Tag Archives: The Washington Examiner

Who Can We Trust?

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Even Snopes doesn’t get it right all the time.

Yesterday the Washington Examiner posted a story about a recent entry on the Snopes site. Snopes is a site that many people use for fact-checking. The entry had to do with comments made by health economist Jonathan Gruber last year (see rightwinggranny.com). The comments are recorded on video and evidently later taken off of the internet (although they are still in the rightwinggranny article).

The article at the Washington Examiner tells the story:

Rather than giving the claim what is easily a “true” rating, the fact checking group gives it a “mixture” rating.

“It appears the comments made by Gruber entered the stream of social media hot topics due to a 9 November 2014 post on the website the Daily Signal, where it was framed as a ‘newly surfaced video,’ ” the website reported. “The shorter version of the video was initially posted by the political action committee (PAC) American Commitment.”

American Commitment, which is not a PAC, had also linked to the original video from UPenn from its own YouTube channel.

…Snopes fact-checkers seem unable to draw obvious conclusions about something as simple as reading a time stamp on YouTube.

“While the newly-circulated video of Gruber’s remarks is unedited, the comments are neither recent nor complete, and whether the originating source attempted to pull them from the Internet at one point remains unclear,” the conclusion reads.

Snopes is owned by Barbara and David Mikkelson of California. I have no idea what their political persuasion is, but in the case of Jonathan Gruber they seem to have missed the boat. This incident is another reason every person needs to do their own research on the issues they care about.

I Wish Someone Had Read The Bill Before They Passed It

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There is new bad news coming out about ObamaCare every day. The President has unilaterally changed the law so many times it seems as if he is making it up as he goes along (maybe he is), and now there is a new twist for senior citizens.

On December 12, the Washington Examiner reported that beginning January 1, there will be major cuts to programs in Medicare and Medicaid that help senior citizens.

The article reports:

An estimated 3.5 million poor and ill homebound senior citizens will wake up on New Year’s Day to discover Obamacare has slashed funding for their home health care program.

It will happen because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services quietly issued a regulation Nov. 22 announcing a 14-percent cut over the next four years in funding for the Home Health Care Prospective Payment program.

The rule cuts Medicare payments to home health care providers by 3.5 percent each year beginning in 2014, for a total cut of 14 percent.

…Nearly a half million skilled home care workers are also projected to lose their jobs over the next four years due to the cuts, according to the program’s supporters.

The cuts may also have a disproportionate impact on minorities and those living in underserved rural communities.

A November 2013 study by Avalere Health, a Washington, D.C., health care business analysis firm, found that two out of three home health care recipients fall at or below the federal poverty line.

The study also estimated that one in four seniors getting home health care are age 85 or older.

Federal officials had discretion to keep Medicare home payments at the same level or impose a maximum 3.5 percent cut each year through 2017 to reach the 14-percent reduction.

But CMS opted to impose the maximum reduction, beginning on New Year’s Day 2014.

The cuts that are being made to Medicare are being made to fund ObamaCare. In other words, ObamaCare takes money from the care of the elderly and uses that money to fund a government takeover of the health insurance agency.

The article reports some push-back from Congress on the issue:

Fifty-one senators appealed in a September letter to Tavenner to reject the proposed cuts to home health care agencies, saying enactment “would raise serious concerns about access to care for vulnerable seniors.”

There were 35 Democratic signers of the letter to Tavenner, 15 Republicans and one independent.

Also in September, 142 members of the House of Representatives wrote Tavenner that “home health is a critical service that allows patients to be treated in a cost effective manner in the environment they prefer — their home.”

Sixty-six House Democrats joined 76 House Republicans in signing that letter.

As January 1 rapidly approaches, the promises made about ObamaCare are becoming nightmares for the American public.

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It Is Possible To Balance The Budget Without Raising Taxes

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On Saturday the Washington Examiner posted an editorial about balancing the American budget. The editorial reminds us that everyone–rich or poor–will pay more in taxes after January 1.

The editorial states:

Liberal columnists love to point out that the top marginal rate on personal income was 91 percent in the 1950s and in the early 1960s. But the tax code back then was also chock-full of loopholes and benefits that let top earners escape such stifling tax burdens. As high as top marginal rates were, taxes as a percentage of GDP never rose above 19 percent, and in fact fell as low as 14.5 percent.

In fact, since World War II, federal taxes as a percentage of GDP have never risen above 20.6 percent and have averaged just under 18 percent. This has been consistent, regardless of changes to tax rates.

This fact is also confirmed in the Laffer Curve. There is a point at which tax increases actually result in less revenue. We need to keep this fact in mind as we discuss what to do about the ‘fiscal cliff.’

There are two think tanks that represent the two ways of thinking about solutions to the ‘fiscal cliff’:

Obama’s favorite think tank, the Center for American Progress, submitted a plan that calls for the federal government to eat up more than 20 percent of the American economy through taxation every year, in perpetuity. Being the liberals that they are, CAP calls for even higher levels of spending — above 22 percent of GDP by 2022 alone.

Contrast CAP’s plan with that of the Heritage Foundation. It returns taxation to just above the historical U.S. average at 18.5 percent of GDP. By cutting spending to pre-Great Society levels, the Heritage plan not only balances the budget but actually begins to lower our cumulative national debt.

Taking money from people who earn it and giving it to people who don’t earn it is not a solution to anything. Until Washington stops using American taxpayers as vehicles to get re-elected, nothing will be accomplished.

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Obama Phones

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This is the “Obama Phone” video that has gone viral on YouTube:

The Washington Examiner posted a story yesterday about the federal program behind the Obama Phones.

The article reports:

The program is called Lifeline, established in 1984, originally created to subsidize landline phone service for low income Americans, funded by government-collected telecommunication fees, paid by consumers.

In 2008, the program was expanded to support cell phones which quickly escalated the cost of the program. In 2008 the program cost $772 million, but by 2011 it cost $1.6 billion.

The article points out that many of the people receiving free cell phones had signed up for free phones from two or more carriers.

The video below (posted on YouTube), produced by Rep. Tim Griffin R-Ark, provides a common sense solution to the outrageous growth in the free phone program:

This is one of many programs that could be changed in order to reduce the federal deficit!

 

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You Can’t Win If You Are Not Willing To Fight !

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The Washington Examiner posted an editorial yesterday about the fight that went on at the Republican convention about rules changes the Romney campaign wanted to make.

The editorial points out:

Ginsberg’s (Romney campaign lawyer Ben Ginsberg) rule change, launched without warning Friday morning, would have given the presidential campaigns the power to replace any of the delegates pledged to them, functionally giving them the power to select every state’s delegation. Many in the conservative movement saw this as a power grab by party insiders at the expense of grassroots conservatives, with the Paul threat serving merely as a bogeyman.

The article concludes:

…As they learned in the Bush era with the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers, conservatives often achieve better results by holding a Republican president’s feet to the fire. In the event of a Romney administration, conservatives must learn from this small fight and keep up their efforts. We hope Romney learns from it, too.

The bottom line here is simple. If the conservative wing of the Republican party intends to wrest control of the party from the establishment Republicans (who are not noticeably different from the Democrats on many issues), they need to increase their numbers in Congress and fight hard. We can win this battle without forming a third party–we just need to be willing to fight the battle.

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About That Civility Thing…

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Today’s Washington Examiner reported some comments made by a Maine state legislator on twitter.

The article reports:

“Cheney deserves same final end he gave Saddam,” Kruger tweeted, according to the Maine Wire. “Hope there are cell cams,” he added, indicating a desire to watch Cheney die.

Today, after local media noticed the comment, Krugertweeted, “Twitter is no place for lousy attempts at humor” along with the hashtag “#mepolitics,” in what seems to be an allusion to the Cheney/Saddam tweet.

I’m afraid I fail to see the humor in any of that. Comments like that deserve to have consequences. I doubt there will be any, but Mr. Kruger was totally out of line.

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