1.) House education committee goes after the GAO — In mid 2010, the Governmental Accountability Office released a damning report on the recruitment practices of for-profit colleges. A few months later, the same agency released the same report, but with several sections “corrected” and a sticky note attached to the front that read, Oops, we made some stuff up. Currently, the GAO is hard at work on another report about the same industry, but it may have to put its investigation on hold: The House Committee on Education and the Workforce yesterday sent a letter to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro asking that the staffers and supervisors who fudged the first report not be allowed anywhere near the second one. At the center of the committee’s crosshairs–er, surveyor’s mark is the “Forensic Audit and Special Investigations Unit as a whole and the testimony provided by the director.” As one for-profit consultant told TheDC, “This is the first I ever heard of the GAO being asked by a Congressional Committee to not assign a specific team because of questionable work performed in the past.” Among those asking the GAO to stand down: Democrats Alcee Hastings and Carolyn McCarthy.
2.) GOP contemplates cuts to the early bird special — How feisty is the AARP? Republicans are about to find out. “The Congressional Budget Office estimates that annual outlays will grow an average of 5.4% for Social Security and 6.8% for Medicare through the end of the decade, compared with a 1% increase in discretionary spending,” reports the Wall Street Journal. That’s why House Republicans “are debating whether to propose new limits on the growth of Medicare and other entitlement programs, weighing a gamble that voters are more concerned about trimming the federal deficit than holding on to promised benefits.” Rep Jack Kingston is convinced that “you still cannot have a long-term budget fix without doing entitlement reform,” and Rep. Devin Nunes “believe[s] strongly that we have to act on entitlement reform, and we have to do it sooner rather than later.” Boomers–many of whom have crossed the AARP’s membership threshold age of 50–would rather Congress do something later. Preferably, after they are dead.
3.) One year after defending 1099 rule, Democrats vote to kill 1099 rule — “On their first try, Senators easily approved on Wednesday an amendment to the Federal Aviation Administration reauthorization legislation to repeal the onerous 1099 provision included in the healthcare law,” reports The Hill. “The Senate approved, on a 81-17 vote, a motion to waive the point of order against the amendment offered by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) to eliminate the requirement that businesses must file the forms with the IRS for purchases of $600 or more.” A year ago, Senate Democrats were falling all over themselves trying to explain why the 1099 provision was a keeper. What changed?
4.) Obamacare is a hilarious and tragic study in unintended consequences — “Recent studies show that the major players in the health care marketplace – insurers, hospitals and physician practices – are consolidating, which increases the likelihood they will collude on prices charged to employers and to consumers and defeat cost control measures in the law,” reports the Fiscal Times. Eventually, these doctors and hospitals will become members of Accountable Care Organizations, which will in turn be rewarded for reducing costs, perhaps year over year. But, as when any industry is subject to government takeover, the ACOs will likely cause more harm than good. “Top officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services are already worried some of the new entities will become a vehicle for recouping Medicare losses. Raising rates in the private market would ultimately undermine any short-term savings achieved by Medicare, since increases in a region’s top line health care tab would eventually force Medicare to raise its own rates.” Already the rent seekers at the American Medical Association are pointing fingers at the insurance industry, which will no doubt point right back at doctors and hospitals.
5.) ‘Sitting at home and staying out of the commercial marketplace is not commerce’ — Or is it? At yesterday’s farcical hearing on whether Obamacare is constitutional, a gaggle of legal experts who are split evenly on the question of whether the government can force people to buy things they do not want to buy laid out their arguments. Former Reaganite and current Harvard professor Charles Fried laid out perhaps the most argument. Of broccoli and other vegetables, Fried said, “I suppose such forced feeding would indeed be an invasion of personal liberty, but making you pay for them would not, just as making you pay for a gym membership which you can afford but do not use would not.” When asked for a clarification by Dick Durbin, Fried said, “[It] would be a violation of the 5th and the 14th Amendment, to force you to eat something. But to force you to pay for something? I don’t see why not. It may not be a good idea, but I don’t see why it’s unconstitutional.” The most sensible response to this came from attorney Michael Carvin, who said, “Sitting at home and staying out of the commercial marketplace is not commerce.” Unfortunately, Congress agreed with Fried.
6.) If Obama was waiting to say something until Egyptians started setting each other on fire… — “The administration needs to fire all the bullets it has right now, without delay,” Brookings’ Robert Kagan, co-chair of a bipartisan Egypt working group, told Laura Rozen. Kagan added that Obama should issue a “public call for Mubarak to leave, in light of the violence. And cut-off of all military assistance within days if the violence continues.” Perhaps the White House hasn’t heard that Mubarak’s thugs have started throwing petrol bombs at unarmed protestors?
VIDEO: CNN Airs Egyptian Protester Accidentally Setting Himself On Fire