Politics

The DC Morning – July 15, 2010

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One of Obama’s hand-picked fiscal commissioners calls him a liarLad mag offers Democrats an econ lessonFormer health care execs cannot stop patting one another’s buttsIf you smoke, shoot, or booze, the government robbed you good this yearObama flunky is crushed that businessmen do not want to listen to her monotone nonsense all dayWhy are Democrats punishing the poors who have no jobs?

1.) Fiscal commissioner calls bull on Obamacare claims — “The Democratic co-chair of President Obama’s fiscal commission said Wednesday that the president’s health care bill will do very little to bring down costs, contradicting claims from the White House that their sweeping legislation will dramatically impact runaway entitlement spending,” reports The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. Apparently Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff to Bill Clinton, believes that the bill “didn’t do a lot to address cost factors in health care” and now those costs are going to “really eat us alive.” Former Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag is writing a very different narrative on his OMB blog: “The bottom line is that, after years of going in the wrong long-term fiscal direction, the Affordable Care Act changes our course by enacting substantial, long-term deficit reduction.” But can you really take it seriously? Orzsag is quitting, after all, and going to a place where no one will cajole him about his lies.
Share: 2.) Raunchy liberal men’s magazine also calls bull on Obamacare claims — July is shaping up to be one hell of a month. Esquire, the magazine for men who like good narratives (as well as keeping an interior decorator on retainer), joins Bowles in calling the Democrats’ bluff. In an effort to penetrate Washington, Esquire has formed “The Esquire Blue Ribbon Commission to Balance the Federal Budget.” In its introduction to the project, the magazine’s editors write, “[N]obody, not even the big brains over at the Government Accountability Office or the Office of Management and Budget, has any idea of how health-care reform will affect long-term deficits and the solvency of the United States of America.” And of Democrats, they write they are “contorting themselves with the most painful sort of creative math to somehow demonstrate that the seismic new health-care reform will not blow a massive hole in the budget, all the while (and with rare exception) refusing to be honest about the entitlement programs that sit like an elephant on the federal budget.” And who said the lad mags were for dummies?
Share: 3.) Former PhRMA exec defends Obama’s choice for implementing Obamacare — “Liz Fowler, a key staffer for U.S. Sen. Max Baucus who helped draft the federal health reform bill enacted in March, is joining the Obama administration to help implement the new law,” reports the Billings Gazette. “Fowler, chief health counsel for the Senate Finance Committee, which Baucus chairs, will become deputy director of the Office of Consumer Information and Oversight at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.” Democrats are crazy about this–crazy in a good way–because Fowler was not only in the trenches with them–working those late nights, snarfing down pizza, trying to invent new types of math that would make all the problems go away–but was also an exec at Wellpoint, “the nation’s largest insurer.” Someone else is really happy with this decision as well, and that person is John Michael O’Brien, the former director of state policy for lobbying group PhRMA! O’Brien is so happy with Obama’s choice of flunky that he took to Twitter to praise the decision. “No one can pay Liz Fowler enuff for the hard work & sacrifice she’s put in. She doesn’t need @whitehousejob to get rich,” he wrote last night.
Share: 4.) Nannying nuisances manage to steal $20 billion from decadent Americans — “Americans armed themselves to the teeth and paid through the nose to have a smoke, according to a U.S. government report released on Wednesday,” reports Reuters. “The U.S. federal government collected $20.6 billion in taxes on alcohol, tobacco, firearms and ammunition in fiscal year 2009, up 41 percent from the previous fiscal year, according to the annual report of the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau.” Are Americans preparing to revolt? No! They are stockpiling the things they care about in anticipation of a future where fun is unaffordable because of public health douchebags.
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5.) Valerie Jarrett regulates a tub of ice cream after getting rejected from party — “The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday rejected a request from top White House adviser Valerie Jarrett to speak at a jobs summit hosted by the business group, the latest escalation in an ongoing war between the two camps,” reports The Daily Caller’s Jon Ward. “We would have loved to have gone and participated. We weren’t invited. In fact we were told not to come,” Jarrett said. According to the Chamber, Jarrett requested that she be allowed to address their gathering, a several-hour long “Jobs for America Summit.” Wait, she asked to attend the event? That is just awkward.
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6.) Voters want unemployment payouts, so why don’t Democrats fund them already? — “Fifty-two percent of voters told CBS that Congress should extend unemployment benefits ‘even if it means increasing the budget deficit,’ including 35 percent of Republicans. Sixty-two percent of registered voters told ABC Congress should extend benefits despite concerns that doing so ‘adds too much to the federal budget deficit,'” reports the Huffington Post’s resident poor person lobbyist, Arthur Delaney. This all brings up two very good questions that no hollow-headed lefty journo knows how to articulate: Why won’t Democrats fund unemployment benefits? Do they hate poors?
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