Poor in Colorado may get free phones

Does the House really want to raise taxes on eight million uninsured people?

The President has said he would not allow taxes to be raised on anyone with less than $250,000 of income.

Today for the first time we see the legislative language for and a summary of the health care reform bill that House Democrats intend to try to pass before the August recess.  The following is based on an initial quick scan of the bill and studying a few key sections.  I have been wondering how the drafters were going to solve the problem I am about to describe.  As best I can tell, they didn’t solve it.

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As expected, the House bill would mandate that individuals and families have or buy health insurance.

But what if they don’t buy it?

Then Section 401 kicks in.  Any individual (or family) that does not have health insurance would have to pay a new tax, roughly equal to the smaller of 2.5% of your income or the cost of a health insurance plan.

http://keithhennessey.com/2009/07/14/house-taxes-the-uninsured/

9 reasons Pelosi’s healthcare surtax is disastrous

So what explains the crazy, cockeyed optimism of House Democrats? Maybe they still believe Team Obama’s rosy-scenario forecast that shows the stimulus package a) keeping unemployment under 8 percent this year and b) launching an economic boom next year and beyond. For some reason, though, they think the battered U.S. economy is so strong that politicians can pile tax upon tax on it with no fear of further harm. Less than three weeks after passing a costly cap-and-trade carbon emission plan, Pelosi & Co. have giddily unveiled a $1.2 trillion healthcare plan partially funded by a $544 billion surtax on the work and investment income of wealthier Americans, including small business owners.

[See why Obama's economic gamble is failing.]

The ten-year proposal calls for a 1 percent surtax on adjusted gross income — including capital gains — between $350,000 and $500,000; a 1.5% surtax on income between $500,000 and $1 million; and a 5.4% surtax on income exceeding $1 million. (Interestingly, the House fact sheet on the surtax forgets to mention the highest tax rate. Hey, they were in a rush.) How bad an idea is this? Let me count the ways:

It’s not the first Obama tax hike. This tax would be in addition to the $1 trillion in new taxes that Obama called for in his budget released earlier this year. (And then there’s cap and trade, remember.) And if healthcare reform costs more than expected — what are the odds of that, you think? — the surtax would go up.

http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/07/15/9-reasons-pelosis-healthcare-surtax-is-disastrous/

THERE IS a serious case to be made that the U.S. income tax system should become more progressive. The average rate paid by the top 1 percent of households shrank from 33 percent in 1986 to about 23 percent in 2006. At the same time, the share of adjusted gross income claimed by that highest-earning sliver of American society doubled, from 11 percent to 22 percent. So, in principle, higher taxes for the well-heeled could make sense -- as part of a broader rationalization of the unduly complex tax code.

But there is no case to be made for the House Democratic majority's proposal to fund health-care legislation through an ad hoc income tax surcharge for top-earning households. The new surtax would hit individual households earning $350,000 and above. It would start at 1 percent, bumping up to 1.5 percent at $500,000 in income and to 5.4 percent at $1 million. The new levy would begin in 2011 and is supposed to raise $540 billion over 10 years, about half the projected cost of health-care reform. The rest of the money would come from reduced spending on Medicare and Medicaid -- though the surtax for the lower two categories would jump by a percentage point each in 2013 unless the Office of Management and Budget determines that the rest of the bill has saved more than $150 billion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/14/AR2009071403075.html

EXCLUSIVE -- Three Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee --Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), Robert Menendez (N.J.), and Debbie Stabenow (Mich.) today are announcing an aggressive push to make HEALTH INSURES absorb AS MUCH AS $100 BILLION of the cost of reform. The idea has been kicking around quietly in meetings, and insurers are on a list of potential targets that have been floating around. But Schumer, one of the senior Democratic voices at the Capitol, is going at them head-on.

A top Senate Democratic aide: “If we really want to have a breakthrough to make it possible to pass this, we should go after these guys in terms of defraying the cost of the bill.”

The structure has not been set, but top possibilities include a fee based on their market share and what the aide calls “a flat percentage of their profits – basically a windfall-profits tax, like people propose on the oil industry, for health-care insurance.” Per the aide, this could raise “close to $100 billion if you did it in a very aggressive way.”

http://www.politico.com/politicopulse/0709/politicopulse39.html

Obama Approval Drops Nine Points

The latest Diageo/Hotline Poll of finds that the percentage of American voters who approve of the job President Obama is doing has dropped nine points to 56%.

In the poll it says this:

Interestingly, compared to June, the decrease in Obama’s job approval ratings is being driven
primarily by decreases among male voters (-15 points), Independent voters (-15 points), and
rural voters (-15 points)

"Thinly-Veiled Threats"? White House Suggests Arizona Republicans Put Up or Shut Up

July 14, 2009 10:27 PM

In a coordinated response to comments made by an Arizona Republican senator calling for a the stimulus bill to be halted, the Obama administration this week coordinated a series of letters to the governor of Arizona, with the implicit message: put up or shut up.

Arizona Republicans responded that the White House was bullying their state.

On This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said of the $787 billion stimulus package, "the reality is it hasn't helped yet. Only about 6.8 percent of the money has actually been spent. What I proposed is, after you complete the contracts that are already committed, the things that are in the pipeline, stop it."

A day later, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer received letters from Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood,  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan and Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar all pointing out the billions headed to Arizona.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/07/thinly-veiled-threats-white-house-suggests-arizona-republicans-put-up-or-shut-up.html

Here is a map of what the bureaucracy would look like if ObamaCare passes:

http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/House-Democrats-Health-Plan.pdf

Republican candidate Robert F. McDonnell has rebounded to take a narrow lead over Democrat R. Creigh Deeds in the race for governor in Virginia, highlighting the expected closeness of that contest right up to November.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Virginia voters finds McDonnell leading Deeds 44% to 41%. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and 12% are undecided.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2009/virginia/election_2009_virginia_governor_election

When an Air Force command in north Florida sought new battlefield technologies,  Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) steered millions in federal dollars its way to hire defense contractors.

The research effort at the Pensacola Air Force base fell apart, however, when investigators found evidence that it was used to improperly pay a series of companies linked to Murtha. A handful of defense firms were paid for work that was never done or not called for in the contracts. Some of the companies involved, based in Wyoming, Florida and Murtha's district in Pennsylvania, had hidden owners, prosecutors allege; one was secretly owned by the Air Force official who helped approve the payments.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/14/AR2009071402251.html

ollowing the first two days of confirmation hearings for Judge Sonia Sotomayor, voters overwhelmingly expect her to be confirmed for the U.S. Supreme Court but remain divided as to whether she should be.

Ninety percent (90%) now say her confirmation is likely while only four percent (4%) say it is not.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 37% of voters now favor her confirmation while 43% are opposed. Importantly, those who are undecided have a positive view of President Obama and are probably willing to give him and his nominee the benefit of the doubt.

http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/obama_administration/july_2009/following_two_days_of_hearings_90_expect_sotomayor_to_be_confirmed

New York AG Could Seek Settlement With White House Car Czar, Source Says

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo could press for a legal settlement with Steven Rattner regarding potential civil charges in a wide-ranging pay-to-play investigation, The Associated Press reports. 

FOXNews.com

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The White House auto czar, who abruptly announced this week that he was leaving the administration, could face legal action in New York over his former company's dealings with the state pension fund. 

The Associated Press reported late Tuesday that New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo could press for a legal settlement with Steven Rattner regarding potential civil charges in a wide-ranging pay-to-play investigation.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/15/new-york-ag-seek-settlement-white-house-car-czar-source-says/

This from Liberty Counsel:

We have learned that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning to rush the so-called Hate Crimes bill to the floor of the Senate. The bill is planned to be fast-tracked as an amendment to a spending bill that Congress must pass in order to fund our troops.

http://www.lc.org/index.cfm?PID=14102&AlertID=1008

Capitol doors shut after nearby police shootout
By J. Taylor Rushing and Jordy Yager | Posted: 07/15/09 05:57 PM [ET]
Capitol entrances and exits were closed early Wednesday evening after police shot a driver nearby who reportedly opened fire on officers; Senate staffers complained about the lack of notification as the deadly incident unfolded.

This story recaps yesterday's hearing and first day of questioning:

The Nominee’s Evil Twin
Why does the Sonia Sotomayor of 2009 sound so different from that of previous years?

By Jim Geraghty

If you knew absolutely nothing about Sonia Sotomayor before Tuesday’s confirmation hearing and judged her entirely on her answers, you could easily come to the conclusion that she had been nominated by Pres. George W. Bush and was likely to sail through confirmation with the strong support of conservatives in the legal community.

Of course, she was nominated by President Obama, and conservative legal eagles are doing their best to lay out the case against her confirmation. But in her first day of questioning before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sotomayor sounded nothing like the judge who caused controversy via her remarks about the superior legal judgment of a “wise Latina,” her comments about judges’ role in setting policy, and her rulings about the Second Amendment.

If you asked Americans which two words they most closely associate with Sotomayor, those words would probably be “wise Latina.” The phrase was included in multiple speeches she delivered between 1994 and 2003 and was most often expressed in the line, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would, more often than not, reach a better conclusion.” This line was often delivered as a response to a remark often attributed (possibly falsely) to Sandra Day O’Connor. In one instance, Sotomayor put her disagreement with the O’Connor quote pretty clearly: “Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that ‘a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same conclusion’ in deciding cases. . . . I am . . . not so sure that I agree with the statement.”

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTE1ODczOTc5NGVkNjI4MjM4YTM4OTA0ZmIyMTU1M2U=