip a toe in this pool, a much better job must be done in crafting the wording. Additionally, Congress should be focused on solving problems. Might we not be rushing into this before we’ve even established that there is a problem seeking a solution?

Early screening through mammograms and education is critical to end the suffering from this disease: 98 percent of women treated for early stage breast cancer, before it spreads, are alive five years later. The widespread use of mammography and heightened public awareness of breast cancer both contribute to these favorable statistics.

And while Komen Affiliates provide funds to pay for screening, education and treatment programs in dozens of communities, in some areas, the only place that poor, uninsured or under-insured women can receive these services are through programs run by Planned Parenthood.  emphasis mine

Now that Live Action has proved that PP does NOT provide mammography services to its clients, what is the money being used for, because clearly is not for mammography screenings?  Education, treatment?

Update:  More information provided on the PP homepage shows they clearly refer out for these mammography services:

Where Can I Get a Mammogram?

Ask your health care provider, health department, or staff at your local Planned Parenthood health center about where you can get a mammogram in your area.

Additionally, it appears that PP does provide breast exams only.  However, the Komen memo links mammography, screenings, education, and treatment of breast cancer as their list of reasons it contributes to PP.

The Komen Foundation needs to come clean on specifically what those PP contributions are designated.  I’ve added the video below.

Crossposted at The Minority Report

Not so fast.  The post-election tea party has now evolved into the watchdogs of the state and federal politicians that they gave victories to.  The tea party now expects this new breed of politicians to adhere to their campaign promises (yes, I know) as well as tackle the real problems and actually do something about them.  Actions indeed speak louder than words, and in this case they directly affect our nation’s fiscal future–among other things.

Watch.  And listen.  H/T Caleb Howe

“They cannot agree with themselves,” said Hoyer. He called for Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) to distance himself from Tea Party conservatives and forge a compromise between centrist Republicans and Democrats.

Hoyer said Boehner should abandon the additional cuts conservatives muscled into the bill introduced by GOP leaders that would have cut $35 billion in spending this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. After an uproar from conservatives, GOP leaders rallied around a bill that would cut spending by $61 billion. 

Of course he would say that.

This is not 1995 though and the game has changed, and frankly so have the rules.  The differences between 1995 and now is the fact that President Clinton used his veto power coupled with spot-on messaging:

On November 13, 1995, President Clinton vetoed a continuing resolution that would have kept the government running amid a budget impasse. The result was a partial shutdown. A few days later, he signed another continuing resolution providing funds for the government until mid-December. After that measure expired, he vetoed three appropriations bills, and another partial shutdown ensued. This one lasted until early January 1996.

Yes, Clinton called the GOP’s bluff and triggered a government shut down.  The blame supposedly fell at the Republican’s feet.  However, the GOP remained the majority party in the 1998 elections only losing five seats in the House, largely due to the fact that the GOP-led Congress passed popular legislation approval ratings remained consistent.  Furthermore, President Obama is signing the CRs–he has no option–as the Democrats control the Senate.  He couldn’t possibly risk the blame to lie with his party.

The Democrat’s political strategy, setup, and sting on the Republicans is as directed at the tea party as it is to fragmenting and alienating the GOP leadership with the freshmen members.  This attempt to weaken Boehner as a leader and cause voters to become disenfranchised with the GOP sets up the 2012 election.  

The GOP must remember that every time a Republican has the fortitude to stand up and call out the Democrats and the left, the people are behind them.  They crave someone with that leadership quality and fearlessness.  And this is why there is no front-runner in the GOP race to the White House.

Speaker Boehner must lead and unify the Republicans, stay on message, and obey the will of the American people.  If he doesn’t, the GOP will suffer serious consequences and the mantra of “not only conservative, but Republican” will vanish–setting up third party races in 2012, GOP incumbent losses, and Democrat wins.  However, if Boehner stands firm there will be no way the MSM machine will be able to beat back the sentiments and will of the American people for the results will be self-evident.

Crossposted at TMR

Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking” and could “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests,” White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.

Before the Democrats rammed through the Obamacare bill (and don’t think for one little ol’ minute that our narcissistic President doesn’t love that branding), Obama and WH officials met with several high-profile insurance executives as the WaPo lists:

The list included George Halvorson, chairman and CEO of Kaiser Health Plans; Scott Serota, president and CEO of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association; Kenneth Kies, a Washington lobbyist representing Blue Cross/Blue Shield, among other clients; Billy Tauzin, then head of PhRMA, the drug industry lobby; Richard Umbdenstock, chief of the American Hospital Association; and numerous others.

The most concerning is George Halvorson as he was the only executive to meet with Obama.  And here is why:

“There really are two Americas when it comes to health care — the fully insured, primarily white America and the disproportionately uninsured minority America,” Halvorson wrote. “More than half of the total uninsured people in this country are minority. That fact alone should make the need to cover everyone in America a pure ethical imperative. This issue is not about economics — it is about equality. Universal coverage should be the next major civil rights issue for this country to face.

Halvorson also wrote an article in 2007 equating health reform to the “unfinished business of the Civil Rights agenda.” Halvorson discusses the disparities between the races and health care coverage and states:

If we considered no other issue than racial and ethnic disparities, this nation’s leadership — like the leadership of a number of states — should be moving this country down the path to an American form of universal coverage as quickly as possible. There is no more vital or meaningful way for us to honor and extend the great legacy of Martin Luther King Jr.

Again, Halvorson was also the only insurance executive to meet with Obama at that time.  Why?  Is it because Obama wants a single-payer system and sees himself as finishing the Civil Rights Movement, and Halvorson has the same viewpoint and the most to gain via Kaiser Permanente?  But, hey, there’s nothing to see here, right?  Or, is it that those meetings were, as Halvorson stated:

“The real discussion this time, behind those closed doors, is about changing the way care is delivered. Not about the cost.” 

Now, that is confusing.  According to former WH Budget Director, Peter Orszag, I thought that we were on an unsustainable path, so how could costs not come up in these meetings?  So, if we now know that those meetings were about how our healthcare is to be delivered, wouldn’t that be cause enough for alarm?  Some questions that pop into my mind are: how are those changes going to be implemented, what type of practitioner has direct access to patients, who has the ability to refer to specialists, who orders advanced tests/images, who makes the medical decisions, what protocols are being set/followed and who sets them, and do patients have access to all available treatment options.

Additionally, the Washington Times article cites that the Clinton and Bush administrations thwarted such calls:

President George W. Bush’s administration beat back efforts to reveal the dealings between Vice President Dick Cheney’s energy task force and industry. President Bill Clinton’s administration successfully resisted demands for records of its failed push to remake the health care system, which was overseen by then-first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.

However, unlike the previous scenarios, this is now the law of the land, American taxpayers will be footing the entire bill, and will potentially ultimately have their healthcare decisions placed in the government’s control.  Doesn’t that give us the right to that information trumping the “implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests” excuse.  And since when does this administration give a hoot about costs, nullifying the argument that the compliance with the records request “would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking.”

To quote NRO’s Jim Geraghty, did the Obama administration just administer the Cee-Lo Green option on Americans?

Typo correction: I’ve corrected the WaPo citation as it should have been Washington Times.

No seriously, they need help – and they’re outsourcing the effort.

POLITICO offers:

“Because Harry Reid really likes his nice Majority Leader office”

“Please, please, please vote for us in 2012!”

“Why not?”

“Will the last Senate Democrat in office please turn out the lights?”

A POLITICO reader suggests, “Hey, at least we didn’t flee”.  A variation I like is “At least we’re not fleebaggers”.

Moe Lane pops in with “Drink the Kool-aid”. Lane also reminds us of the DSCC’s recent performance:

[T]he DSCC spent 97.8 million and went into debt for 8.9 million in order to lose six Senate seats and gain zero – [which] demonstrates handily that the DSCC cannot be trusted to come in out of the rain; wipe its own nose; or, indeed, wear its underpants underneath its outer clothing.

The Lonely Conservative suggests “Bend Over!”  Don Surber weighs in with:

“Democrats: Not Republicans since 1854.”

“Democrats: Because Republicans are icky.”

“Democrats: More Hope, Less Change.”

“The D Stands For Debtor.”

“Democrats: The Starter Party.”

Me? I’m kind of partial to “Our symbol isn’t a jackass for nothing”.

And you?

—
Bruce McQuain blogs at Questions and Observations (QandO), Blackfive, the Washington Examiner and the Green Room.  Follow him on Twitter: @McQandO

At a Capitol Hill Press conference to announce that the Senate had agreed to a continuing resolution that will keep the government funded through March 18th, Reid was asked about GOP plans to eliminate the Home Affordable Modification Program–a program that has permanently modified nearly 600,000 loans since its inception.

“Why can’t they work on things that help the economy?” Reid asked. “Why do they have to work on things that hurt the economy? Why would they want to eliminate a program like that? Just because it came from the White House? This is hard for me to understand why they’re so fixated on destroying our government, our economy.”

What he’s talking about is the Home Affordable Mortgage Program or HAMP.  Earth to Reid — we’re in debt up to our ears and can’t afford giveaway programs anymore … not that we ever could.  And besides, it isn’t a function of government anyone has been able to find specified in the Constitution that I know of.

But Reid is convinced, as are many of his colleagues, that it is the job of government to redistribute wealth and use other people’s money to rescue those who’ve gotten themselves into a financial bind (through no fault of the “other people”).  And, of course, there’s this:

The Treasury Department had set aside $75 billion for the program,the administration promised would prevent 3-4 million foreclosures by helping people modify the terms of their loans. As of December 521,000 mortgages had been modified. That an abysmal record. But worse still is the fact that some money from HAMP has been diverted to other housing programs that are doing an even worse job of helping people stay in their homes.

“About $8.1 billion was set aside to enable certain borrowers who are current on their mortgage to refinance into Federal Housing Administration loans if their homes are worth less than what is owed on the mortgage. About 44 loans have been closed under that program.” Did you get that? HAMP was poorly designed in that it was supposed to subsidize those who were delinquent on their mortgage payments, but at least some money was diverted to “help” those who were actually paying their way. But the government can’t even get that right. They spend $8.1 billion to help 44 lenders stay current on their mortgages?

Another in  a long line of wasteful programs modified on the fly to do things not approved originally.  And that may be some sort of record – 8.1 billion to modify 44 loans?  If you think “created or saved jobs” cost a lot, do that math.    That wasn’t the only diversion from the original program:

Another $7.6 billion was reallocated to emergency mortgage relief payments to unemployed workers in some states. The other program targeted by Republicans helps communities buy and redevelop foreclosed properties.

And there’s more.  Opines an “expert:”

Julia Gordon, senior policy counsel at the Center for Responsible Lending, said killing the entire lineup of foreclosure prevention when tens of thousands of homes are lapsing into foreclosure each month makes no sense. “If something is not working well enough, you fix it,” Gordon said. “You don’t just toss it out.”

How about if something isn’t working well at all and it costs money you can’t afford Ms. Gordon?  What if it isn’t something government should be involved in – at least by the Constitution most of us were taught in school?  That’s one of our problems, Ms. Gordon – we create these wasteful bureaucratic programs and never kill them off when they’re found to be useless or costing far more than anticipated.   It is time to kill this turkey.

A $75 billion dollar boondoggle that should be cut and all we get from the reactionary Democrats and “experts” with a vested interest in continuing the farce is a fact free emotion laden argument about hurting the economy and destroying government?

Get a grip Mr. Reid.

—
Bruce McQuain blogs at Questions and Observations (QandO), Blackfive, the Washington Examiner and the Green Room.

Hintz touches on so many topics in his 3-minute rant–from transparency, public debate, having to read a piddly 144-page bill, to the 35,000 people outside clammoring to have their voices heard.

Really?

Where was he when the more than one million Americans gathered at the Capitol and were ignored by the Democrats?  Was Hintz outraged when Republicans said they needed time to read the 2,000+ page Obamacare bill?  Where was his outrage when Harry Reid slipped in his manager’s amendment replacing the entire Obamacare bill and then voted on it?  Was he outraged when Nancy Pelosi met with Obama and other Democrat leaders behind closed doors locking out Republicans during the so-called ‘conference’?  Was he outraged when debate was cut off on Obamacare by the Democrats in Congress?  I could go on and on (and wrote extensively about it) as this type “professionalism” was on display for two years with Pelosi and Reid at the helm.

But, at least Hintz gets why the Democrats are in the minority…and in Wisconsin.

For the record, this video was extremely difficult to find as it has continually been scrubbed by the compliant lefty media.

But today the GAO released a report in which it identified billions of dollars to be saved by the federal government that can only be described by those three words.  Smart politicians will grab this report with both hands and vow to address the specifics immediately since the bottom line savings are significant.

Most of the savings would fall in the “waste” category driven by fragmented programs spread over many agencies with little or no coordination and communication between them.  The inefficiencies common to huge bureaucratic institutions such as government are common and in the case of the GAO’s report, eminently fixable.  For instance:

An analysis of 18 different programs across three federal agencies that deal with domestic food assistance found that though multiple programs can ensure the needy have access to food, “administrative costs increase significantly,” with GAO estimating a $62.5 billion expense to the government from overlap and duplication.

That is a sizable sum.  That is also a problem, if address properly, that can be fixed and become much more efficient and less costly.  What has caused the proliferation of all of these different programs is, unfortunately, an institutional problem mostly found in Congress:

“Congress is often to blame,” the report reads in bold type for emphasis, as the report details $2.9 billion in overlap in 20 homeless programs spread throughout seven different agencies. “Fragmentation and overlap in some of these programs may be due in part to their legislative creation as separate programs under the jurisdiction of several agencies,” the report finds.

One of the common sense fixes to this is to require any new legislation proposed be researched in detail to see if what is being proposed is already in existence in some form.  Secondly, clear lines of authority and responsibility should be delineated, subject to overwatch and enforced.  And finally, if the program or a similar program exist, Congress should focus any effort proposed in the new legislation on improving the performance of the existing program vs. creating even more bureaucracy, redundancy and overlap.

DoD has one of the worst records in this area of any governmental department.  Call it bureaucratic ossification if you like, but the bureaucracy built up over the years, especially in the procurement end of things, has become so large and unwieldy that wast and abuse are rampant.   Not necessarily through intent, but simply because of its size and the inefficiencies such size create.

The Defense Department takes a number of hits in the report. The GAO found many instances of duplication in the sprawling agency. The use of “urgent need” funds have been expanded, GAO found, with “multiple places for a warfighter to submit” such requests. GAO found that the Pentagon has “no tracking mechanism” for these funds, resulting in an estimated $77 billion in overlap since 2005.

Again, significant money.  And the fact that the Pentagon has no real tracking mechanism for the funds is simply unacceptable.  A problem that has been crying for a solution for years – and there is no better time than now to apply it.

The study came as a result of a request by Congress to look specifically at “federal programs, agencies, offices, and initiatives with duplicative goals and activities, to estimate the cost of such duplication, and to make recommendations to Congress for consolidation and elimination of such duplication.

They apparently got more than they expected in the report.  As one Senator said about the release of the report, it ”will make us all look like jackasses.”

Not really Senator – that would actually be an upgrade.

Of course, now comes the hard part - doing the necessary hard work legislatively and through oversight to eliminate the waste and inefficiency identified by the GAO.  Perhaps, if done swiftly and efficiently Congress will earn that  upgrade to “jackasses” from – this is a family friendly blog, isn’t it?

Never mind.
—
Bruce McQuain blogs at Questions and Observations (QandO), Blackfive, the Washington Examiner and the Green Room.

The speaker, along with Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., on Wednesday plans to introduce legislation to revive a controversial program that provides private-school vouchers for kids of low-income parents in Washington, D.C. Boehner has long been a supporter of that program, which started to wind down in 2009, but is devoting some serious political capital to the cause this week.

[snip]

The D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program, as it is known, was launched in 2004 as the first federally funded program providing K-12 education grants. Though supporters say it gives poor students an alternative to the city’s underperforming public school system, teachers unions and other opponents say it draws sorely needed money away from the public system. 

Lawmakers opposed to the program succeeded in eliminating it after Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill. — who could not be reached for comment Tuesday — attached an amendment to a 2009 spending bill. President Obama stepped in and agreed to allow students currently enrolled to graduate. But the program is no longer accepting new applicants.

To recap, the Omnibus appropriations act of 2009 defunded (roll call vote here) the successful program–effectively eliminating any opportunity for poor DC schoolchildren to escape the horrid DC public schools.  The Democrats, namely Dick Durbin, claimed that the program funding would take away from the money the DC public schools needed.

Speaker Boehner and Senator Lieberman put out this video statement:

This move to reinstate this program is a bold one for Boehner–especially when calls for spending decreases are deafening and we are broke (H/T Allah for the video).   However, when the Obama administration spent more than all previous administrations in his first 19 months in office, it’s hard to say that this wasn’t a deliberate cut on the part of the Democrats–especially after 3 months in office.

Furthermore, this is going to be a tricky issue for Obama and the Democrats–one that will further define the Democrats as bought-off, public-sector union hacks and self-serving politicians who continually oppress and exploit others for their own political gain.  Some of you may think, yeah, those Republicans, but I will remind you–it was the Republicans who originally started the DC scholarship program and the Democrats (and a few of the usual RINOs) who filibustered it.  Kinda like the 1964 Civil Rights Act–Democrats filibustered that one, too.  Look it up.

Does anyone see a pattern here?

The doctrine, known as nullification, has its roots in the brand of governance practiced by the nation’s founding fathers. It was used as early as 1799 by then-law professor Thomas Jefferson, who wrote in a response to federal laws passed amid an undeclared naval war against France that

nullification, by those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts … is the rightful remedy.

As a legal theory, nullification is grounded in the assumption that states, and not the U.S. Supreme Court, are the ultimate arbiter in cases where Congress and the president have “run amok.”

In Idaho, use of the doctrine to invalidate the health care reform bill is being championed by both state Sen. Monty Pearce and Gov. C.L. “Butch” Otter speech, who recently told Idaho residents, “we are actively exploring all our options — including nullification.” Pearce plans to introduce a nullification bill in the state legislature early next week.

Idaho is not the only state considering nullification as a remedy. Six others, including Maine, Montana, Oregon, Nebraska, Texas and Wyoming, are also considering bills that would in essence nullify the president’s signature on the reform law.

Pearce, who has expressed optimism that the law will pass, becoming the law of the land in Idaho, is quoted by FOX as having saud:

There are now 27 states that are in on the lawsuit against Obamacare. What if those 27 states do the same thing we do with nullification? It’s a killer.

One potential fly in the ointment for Idaho and other states considering nullification is the 1958 U.S. Supreme Court decision reaffirming that federal laws “shall be the supreme law of the land.” If nothing else, these moves will result in some interesting legal battles

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While I was on Capitol Hill to cover Wednesday’s swearing-in of the 112th Congress, I dropped by Marco Rubio’s office:

Alas, poor Marco! Florida’s Tea Party superstar has been stuck in a temporary office in the basement, behind the cafeteria, on a dead-dead corridor across the hall from the Senate stationery store!
The new senator himself wasn’t in — “spending some family time” after the swearing-in, his receptionist said. Rubio’s office is next door to the temporary office of newly-elected Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana. A staffer in Coats’ office explained to me that unlike the House — where departing members are whisked out of their offices and the new members whisked in before the swearing-in — the Senate gives departing members up to five months to clear out of their offices. So new senators like Rubio and Coats might not be in their permanent offices until May.

You can read the rest of my report (including video interviews with new GOP congresswomen Ann Marie Buerkle and Renee Ellmers) at The Other McCain.

The Medicare policy will pay doctors for holding end-of-life-care discussions with patients, according to the Times. A similar provision was dropped from the new healthcare reform law after Republicans accused the administration of withholding care from the sick, elderly and disabled. However, an administration spokesman said the regulation, which is less specific than the reform law’s draft language, is actually a continuation of a policy enacted under former President George W. Bush.

“The only thing new here is a regulation allowing the discussions … to happen in the context of the new annual wellness visit created by [healthcare reform],” Obama spokesman Reid Cherlin told The Wall Street Journal.

In 2003, Medicare added a consultation visit for seniors new to the program, according to the Journal. Another 2008 law, enacted under Bush, said the visit can include “end-of-life” planning discussions.

However, what The Hill’s Jason Millman forgot to mention in his article was that President Bush VETOED the 2008 bill and the Democrats, along with some “good-willed” Republicans OVERRODE Bush’s veto forcing him to sign the legislation into law.*  The bill dealt with doctors’ reimbursements and more, but the Democrats slipped in the end-of-life planning by opening up the Social Security Act, which I have stated many times is dangerous, because once changed, it is difficult to amend again and allows for tinkering with the Medicare fee schedule and covered services definitions and requirements.

For the record, here is the text that the Democrats changed:

(b) Revisions to Initial Preventive Physical Examination-

(1) IN GENERAL- Section 1861(ww) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 1395x(ww)) is amended–

(A) in paragraph (1)–

(i) by inserting ‘body mass index,’ after ‘weight’;

(ii) by striking ‘, and an electrocardiogram’; and

(iii) by inserting ‘and end-of-life planning (as defined in paragraph (3)) upon the agreement with the individual’ after ‘paragraph (2)’;

Comedy gold indeed, when Democrats blame Bush for, um, everything wrong in America, and then use him for cover on healthcare.

Updated:  *President Bush did not sign this bill into law as the congressional record mistakenly notes.  After Congress overrode Bush’s veto, President Bush was not required to sign the bill to enact it.

We find a blast-from-the-past answer today as we once again visit the hallowed pages of the Washington Monthly where Steve Benen seeks to breath fresh life into an old chestnut: we’ll get everyone mad at those smarmy rich bastards.

IF ONLY THOSE ‘LUCKY DUCKIES’ HAD SOME ‘SKIN IN THE GAME’

It’s been about eight years since the far-right Wall Street Journal editorial page came up with the notion of “lucky duckies.” The label was used to describe the millions of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes because they don’t earn enough money.

Conservatives, it seems, still aren’t quite comfortable with these folks’ “luck.”

The particular bee under Steve’s bonnet this week comes in the form of some comments made by incoming House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) It seems that Congressman Camp plans to “deliberately make things harder” on all of those sweaty, obnoxious poor people cluttering up the work houses.

“I believe,” Camp says, “you’ve got to have some responsibility for the government you have.” People have co-payments under Medicare, and everyone should similarly have some “skin in the game” under the income tax system.

To the barricades, citizens! The Evil Republicans are once again coming to tax the poor out of existence! Let’s see how Mr. Benen rationalizes this approach.

Let’s set the record straight here. When conservatives talk about nearly 47% of the country paying no income taxes, the argument tends to overlook relevant details — such as the fact that these same middle- and lower-class families still pay sales taxes, state taxes, local taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare/Medicaid taxes, and in many instances, property taxes.

In other words, they already have some “skin in the game.” …

But even if we put all of this aside, let’s appreciate the underlying point of the conservatives’ concern — for all the talk on the right about cutting taxes at every available opportunity, there’s also a drive to raise taxes on those who can least afford it. The GOP has a natural revulsion to any tax system, but there’s an eerie comfort with a regressive agenda that showers additional wealth on the rich while asking for more from lower-income workers.

Perhaps we can take a moment and figure out precisely where Steve went off the beam here. There are two main thrusts to this argument, each one fantastic in nature, but they should be tackled in order.

First, in an era where voters just finished signaling quite clearly on November 2nd that they were growing increasingly – and justifiably – concerned with our out of control deficits, massive spending and rising national debt, Steve lists a number of items which “the poor” are already paying. These include sales taxes, state taxes, local taxes, Social Security taxes, Medicare/Medicaid taxes, and property taxes.

Advance Placement Students may note that nearly all of these items have one thing in common. They don’t go into the federal government’s general pool of revenue. Most of them, by definition, remain in coffers at the state and local level. Others go into very specific pockets of revenue which can not be employed to address the deficit. In fact, with the limited exception of certain types of sales taxes, none of them apply to the problem which Mr. Camp seeks to address.

NOTE: It is worth pointing out in the interest of accuracy that a portion of the Social Security withholdings collected each year actually do wind up in the general pool by virtue of the surplus being raided by Congress. But it is replaced in the “trust fund” by Special Issue Treasury Bills which require the repayment of a minuscule amount of interest, so it could fairly be said that these payments not only can’t be used to address the deficit, but in fact add to it.

Second is the transparently lame argument that if you don’t jack up the taxes on “the rich” to Clinton era levels or beyond, then you are somehow seeking to” not tax the rich” while working on fleecing the working man. The truth, of course, is that if you leave the levels where they are now – or even decrease them slightly – the wealthiest earners will still pay a vastly greater amount, both in percentage and raw totals, than the average middle class or below worker.

But would such a plan actually produce a significant amount of revenue that could make a difference or get voters more engaged in the process? Let’s face it… the current tax system is horribly broken, but until a clear path emerges for a complete overhaul of how we handle revenue collection we’re stuck working with what we have.

So, if roughly 50 million workers wound up contributing, on average, two dollars per work day – about what you would save if you brewed a pot of coffee in the morning rather than stopping at Duncan Donuts – you would produce approximately $20 billion per year.

Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But perhaps that’s part of the overall problem. If the recent report of the deficit commission taught us anything it’s that there is no silver bullet waiting to be fired. We are not going to magically find one huge pocket to pick and generate the revenue we need. Nor are we going to suddenly eliminate one giant area of spending – such as wiping out the entire military – to reduce costs. We’re going to need a blanket approach of raising more money across the board and making cuts to spending in every quarter. $20 billion is still a lot of real money, and it’s a start.

Plus, an increasing number of conservatives are showing signs of being willing to even have the wealthy pay a bit more in taxes if – and only if – Washington can demonstrate the discipline to seriously reduce spending and cut into the debt so they will at least know their contribution will be going to a worthy cause.

And for the more modest income worker, might that two dollars per day coming out of their pocket get their attention and make them more engaged in the process, demanding that our elected representatives spend that money wisely and start tackling the greatest challenge facing our generation and those to come? One can only hope. If nothing else, it certainly seems worthy of an open, honest discussion in the public forum and not just another round of empty class-warfare rhetoric.

Now you can yell at Jazz for being a stupid, wrong-headed RINO even faster than by just leaving a comment. Follow him on Twitter! @JazzShaw

Joe’s story is one of an underdog given long odds against his established, moderate Democrat opponent, Melissa Bean. Like many long shots around the nation, he received little or no money from the GOP on the national level, and was viewed as a bit of a toxic package for his close association with the Tea Party and his refusal to “go along to get along” with standard party doctrine. And he’s already found some quick ways to distinguish himself from the pack before he’s even sworn in to office.

Mr. Walsh, 48, will get about $1.4 million annually to run his operation and plans as many as three district branches. He’ll sleep in his office in Washington, while his family stays here in McHenry. And get this: he’s turned down the usual congressional health care, pension and retirement packages.

“I don’t think congressmen should get pensions or cushy health care plans,” he said. His wife is not exhilarated with the latter decision; she has a pre-existing medical condition and is now forced to hunt for a plan.

I know it’s far too early to say, but this is sounding more and more like somebody who actually walks the walk after talking the talk on the campaign trail. Additionally, he’s already staked out some positions which are probably going to make the GOP leadership wish they’d been a bit nicer to him in the early days.

One of the first votes he’ll confront is on raising the federal debt ceiling. Many economists warn that voting down an increase would be a mistake, and the House Republican leadership agrees. Mr. Walsh will vote against it. “On principle and policy, the leadership is wrong,” he said. “This is a teachable moment on my part.”

What is government’s role? “Protect my borders, protect Americans on their streets, keep our highways paved and our environment clean, defend us overseas and help those who can’t help themselves,” he said.

I suspect that somebody will be finding the red carpet being rolled out for the Tea Party caucus in the House. If his votes live up to his claims – and we’re seeing nothing so far to indicate a predisposition toward flip-floppery – this is part of the new generation of congressmen who are going to shake things up and be very difficult for John Boehner to manage or try to keep on the reservation when it comes time for compromise.

Now you can yell at Jazz for being a stupid, wrong-headed RINO even faster than by just leaving a comment. Follow him on Twitter! @JazzShaw

The new rule would relax the complete ban on the use of gadgets like the iPad, iPhone or BlackBerry on the floor. Mobile phones, tablet computers and the whole universe of applications that run on them will be officially available to House members as they conduct business.

Members still may not talk on the phone in the chamber and are supposed to use the devices for official business only, according to a spokesman for the soon-to-be speaker, John A. Boehner, Republican of Ohio. But as long as the mute switch is on, lawmakers will be free to tap away.

While I generally try to avoid the appearance of the old curmudgeon yelling for the kids to keep off his darn lawn, this simply strikes me as a bad idea. I’m not opposed to members of Congress taking full advantage of today’s technological miracles to do their jobs more efficiently and communicate with their constituents, but there is a time and place for everything. It’s not like it wasn’t already happening on the sly, (paging John Kerry to the White Lack of Courtesy Phone) but that doesn’t mean we need to formalize it as an institution.

It’s just one more step away from what we originally paid these people to do. It’s become all too common to see a lone congressman standing and addressing a nearly empty hall, speaking to nobody but the CSPAN cameras while his or her colleagues are off dashing about on their own affairs, only scurrying back in to the chamber when an actual vote is called. Weren’t these people supposed to be debating the great issues of the day with each other? Don’t we expect them to at least make a pretense of listening to the various points of view before they vote?

How sad if this results in a hall full of elected representatives lounging around and tapping on their Blackberries, clearly ignoring their fellows who have the floor. If the GOP wants to change the rules this time around, perhaps they could begin taking attendance for who is actually in the chamber and doing their job, rather than simply who shows up for the vote.

Now you can yell at Jazz for being a stupid, wrong-headed RINO even faster than by just leaving a comment. Follow him on Twitter! @JazzShaw