Posts

Obama’s HHS Budgets $150 Million to Teach People How to Enroll in Obamacare (+video)

/0 Comments/in , /by

By Joel Gehrke. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Thursday that HHS will spend $150 million to teach people how to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges, after a Democratic senator scolded her for running a poor “public information campaign.”

“Investing in health centers for outreach and enrollment assistance provides one more way the Obama administration is helping consumers understand their options and enroll in affordable coverage,” Sebelius said Thursday. HHS promised that the health centers would provide “unbiased information to consumers” about various provisions in the law.

Read more from this story HERE.
________________________________________________

Colorado health insurance exchange seeks another $125 million to implement Obamacare

By Greg Campbell. Conservative members of a nonprofit organization set up to run Colorado’s Affordable Care Act-mandated state health insurance exchange are reeling from sticker shock over the cost of rolling out the program.

Federal grants have already paid $61 million to set up the one-stop health insurance shop, but the board is now being asked to approve another $125 million federal grant request.

Opponents, led by board member Dr. Mike Fallon, said the request is an example of how the spending on the program can easily get out of control.

“Just because federal funds are available doesn’t mean we should ask for them,” the Denver Post quotes Fallon as saying at a meeting earlier this week.

But other board members say the money is needed to advertise what the health exchange will do, as well as hire enough insurance “navigators” to help customers deal with what is expected to be a confusing array of health plan options. Read more from this story HERE.

America's Aging Armed Forces: Another Upgrade Planned for Vietnam-Era Helicopter

/1 Comment/in , /by

The U.S. Army will hold a flight demonstration on Tuesday of a newly upgraded version of the Vietnam-era OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter, an Army-led initiative that officials say will save $600 million in coming years.

The Army managed the project, which first began in December 2010 and was aimed at improving the capabilities of the existing helicopters by giving them a new common sensor, upgrading their cockpit displays, and cutting their weight by about 160 pounds (73 kg).

By tapping its own expertise and working closely with the helicopter’s original manufacturer, Bell Helicopter, a unit of Textron Inc, and Honeywell International, which makes the helicopter’s avionics, Army officials said they were able to build two prototype aircraft and start flying them just two years after the program began.

“We’ve taken the best of everything and tried to package it into an aircraft as quickly as possible and get it out there … to the force at considerable savings to the U.S. government and the U.S. taxpayer,” Army Colonel Robert Grigsby, project manager for armed scout helicopters, told reporters.

As the “lead system integrator” for the initiative, the Army also retained the technical rights to the new F-model, unlike earlier programs in which the integration work was outsourced to private firms which kept those rights, Grigsby said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Cancer Clinics Still Suffering From Sequester, Ask Why FAA was Fixed, Cancer Ignored

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: José GoulãoCongress should have addressed deep cuts to cancer clinics before tackling airline delays caused by sequestration, people at several of those clinics said Friday.

Both the House and Senate have now voted to restore funding that the Federal Aviation Administration lost through the automatic budget cuts known as “sequestration.” The bill is headed to President Obama’s desk.

Although delays in air travel affect lawmakers personally, cancer clinics say the cuts they are facing under the sequester are far more serious — and should have been a higher priority for Congress.

“I would invite anyone in Washington to come look my patients in the eye and tell them that waiting for a flight is a bigger problem than traveling farther and waiting longer for chemotherapy,” said William Nibley, a doctor at Utah Cancer Specialists in Salt Lake City.

Cancer clinics have seen their Medicare payments slashed under sequestration. They have had to turn away thousands of new patients, and some clinics say they will have to close their doors for good if the sequester cuts are not reversed soon.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama: Pass My Budget or Suffer More 'Pain' (+video)

/22 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTubeIn his weekly address, Pres. Obama threatened Americans with more sequester “pain” if they don’t convince Congress to pass his budget.

First, Obama exploited the sequester’s effect on children, the elderly, and airline travelers:

“Because of these reckless cuts, there are parents whose kids just got kicked out of Head Start programs scrambling for a solution. There are seniors who depend on programs like Meals on Wheels to live independently looking for help. There are military communities – families that have already sacrificed enough – coping under new strains. All because of these cuts.”

“This week, the sequester hurt travelers, who were stuck for hours in airports and on planes, and rightly frustrated by it.”

And, there’s more pain on the horizon, Obama warned: “These cuts are scheduled to keep falling across other parts of the government that provide vital services for the American people.”

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Administration has SLASHED Budget for Domestic Bombing Prevention by 45 Percent, Says Former DHS Assistant Secretary

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Official White House Photo by Pe

Barack Obama’s administration has cut the budget nearly in half for preventing domestic bombings, MailOnline can reveal. Under President George W. Bush, the Department of Homeland Security had $20 million allocated for preventing the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by terrorists working inside the United States. The current White House has cut that funding down to $11 million.

That assessment comes from Robert Liscouski, a former Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15 that killed three Americans and injured at least 173 others. He told MailOnline that the Obama-era DHS is, on the whole, about as well-positioned as it was during the Bush administration to handle the aftermath of the April 15 bombings in Boston, ‘but the Obama administration has continued to cut the budget for offices such as the Office for Bombing Prevention from $20 million started under Bush, to $11 million today.’

‘Comparatively,’ he added, ‘the Defense Department’s Joint IED Defeat Organization had a budget of $1 billion per year focused on preventing IEDs in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters.’

‘Clearly more money needs to be focused on countering domestic IEDs,’ Liscouski concluded. He is now a partner at Edge 360, a security and intelligence consultancy.

The Office for Bombing Prevention (OBP) was created in 2003 when the Department of Homeland Security was founded. Its original name was the WMD/Bombing Prevention Unit, and it was part of the department’s Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Directorate.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama's Proposed Budget NEVER Balances

/0 Comments/in , /by

Today marks the 100th anniversary of the federal income tax. Since its inception in 1913, the income tax has continued to grow in scope and complexity. A century later, hardworking American taxpayers will send the federal government $2.7 trillion this year alone.

While Americans across the country file their returns and open their checkbooks to pay their taxes today, the President and his liberal lieutenants in the Senate continue to call for another trillion dollars in higher job-killing taxes over the next ten years. It’s hard for President Obama to make the case that you don’t pay enough in taxes when this year’s $2.7 trillion marks the all-time record for the most money the federal government has ever taken in! Even after adjusting for inflation, this year’s revenue has only been eclipsed four times in our nation’s history. Washington clearly has a serious spending problem, and you can only solve it by controlling Washington spending rather than President Obama’s scheme to have the IRS take more of your hard-earned money through even higher taxes.

Obama Finally Presents Budget

Last week the President sent Congress a budget, that includes over $1 trillion in new taxes, over $8 trillion in new debt, and yet NEVER balances.

While our national debt is approaching $17 trillion, our President and his liberal lieutenants continue to ask for additional taxes so they can keep spending more and living beyond their means. The President got the higher taxes he wanted in the “fiscal cliff” deal, but yet he still refuses to agree to any spending cuts. More wasteful Washington spending, radical regulations, and costly duplication are not what the American people want or deserve, and that failed agenda is still holding the American economy back.

The Obama administration refuses to take common-sense steps to rein in Washington spending, while continuing to grow failed welfare programs that jeopardize the future of our country. Republicans have passed a plan that would balance our nation’s budget in ten years by growing the economy with no tax increases, while the President’s budget raises taxes, increases radical regulations, and never achieves balance. This is truly a choice of two completely different directions for our country.

Read more from this story HERE.

Left-wing Democrats Push Norquist-Style No-Cuts Budget Pledge

/5 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Getty

Americans for Tax Reform founder Grover Norquist has been skewered by the media and the left for his Taxpayer Protection Pledge, but now some Democrats seem to be imitating him with a budget pledge of their own.

Left-wing Democratic Reps. Alan Grayson of Florida and Mark Takano of California are circulating a letter addressed to President Obama for members of Congress to sign. Signers of the letter pledge to vote against any substantive changes to America’s entitlement programs, including President Barack Obama’s proposal to use a different formula for Social Security cost of living increases.

“We will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits — including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need,” the letter reads, in part.

The letter, which was drafted in February, is backed by liberal groups such as the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and MoveOn, among others. Thirty Members of Congress have signed onto it as of April 9, according to the latest update on Grayson’s website.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama’s Growth-Busting Budget: Republicans Must Not Get Suckered

/0 Comments/in , /by

By Larry Kudlow. No matter how you slice the Obama budget pie, the inescapable fact is that the president wants to get rid of the roughly $1 trillion budget-cutting sequester and substitute in a $1 trillion-plus tax hike. In other words, more spending, more taxing. Growth-busting. The GOP should just say no.

And let me provide some counsel to my Republican friends in Washington, in particular in the House. Balanced budgets don’t create growth. This mantra is wrong. It’s growth that creates balanced budgets.

Cut spending? That’s a pro-growth measure. Lower tax rates? Another pro-growth measure. The combination of limited government and true tax reform will balance the budget soon enough, with government coming in at a smaller share of gross domestic product while sufficient investment and work incentives get growth moving toward the 4 or 5 percent range.

That kind of growth would make up for the lost ground of the past 15 years. And if you add in deregulation and a sound King Dollar, you’d have a growth budget that would propel America back into prosperity.

Indeed, with some tweaking of eligibility requirements, a true economic-growth budget would lower food stamp enrollment, unemployment compensation, disability benefits and other forms of welfare-dependency spending that plague the country. Medicare is a more complex issue, but Social Security would be solved by a long-run growth spurt. Read more from this story HERE.

Obama budget ‘compromise?’ No way, says the GOP

By Brad Knickerbocker. The budget President Obama delivered to Congress this week was presented as a compromise package, a path to some sort of “grand bargain” involving taxes and spending.

“I don’t believe that all these ideas are optimal,” the president acknowledged. “But I’m willing to accept them as part of a compromise if and only if they contain protections for the most vulnerable Americans.”

Indeed, his budget did draw immediate sniping from Obama’s liberal base as well as from Republican lawmakers. A particular affront to the left is the tweaking envisioned for Medicare, revealed Friday in congressional testimony by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The Obama budget also would change the way inflation is figured for Social Security recipients, and it raises taxes on higher-income households. But “compromise?” No way, the GOP charged in its Saturday radio/Internet address.

Speaking on behalf of her party, freshman Rep. Jackie Walorski (R) of Indiana called it “a blank check for more spending and more debt.” “Even when the president’s budget offers signs of common ground – like modest entitlement reforms – he says he won’t follow through unless he can impose more tax increases,” Rep. Walorski said. “Worst of all, the White House says the president’s budget never balances – ever, failing to meet the most basic principle of budgeting for every family and small business.” Read more from this story HERE.

GOP Leaders Dismiss Obama’s Budget Plan

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

By Neil Munro. Republican budget leaders dismissed President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget plan as mess of fiscal gimmicks, shirked duties, accounting flim-flam and escalating debt.

The 10-year budget claims to cut $1.8 trillion from future borrowing, but actually trims only $119 billion from the 10-year, $46.5 trillion spending plan, Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House’s budget committee, said April 10.

The removal of the budget tricks “knocks you down to $119 [billion] in actual deficit reduction,” he said. Promised spending reductions are also postponed way into the future, Ryan said. Obama’s budget writers “don’t even start deficit reduction until four years after he’s left office,” he said.

“We are not seeing responsible leadership,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, chairman of the Senate’s budget committee. The administration is “under the mis-impression that deficit don’t matter [and] that they can continue to borrow and spend.”

In his Rose Garden speech today, Obama touted his budget, saying “the numbers work. There’s not a lot of smoke and mirrors in here.” Read more from this story HERE.

President Obama’s budget includes $1 trillion tax hike and $744 billion deficit

By Brian Hughes. President Obama on Wednesday unveiled his $3.8 trillion budget proposal for 2014, calling for higher taxes in exchange for cost reductions in Social Security and Medicare, a proposal swiftly rejected both by his Republican rivals and Democratic allies.

The president’s budget — which would produce a $744 billion deficit next year — includes about $1 trillion in new taxes over the next decade, including nearly doubling the federal tax on cigarettes to $1.95 a pack, increasing the estate tax, and eliminating some tax deductions and loopholes for wealthier Americans.

The budget would raise the national minimum wage to $9 an hour and spend an additional $50 billion on public works projects that could generate jobs.

From the White House Rose Garden on Wednesday, the president said he would support cuts to entitlement programs only if Congress approves his proposed tax increases.

“If anyone thinks I’ll finish the job of deficit reduction on the backs of middle-class families or through spending cuts alone that actually hurt our economy short-term, they should think again,” the president said. “When it comes to deficit reduction, I’ve already met Republicans more than half way.” Read more from this story HERE.

White House Finally Gets the Sequester Ax: 480 Budget Office Staffers Face Furloughs

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters

A total of 480 employees at the White House budget office face reduced working hours as $85 billion in overall automatic federal spending cuts hit President Barack Obama’s staff, the White House said on Monday…

The staffers from the Office of Management and Budget were the only White House employees that spokesman Jay Carney would confirm as having been affected, though he acknowledged, “within the Executive Office of the President, several offices have sent furlough notices to their staff.”

The $85 billion in cuts kicked in March 1 after Democratic and Republican lawmakers failed to reach a budget agreement to avert so-called “sequestration” spending restrictions.

Read more from this story HERE.