Recession 2 “Summer of Recovery” 0

The government is about to confirm what many people have felt for some time: The economy barely has a pulse.
The Commerce Department on Friday will revise its estimate for economic growth in the April-to-June period and Wall Street economists forecast it will be cut almost in half, to a 1.4 percent annual rate from 2.4 percent.
That’s a sharp slowdown from the first quarter, when the economy grew at a 3.7 percent annual rate, and economists say it’s a taste of the weakness to come. The current quarter isn’t expected to be much better, with many economists forecasting growth of only 1.7 percent.
Such slow growth won’t feel much like an economic recovery and won’t lead to much hiring. The unemployment rate, now at 9.5 percent, could even rise by the end of the year.
“The economy is going to limp along for the next few months,” said Gus Faucher, an economist at Moody’s Analytics. There’s even a one in three chance it could slip back into recession, he said.
The report confirms the economy has lost significant momentum in recent months. Most analysts expect the nation’s GDP will continue to grow at a similarly weak pace in the current July-to-September quarter and for the rest of this year.
The economy has grown for four straight quarters, but that growth has averaged only 2.9 percent, a weak pace after such a steep recession. The economy needs to expand at about 3 percent just to keep the unemployment rate, currently 9.5 percent, from rising.
According to data released earlier this week, home prices fell as much as five percent across the country in the month of July, and existing home sales fell 27%.

The worst in 15 years.

But if you listen to the liberals and their pundits, it slow but it’s all good. You just to have more hope. Give it more time. Don’t be so impatient.
So what if GDP growth has gone for 5% in the last quarter of 2009 to 1.6% now it’s still improving!
And you wouldn’t to hand the keys back over to Bush now would you!
After all, Bush was Republican and all Republicans are Bush. (a gold star to anyone who can spot the logical fallacy in that statement ) But isn’t that what the Democrats ARE saying…
Cue Sisyphus!


Will the economy actually enter a double dip, with G.D.P. shrinking? Who cares? If unemployment rises for the rest of this year, which seems likely, it won’t matter whether the G.D.P. numbers are slightly positive or slightly negative.
All of this is obvious. Yet policy makers are in denial. Why are people who know better sugar-coating economic reality? The answer, I’m sorry to say, is that it’s all about evading responsibility.(Paul Krugman)

After all, it’s Bush’s Fault! and you wouldn’t want Republicans! they’ll just wreck the car again like they did before!
After all, Bush was Republican and all Republicans are Bush.
And as Mr Krugman also says, showing his liberal roots,”The administration has less freedom of action, since it can’t get legislation past the Republican blockade.”
The Democrats currently have an overwhelming majority in the House and 59/100 seats in the Senate and The Presidency.
Yet, it’s a “republican blockade”.

The problem is that the Democrats can’t get all the Democrats to vote for all of this crap so they have to blame the minority party for it!
It sure as hell can’t possibly be their fault!
So, if November happens as predicted and the Democrats are the minority, it will be the tyranny of the majority then right? They will be the victims yet again, as they are now in the majority.
Perpetual Victimization!

But the Democrats will focus again on the 1 tree in the forest that isn’t on fire and say that’s you’re hope and change, just be patient, socialism wasn’t built in a day!


On Thursday, Standard & Poor’s said action is needed soon if the U.S. is to keep the much-coveted AAA bond rating that lets the government borrow in global markets at the lowest rates possible.
S&P’s warning came just days after Morgan Stanley asserted that the U.S., along with a number of other developed nations, is likely to default on some debt. Such defaults are “inevitable,” it said, given the growing number of retirees in developed nations who will have to be taken care of by a shrinking pool of workers.
The sovereign debt crisis “is not over,” said the investment bank’s Arnaud Mares, and that includes in the U.S.
What worries Wall Street is a public debt-to-GDP ratio of around 53%. That’s high enough as it is, but it’s about to go a lot higher. By 2020, recent data suggest, the ratio will top 100% — a red line that virtually all economists agree is dangerous.
In raw numbers, we owed roughly $7.5 trillion at the start of this year. By 2020 that explodes to $23.5 trillion, according to an analysis of Congressional Budget Office data by economist Brian Riedl.
What do these numbers mean? To begin with, we spend $187 billion a year, or 1.3% of GDP, to pay our debts now. Just 10 years from now, that will surge to $1.1 trillion, or 4.8% of estimated GDP. Fiscally speaking, we’ll be gasping for air.
Debt can be a good thing, but in big doses it’s poison. If, as some fear, the U.S. should simply say it can’t pay its debts and default — or do a de facto default by printing money to retire our debt — the consequences would be dire.
No nation would want our bonds in their portfolios. To entice them to buy, we’d have to offer a much higher risk premium — that is, higher interest rates.
That means our debt service could go even higher, squeezing out even more of our economy’s spending.
The dollar would implode, and prices for foreign goods — which now make up 15% of our economy — would soar. Private investment would shrink and, along with it, private-sector GDP
Americans’ standard of living, once the envy of the world, would recede into the pack of mediocre, government-run nations.
It doesn’t have to be this way. All this is due to unrestrained spending. The federal government now spends about $29,000 per household. That will rise to $38,000 by 2020. If you think “the rich” will, or can, pay for it all, think again.
Unless we begin to control spending, we can kiss our American lifestyles goodbye. It’s that simple.
Sadly, the White House is unwilling to see reality. Which may explain why, as our debts mount to ruinous heights, Vice President Joe Biden — President Obama’s point man on the recovery — can burble, “This is a chance to do something big, man!”
Yeah, man, something big — like wreck a country.
Warnings about America’s impending financial car wreck are being sounded, loud and clear. The only question is whether those driving the car will slam on the brakes before it’s too late.(IBD)

Got the car out of the ditch and drove it straight off a cliff and into a bottomless pit!
Way to go Barack & Co!
Yours is the Superior Intellect!

Stop Me Before I Lie Again!

A Democrat advocacy group that was essential to the passage of ObamaCare has come out with a new Powerpoint presentation on how to sell ObamaCare, aka sell a 5-gallon jug of water to a drowning man.
And the most interesting revelation: They Lied!
Shocking though that may seem, it seems that in this presentation on the last page of “don’t”s they don’t wanna anyone to talk about the cost savings, deficit reduction, and the lower premiums that was there mantra for 15 months as they crammed it down everyone’s throat in the most partisan vote in memory.
It seems, they might have ‘misspoke’

The presentation also concedes that the fiscal and economic arguments that were the White House’s first and most aggressive sales pitch have essentially failed. “Many don’t believe health care reform will help the economy,” says one slide.

When you see this first panel, think Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals, Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people. The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.

It’s hard to overstate how important the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)—which makes the official judgments on how much bills cost and save—is in Washington. “I consider CBO God around here,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, ranking Republican on the Finance Committee, recently said during the Health Care Debate.(Newsweek– our “islamophobic” fear mongers)

I wonder if he feels the same way after yesterday’s report that showed what the deficit spending has done to the economy?
“We think the numbers are now pretty well set from CBO,” House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said. “We think it will post the largest deficit reduction of any bill that we’ve adopted in the Congress since 1993.”

CBO told lawmakers that the health package would cost $940 billion over the next decade, reducing the deficit by $130 billion. It will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion in the second decade of the plan’s implementation, according to those who have seen the score.
“We are absolutely giddy” about the score, Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said during an interview on Fox News on Thursday. About the deficit-reduction figures, he added, “This is great news for the American people.”(The Hill)
So without further adieu…

Key White House allies are dramatically shifting their attempts to defend health care legislation, abandoning claims that it will reduce costs and deficit and instead stressing a promise to “improve it.”
The messaging shift was circulated this afternoon on a conference call and PowerPoint presentation organized by Families USA — one of the central groups in the push for the initial legislation. The call was led by a staffer for the Herndon Alliance, which includes leading labor groups and other health care allies. It was based on polling from three top Democratic pollsters: John Anzalone, Celinda Lake and Stan Greenberg.
The confidential presentation, available in full here and provided to POLITICO by a source on the call, suggests that Democrats are acknowledging the failure of their predictions that the health care legislation would grow more popular after its passage, as its benefits became clear and rhetoric cooled. Instead, the presentation is designed to win over a skeptical public, and to defend the legislation — and in particular the individual mandate — from a push for repeal.
The presentation concedes that groups typically supportive of Democratic causes — people under 40, non-college-educated women and Hispanic voters — have not been won over by the plan. Indeed, it stresses repeatedly that many are unaware that the legislation has passed, an astonishing shortcoming in the White House’s all-out communications effort.
“Straightforward ‘policy’ defenses fail to [move] voters’ opinions about the law,” says one slide.  ”Women in particular are concerned that health care law will mean less provider availability — scarcity [is] an issue.”
The presentation also concedes that the fiscal and economic arguments that were the White House’s first and most aggressive sales pitch have essentially failed.
“Many don’t believe health care reform will help the economy,” says one slide.
The presentation’s final page of “Don’ts” counsels against claiming “the law will reduce costs and deficit.”
The presentation advises, instead, sales pitches that play on personal narratives and promises to change the legislation.
“People can be moved from initial skepticism and support for repeal of the law to favorable feelings and resisting repeal,” it says.  “Use personal stories — coupled with clear, simple descriptions of how the law benefits people at the individual level — to convey critical benefits of reform.”

In other words, get ready for more grandma has to use someone else’s dentures stories!  Get out the hankies, it’s America’s Most Outrageous Sob Stories Season 2!.
Appeals to emotions, not logic.
Hmmm, the exact opposite of the Ground Zero Mosque where the supporters are totally devoid and deaf to emotions. Curiouser and Curiouser..
Could it be manipulative?  Nahh….


The presentation also counsels against the kind of grand claims of change that accompanied the legislation’s passage.
“Keep claims small and credible; don’t overpromise or ‘spin’ what the law delivers,” it says, suggesting supporters say, “The law is not perfect, but it does good things and helps many people. Now we’ll work [to] improve it.”

The “free” Miracle Cure is just snake oil after all. But don’t tell the customer who had it force down their throat that.


The Herndon Alliance, which presented the research, is a low-profile group that coordinated liberal messaging in favor of the public option in health care. Its “partners” include health care legislation’s heavyweight supporters: AARP, AFL-CIO, SEIU, Health Care for America Now, MoveOn and the National Council of La Raza, among many others.
Let’s see, A Seniors advocacy group that has it’s own Health Insurance arm, Government Unions who have been getting most of the bailouts, Liberal advocacy group funded by a Billionaire Socialist, “The Race” (La Raza) a racist hatemongers group of Latinos who believe in (amongst other things) giving parts of Arizona and New Mexico back to Mexico and are as Open Borders as it gets.
Interesting grouping…


The presentation cites three private research projects by top Democratic pollsters: eight focus groups by Lake; Anzalone’s 1,000-person national survey; and an online survey of 2,000 people by Greenberg’s firm.
“If we are to preserve the gains made by the law and build on this foundation, the American public must understand what the law means for them,” says Herndon’s website. “We must overcome fear and mistrust, and we must once again use our collective voice to connect with the public on the values we share as Americans.” (Ben Smith-Politico)


Water anyone?
“We thought the best thing to do now was to remind people why they personally wanted reform in the first place.”–Spokesman for Families USA.
Wanted it? It was running at 66% against when it was passed and that hasn’t improved one  bit since.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 55% of U.S. Likely Voters favor repeal of the health care bill. That’s down from 59% a week ago, but support for repeal has ranged from 52% to 60%since the law was passed by Congress in March.

I guess follows my new rule that if 60+% of the people are against it, the Democrats are for it and you should be too!   (Health Care, Ground Zero Mosque, Deficit Spending, Continued Bailouts…et al)

A recent Government Accountability Report (GAO), finding that each job ‘created’ by the stimulus bill costs an average of $194,213.
But, fear not! The Government is here to save you…money!
Just over 70 days. I can see November from my house…

The Ditch

Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in its mid-year budget update, has projected that the 2010 budget deficit will be the second highest on record since the end of World War II, eclipsed only by the deficit of 2009.
The CBO says that the total 2010 deficit will reach $1.3 trillion, down slightly from 2009’s $1.4 trillion record. All told, CBO projects that the government will run up a total of $6.2 trillion in new deficits between 2011 and 2020.
Making it over $20 Trillion, double what it was in 2007 and 4 times what it was 20 years prior! a 400% rise in a generation!
But don’t worry it’s all George W Bush and The Republicans Fault! 

During his speech, the president likened Republicans to the “folks who drove the car into the ditch.”
“And so we decided, you know what, we’re going to do the responsible thing,” he said. “We put on our boots, we got into the mud, we got into the ditch. We pushed, we shoved, we’re sweating. They’re standing on the sidelines sipping a Slurpee, sort of watching us, saying, ‘Well, you’re not pushing hard enough,’ or ‘Your shoulder is not positioned the right way,’ giving us a whole bunch of advice on how to push — not lifting a finger to help.
“And finally we get this car up back on the road again, and finally we’re ready to move forward again,” Obama said. “And these guys turn around and say, ‘Give us the keys.’ Well, no, you can’t have the keys back — you don’t know how to drive.”–President Obama

So, children, you can’t hand the keys back to those morons. You have to trust me, I know what I’m doing.
And I’m so much smarter, and so much better than you!
Yeah, the car is back on the road alright, it has a whole in the gas tank, the fuel system is running rich, the steering wheel veers violently to the Left, the muffler has a hole in it and is dragging on the ground. The windows are broken, the transmission needs an overhaul,  and the tires are bald.
But it runs. And you should have more respect and reverence for your Elite Superiors, you ungrateful louts!
And it’s all George W Bush’s Fault after all!
Relative to the size of the economy, the 2010 deficit will reach 9.1 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, according to the CBO’s projection. The deficit in 2009 was 9.9 percent of GDP.
“As was the case last year, this year’s deficit is attributable in large part to a combination of weak revenues and elevated spending, associated with the economic downturn and the policies implemented in response to it,” the CBO explained.
The current economic downturn is expected to last for several more years, the non-partisan office said, predicting that unemployment will not fall to around a healthy 5 percent until at least 2014.
Oh goody, just in time for the Health Care Mandate and the other taxes to start kicking in!!!
Rejoice!!
After a year and half of “stimulus” and bailouts gone bad, what has the shift towards higher government spending and an encroaching nanny state cost you? This year, it has cost you 231 days out of your life, or 63 percent of 2010.
Every year, the Americans for Tax Reform Foundation and its Center for Fiscal Accountability calculate the day on which the average American has paid off his burden of federal, state and local spending and regulations. This year that day falls on August 19, a full eight days later than last year’s date.
That was yesterday folks! Rejoice!
Federal spending, always the largest contributor to the Cost of Government Day, cost taxpayers 104 days this year. This is up from 90 days in 2008, when Cost of Government Day fell on July 16. This is to say that the ill-conceived spending policies of the past two years have cost taxpayers over a month of their lives, and show few signs of abating.
President Obama has proposed spending $3.8 trillion in 2011, a 40 percent increase from pre-bailout, pre-“stimulus” levels. (Daily Caller)
And they want to raise taxes in a recession…sorry “Summer of Recovery”.  Hope 2.0…Recovery from what? a Marxist drunken stupor?
Does it kind of remind you of Hollywood rehab, where they go and attend a rehab then come out and do it all over again and go back to rehab and then come and do it again, ad nauseum…?
But don’t worry, if you’re mad about it,remember  it’s all George W. Bush’s Fault you islamophobic,racist,insensitive, ignorant low country moron!
Listen to your Masters, the Insufferably Superior Left.
They are just better, smarter, more tolerant, and sensitive than you could ever be.
And that’s just the facts, ma’am.

Carry me back to old Virginny

The Commonwealth of Virginia is obvious the next target for the Chicago Mob in the White House.

But will they go there? That is the question.
The Commonwealth has enacted an Illegal Immigration strategy that is very similar to Arizona, but with some key differences.
But they have also won Round 1 in the “Up Yours!” Obamacare fight. And they are just the first out of the gate.
The state of Virginia can continue its lawsuit to stop the nation’s new health care law from taking effect, a federal judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson said he is allowing the suit against the U.S. government to proceed, saying no court has ever ruled on whether it’s constitutional to require Americans to purchase a product.
“While this case raises a host of complex constitutional issues, all seem to distill to the single question of whether or not Congress has the power to regulate — and tax — a citizen’s decision not to participate in interstate commerce,” Hudson wrote in a 32-page decision.
“The congressional enactment under review — the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision — literally forges new ground and extends (the U.S. Constitution’s) Commerce Clause powers beyond its current high watermark,” Hudson said.

“Given the presence of some authority arguably supporting the theory underlying each side’s position, this court cannot conclude at this stage that the complaint fails to state a cause of action,” he wrote.
The decision is a small step, but in no way a minor matter to opponents of the health care bill rejected by all congressional Republicans but signed into law by President Obama earlier this year.
“This lawsuit is not about health care, it’s about our freedom and about standing up and calling on the federal government to follow the ultimate law of the land — the Constitution,” said Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who brought the suit. “The government cannot draft an unwilling citizen into commerce just so it can regulate him under the Commerce Clause.”
“Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli has brought forward a specific and narrowly tailored objection to the Act. It warrants a full and thorough hearing in our courts. It is meritorious and constitutionally correct. … I look forward to the full hearing this fall,” said Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell.
Cuccinelli filed the suit almost immediately after the law was signed, arguing that it conflicts with Virginia’s legislation — also passed this year — exempting state residents from the requirement that all Americans be forced into health care coverage. Cuccinelli argued that the law violates the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.
The Commerce Clause allows the U.S. government to regulate economic activity. But Virginia argued that it’s not economic activity when someone chooses to refrain from participating in commerce.
The U.S. government, which was defending itself through the Health and Human Services Department run by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius argued that everyone will need medical services at some point in their life and therefore is either a “current or future participation in the health care market,” and therefore subject to taxation.
“We do not leave people to die at the emergency room door — whether they have insurance or not. Those costs — an estimated $43 billion annually — are absorbed by everyone else paying into the health care market including doctors, hospitals and insured patients. Congress has the authority under the Commerce Clause to address that cost-shifting burdening the interstate market for health care,” argues the brief filed by the Justice Department on behalf of HHS.
“Today’s ruling is merely a procedural decision by the court to allow this case to move forward. We believe there is clear and well-established legal precedent that Congress acted within its constitutional authority in passing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010. We are confident that the health care reform statute is constitutional and that we will ultimately prevail,” the department said in a statement.
Supporters of the law say the decision Monday is merely procedural, but the law will be proven constitutional when it gets to a hearing on the content.
“This case is really a politically motivated ploy aimed at diverting attention from the many benefits of the new law,” said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, which lobbied in favor of the bill. “The decision today should not distract states and the federal government from focusing on implementing the new law in the most effective way possible. The benefits of the new law are just becoming apparent, and substantially more help is on the way.”
More than a dozen state attorneys general have filed a lawsuit in Florida challenging the federal law, but Virginia’s is the first to reach a courtroom. (FOX)
Missouri voters are expected to pass a measure on Tuesday to forbid the federal government from penalizing individuals for refusing to buy health insurance. But it could be symbolic because federal law typically supersedes state laws.
The federal penalty provision does not take effect until 2014 and the Obama administration has pointed to tax credits, subsidies and other mechanisms to help those who cannot afford to buy insurance. Some 46 million people in the United States lack healthcare coverage.
The Obama administration has countered that the government always has the ability to levy taxes and that the Constitution places the federal government’s powers over the states.
Shut up and sit down, we have supreme executive power and can do anything we want!
Never before has Congress sought to use its powers under the Commerce Clause to force a private citizen to buy a good or service from another private person or entity.  If Congress can do that in the name of ensuring that everyone has health insurance, what is to stop it from ordering citizens to buy a particular brand of car to ensure that everyone has a car to drive?  The possibilities, and hence the power claimed, are virtually limitless.– Virgina AG Cucchinelli
Naturally, the Ministry of Truth and the Liberals are playing it down as no big deal. Just a “procedural” victory they all say in unison. It’s no big deal.
But the “procedural” partial victory they got in the Arizona case was a full-on party-hardy yippee! victory against the evil racists!
Fascinating…
The media’s bias and ideology shines through again!
Meanwhile, It’s Mayberry to the Rescue!
The latest ObamaCare ad, curiously out at the same time as this decision, has Andy Griffith touting the greatness of Medicare and now ObamaCare and how it’s going to take care of Seniors.
I saw they ad, it thought it was very self-centered, arrogant, and greedy. Which means it’s perfect for Obama.
Factcheck.org:
Would the sheriff of Mayberry mislead you about Medicare? Alas, yes.
In a new TV spot from the Obama administration, actor Andy Griffith, famous for his 1960s portrayal of the top law enforcement official in the fictional town of Mayberry, N.C., touts benefits of the new health care law. Griffith tells his fellow senior citizens, “like always, we’ll have our guaranteed [Medicare] benefits.” But the truth is that the new law is guaranteed to result in benefit cuts for one class of Medicare beneficiaries — those in private Medicare Advantage plans.
The White House released the ad on the 45th anniversary of the Medicare program, and said it would run nationally on cable TV networks. Griffith, whose “Andy Griffith Show” was a TV comedy hit at the time Medicare was first enacted in 1965, explains the “good things” that the new health care law will mean for Medicare beneficiaries.
“This year, like always, we’ll have our guaranteed benefits,” he says. An announcement of the ad on the White House website reinforces that claim, saying: “Under the Affordable Care Act … Seniors guaranteed Medicare benefits will remain the same.” But the truth is, for millions of seniors, benefits won’t remain the same.
As we wrote most recently last December, about 10 million Medicare Advantage recipients could see their extra benefits reduced by an average of $43 per month, according to the Congressional Budget Office. And more recently, a detailed analysis by the Medicare program’s own chief actuary, Richard Foster, stated in April:

Medicare Actuary Richard Foster: The new provisions will generally reduce MA rebates to plans and thereby result in less generous benefit packages. We estimate that in 2017, when the MA provisions will be fully phased in, enrollment in MA plans will be lower by about 50 percent (from its projected level of 14.8 million under the prior law to 7.4 million under the new law).

Even the head of the White House Office of Health Reform, Nancy-Ann DeParle, acknowledges that Medicare Advantage benefits are going to be reduced. “I’m sure that some of those additional benefits have been nice,” the Wall Street Journal quoted her as saying in a July 25 report. “But I think what we have to look at here is what’s fair and what’s important for the strength of the Medicare program long term.”
A Weasel Word
So how can the Obama administration claim that “guaranteed Medicare benefits will remain the same”? The answer is that the term “guaranteed” is a weasel word — a qualifier that sucks the meaning out of a phrase in the way that weasels supposedly suck the contents out of an egg. It may sound to the casual listener as though this ad is saying that the benefits of all Medicare recipients are guaranteed to stay the same — and that may well be the way the ad’s sponsors wish listeners to hear it. But what the administration is really saying is that only those benefits that are guaranteed in law will remain the same.
There’s even a section in the new law (section 3601) that says: “Nothing in the provisions of, or amendments made by, this Act shall result in a reduction of guaranteed benefits under title XVIII of the Social Security Act” (the title that establishes the Medicare program). Section 3602 says even Medicare Advantage recipients won’t suffer any reduction of “any benefits guaranteed by law.”
But here’s the catch: The extra benefits generally offered by Medicare Advantage plans aren’t guaranteed by law. They are offered by private insurance companies as inducements. The companies have been able to offer somewhat more generous packages than traditional, fee-for-service Medicare because the system pays them as much as 40 percent more per patient than it pays for traditional Medicare, according to the chief actuary. The average in 2009 was about 14 percent more, according to the most recent analysis by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, issued in February. But the new law generally eliminates the extra payments in the coming years. Foster, the chief actuary, estimates that federal spending for Medicare Advantage will be reduced by $145 billion over the law’s first decade.
Currently, about 1 in every 4 Medicare beneficiary is enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan. For many of them, the words in this ad ring hollow, and the promise that “benefits will remain the same” is just as fictional as the town of Mayberry was when Griffith played the local sheriff.
But Barney Fife wrote the Law and now expects you believe them when they say, it’s for your own good.
The The American Spectator and American’s For Tax Reform:
The Spectator blog reports on a conference call held this morning by HHS Secretary Sebelius to promote a new report regarding the health law’s impact on Medicare.  Questioned about claims by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ chief actuary that the Medicare reductions in the law “cannot be simultaneously used to finance other federal outlays and to extend the [Medicare] trust fund” solvency, Secretary Sebelius replied that

There are two different operating methods of looking at this, and the CMS actuary in the report that you cite differs in his strategic opinion from every accounting methodology that’s used for every other program in the federal budget, that has traditionally used for Medicare.  And he has a different interpretation that is not agreed upon by either the Congressional Budget Office or the OMB or traditionally in Congress.

Unfortunately for the Secretary, however, the Congressional Budget Office has on numerous occasions confirmed that any claims the law will improve Medicare’s solvency revolve around notional double-counting under federal budgetary conventions.  A January CBO letter found that “the majority of the [Medicare] trust fund savings…would be used to pay for other spending and therefore would not enhance the ability of the government to pay for future Medicare benefits.”  And in a March letter, CBO quantified the amount of that double-counting, estimating that, if the law’s Medicare savings were actually set aside to improve the solvency of the Medicare trust fund (as opposed to being used for other spending), the bill would increase the deficit by $260 billion over its first ten years alone.
In other words, the CBO agrees with the CMS actuary that the same money the same money can’t be used twice – once to expand coverage, and a second time to extend the life of the Medicare trust fund.  The Secretary’s statement that “there are two different operating methods of looking at this,” and that CBO disagrees with the Administration’s own actuaries on the impact of this budgetary double-counting, is demonstrably FALSE.

But don’t worry, the Ministry of Truth is right on top of it.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2010/08/03/pkg.tuchman.sanctuary.city.cnn?hpt=C2
President Obama described officials who “demagogue” immigration or take sudden “anti-immigrant” stances as people who want to make a name for themselves and not help solve what he called “a national problem.” (CBS)
But his demagoguery is not worth mentioning.
“I understand the frustration of people in Arizona,” Mr. Obama said. “But what we can’t do is demagogue the issue, and what we can’t do is allow a patchwork of 50 different states, or cities or localities, where anybody who wants to make a name for themselves suddenly says, ‘I’m going to be anti-immigrant, and I’m going try to see if I can solve the problem ourself.’ This is a national problem.”– on CBS “Early Show”
But I end on a Vote of No Confidence  on ICE Director John Morton, from his own people.
http://www.pdfdownload.org/pdf2html/view_online.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fkfyi.com%2Fcc-common%2Fmlib%2F622%2F08%2F622_1280843100.pdf
or http://kfyi.com/pages/jimsharpe.html
But don’t it’s all for your own good. We are the Washington Elites, we are just better than you unwashed peasant masses.
And now the New York City government elites says it’s ok for there to be a 13-story Islamic Mosque 600 yards from Ground Zero built by a guy who believes in Shiria Law in America.
Doesn’t that just make you feel safer about the government.