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Obama: ‘We’re Not Lavishly Spending on a Whole Bunch of Social Programs’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP/ Evan Vucci)President Obama told a gathering of business executives on Tuesday that the federal government was not “lavishly spending” on social programs.

“What we know is, is that our — our fiscal problems are not short-term deficits. Our discretionary budget, that portion of the federal budget that isn’t defense or Social Security or Medicare or Medicaid, the entitlement programs, is at its smallest level in my lifetime, probably since Dwight Eisenhower.

“We are not lavishly spending on a whole bunch of social programs out there,” Obama continued. “And in many ways, a lot of these programs have become more efficient and pretty effective,” he added.

The U.S. Treasury Department records the following expenditures on a few of the many social safety-net programs for Fiscal 2013 and Fiscal 2012. In most cases, the amounts increased year-to-year:

–Medicaid: $265.392 billion ($250.534B in FY 2012)

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Obama: ‘We’re Going to Have to…Re-market and Re-brand’ the Affordable Care Act (+video)

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Photo Credit: AP/ Evan VucciPresident Barack Obama told a gathering of corporate executives Tuesday he’s confident that his model of health care will work in the end, but he said he’s going to have to “re-brand” it to sell it to a skeptical public.

He didn’t use the word “Obamacare” once on Tuesday in talking about his health care law, but he mentioned the “Affordable Care Act” seven times.

“So, look, I am confident that the model that we built, which works off of the existing private insurance system, is one that will succeed,” Obama told the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

“We are going to have to, (a) fix the website so everybody feels confident about that. We’re going to have to, obviously, re-market and re-brand, and that will be challenging in this political environment.”

During a campaign stop in Colorado last year, the president embraced the name that Republicans had given to his health insurance law: “The Affordable Care Act — also known as Obamacare,” Obama said in August 2012. “I actually like the name,” he added. “Because I do care — that’s why we fought so hard to make it happen.”

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Levin: ‘You Can’t Get Along with Harry Reid and Barack Obama – They’re Insane’ (+video)

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On his program Tuesday night, Mark Levin called Harry Reid and Barack Obama ‘insane’ for the way they’re trying to pack the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals with left-leaning justices, namely Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard, and Robert Wilkins.

Referring to an article from Politico, Levin said:

“And I love the way, people like the delusional Chris Matthews, the misogynist among others talk about how Tip O’Neill and Ronald Reagan got along. You can’t get along with Harry Reid and Barack Obama, they’re insane. They’re political radicals. They don’t wanna get along.

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Obama Blames Republicans for ObamaCare’s Rollout Woes

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President Obama on Tuesday sought to redirect some of the political blame for the botched rollout of the federal health insurance exchange to Republicans, characterizing GOP lawmakers as rooting for the law’s failure.

Addressing a gathering of business executives, Obama acknowledged that the health-care rollout “has been rough, to say the least,” and he lamented the government’s archaic information-technology procurement system.

Obama said that fixes to the HealthCare.gov Web portal are underway and that the exchange will function for a majority of people by the end of November. But the president said staunch opposition from congressional Republicans is inhibiting the law’s implementation.

“One of the problems we’ve had is one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure,” Obama said at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council meeting in Washington. “We obviously are going to have to remarket and rebrand, and that will be challenging in this political environment.”

The president also voiced frustration with the toxic political atmosphere endangering his signature legislative achievement. He said Washington needs to “break through the stubborn cycle of crisis politics and start working together.”

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Solar Firm Linked to Obama Donors Could Be ‘Next Solyndra,’ top GOP Sen. Warns

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Photo Credit: REUTERSA California-based solar company backed by several Obama supporters has been receiving millions in federal tax credits while losing $322 million since 2008, raising concerns about the company “becoming the next Solyndra.”

Among SolarCity Corp.’s biggest investors is Elon Musk — the high-profile donor and fundraiser who co-founded PayPal and whose companies SpaceX and electric-car company Tesla Motors have received at least $846 million in loans and startup money from the Obama administration.

Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, warned about SolarCity’s financial standing in a letter Monday to the Treasury Department.

“There is concern that SolarCity might become the next Solyndra — a company propped on the back of the taxpayers,” Sessions wrote.

The company fired back Tuesday, specifically against the Solyndra comparison.

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SNL Offers Solution to Barack Obama’s Second Term Blues (+video)

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President Obama’s second term troubles are becoming part of the cultural landscape — witness a comedy bit on last night’s Saturday Night Live.

SNL ran a parody television ad for “Paxil,” an anti-depressant designed to be “strong enough for an embattled second term.”

The ad, featuring Obama impersonator Jay Pharoah, lists a number of “symptoms,” including Benghazi, the NSA, the IRS — and, of course, “Obamacare website problems.”

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Census Department Faked Unemployment Data to Help Obama Win 2012 Election

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Photo Credit: UPIIn the home stretch of the 2012 presidential campaign, from August to September, the unemployment rate fell sharply — raising eyebrows from Wall Street to Washington.

The decline — from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent in September — might not have been all it seemed. The numbers, according to a reliable source, were manipulated.

And the Census Bureau, which does the unemployment survey, knew it.

Just two years before the presidential election, the Census Bureau had caught an employee fabricating data that went into the unemployment report, which is one of the most closely watched measures of the economy.

And a knowledgeable source says the deception went beyond that one employee — that it escalated at the time President Obama was seeking reelection in 2012 and continues today.

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In Bold Move, Alaska’s Governor Stands Up to Chamber of Commerce, AFN, and Obama, Says No to Medicaid Expansion

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Photo Credit: AP/Mark ThiessenAlaska Gov. Sean Parnell (R) said Friday his state will not expand Medicaid under President Obama’s signature health-care law after a report estimated it would cost the state about $200 million over seven years.

“I believe a costly Medicaid expansion, especially on top of the broken Obamacare system, is a hot mess,” Parnell said at a news conference on Friday. “The bottom line is: Obamacare failed to launch, is failing to deliver on its promises, and remains in disarray. We simply cannot bail out this failed experiment by expanding Medicaid.”

Groups ranging from the Alaska Chamber of Commerce to the Alaska Federation of Natives and the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium had pushed Parnell to move toward expanding Medicaid. But Parnell, who is seeking reelection in 2014, won praise from state Republicans, who oppose expansion.

Expanding Medicaid in Alaska would have made about 40,000 residents with an income of 138 percent of the federal poverty level or less eligible for coverage. The federal government would have initially provided 100 percent of the costs of an expansion, dropping to 90 percent by 2020.

But the federal government would have covered more of the costs in Alaska than in other states, because the federal government covers 100 percent of the costs for Native Americans in Alaska, according to the Anchorage Daily News. About 17,000 of the 40,000 who would have been eligible under the expansion are Alaska Natives.

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DC Mayor Fires Insurance Commissioner Following Critical Remarks of President’s Proposed ObamaCare Fix

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Photo Credit: Fox News The District of Columbia’s insurance commissioner says he was fired after questioning President Obama’s plan to fix ObamaCare and saying the city might not follow his suggestions.

Commissioner William White told The Washington Post on Saturday that he was called into Mayor Vincent Gray’s office the prior day and told the Democratic mayor “wants to go in a different direction.”

The president said Thursday that the millions of insurance plans scheduled to be canceled next year to comply with ObamaCare regulations could be extended for a year, after he told Americans prior to the law’s passage that they could keep their existing plans.

However, White and other insurance commissioners across the country have questioned the president’s proposed solution because it could create a mess in the marketplace.

Some of the top reasons for the commissioners’ objections are: policy prices are already locked in to comply with changes in ObamaCare; an extension could conflict with state-level laws to comply with the law and younger Americans needed to join the federal exchange to keep down costs will wait to enroll.

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Netanyahu Jabs Obama on Iran (+video)

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Photo Credit: Yonatan SindelIsraeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised French President Francois Hollande’s “courageous stance” against Iran on Sunday, an indirect jab at President Obama’s push for diplomatic talks.

Netanyahu called France a “true friend” of Israel as he greeted Hollande on his first official trip to the country. France demanded last week that a preliminary deal on Iran’s nuclear program be toughened, causing it to be rejected by Iran.

“Zionism was influenced by the values of the French Revolution,” Netanyahu told Hollande, according to Haaretz. “Israel sees France as a true friend. France, like Israel, aspires for a stable Middle East that lives in peace and security.”

He told members of his Cabinet that he hoped Hollande’s visit could stiffen the resolve of other countries negotiating with Iran. Talks with Iran are being led by the permanent members of the Security Council – the U.S., France, Great Britain, China and Russia – plus Germany.

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