The Wall Street Journal:
Health Bill Poised to Hit Senate Floor as Democrats Gain Key Votes
ASHINGTON—Sen. Blanche Lincoln, a centrist Democrat from Arkansas, said Saturday she would vote to move forward with debate on health-care legislation, giving Democrats what appeared to be the 60 votes needed to bring the sweeping bill to the Senate floor [...]
Bloomberg:
Nov. 20 — Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said higher-income Americans should be taxed to pay for additional troops sent to Afghanistan and that NATO should provide half of the new soldiers.
An “additional income tax to the upper brackets, folks earning more than $200,000 or $250,000,” could fund more troops, Levin, [...]
Fox News:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid claims that his health care bill costs about $848 billion in the first 10 years, well under President Obama’s $900 billion target.
That’s for 10 years of revenue-gathering, but only six years of service, according to the analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.
Adding in expenses beyond the 10-year mark [...]
Don’t tell Obama, less he get an idea for Gitmo and start recruiting terrorists into his administration.
LONDON (AP) - Two of Britain’s most high-profile Muslim extremists have been given free rein to recruit fellow inmates in prison and are spreading propaganda from behind bars, a think-tank founded by two former Islamic radicals said Monday.
London-based Quilliam [...]
And what, if anything, has been considered of the ACORN Factor?
Wall Street Journal:
WASHINGTON — Republicans appear positioned for strong results in three hard-fought elections Tuesday. But isolated, off-year contests aren’t always reliable indicators of what will happen in the wider federal and state races held in even-numbered years.
Democrats and Republicans are jostling to glean messages [...]
The Heritage Foundation:
The new House health care plan released by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) contains more tax increases than were in the original House plans known as the “tri-committee bill.” While Blue Dog Democrats can take some consolation in the fact that a few more small businesses will be exempt from the employer mandate, Blue [...]
The Business Insider:
A year ago it was revealed to the American people that our banking system is a legalized Ponzi scheme in which bank and insurance CEOs pay themselves billions of dollars in personal compensation to lend and insure assets with money they don’t have to customers who can’t pay back the loans.
In those dark [...]
“Seriously, Al, I can not believe how strong this weed is…”
MSNBC:
Obama names 110 White House visitors
Most guests still hidden; list shows George Soros, Bill Gates, Oprah, bank CEOs, Gingrich
The White House on Friday released a small list of visitors to the White House since President Barack Obama took office in January, including lobbyists, business executives, [...]
Land Of The Free:
Mr. (die quickly) Alan Grayson, democrat representative from Florida may be an abject moron when it comes to dealing honorably with others, but he is a colorful congressional whore nonetheless.
Based upon Mr. Grayson’s own defense of his slobber-mouthed diatribes spoken in the hallowed halls of congressional whoredom (quoted from Fox News: “Earlier, [...]
Reason:
Using government-run health insurance to fix the status quo is like using a brick to improve a window.
If Medicare were a bank, federal regulators would be closing its doors, selling its operations, and sacking its managers. Thanks to soaring costs, the program is fast running out of money—even though it pays such low fees that [...]
WASHINGTON (AP) — The health care overhaul bill produced by House Democrats would impose an array of new taxes, fees and government mandates on major players in the health industry, including insurers, doctors and drugs and medical devices makers.
In most cases, the pain has been meted out with an eye toward raising the money needed [...]
NewsBusters:
Candidate Barack Obama made a big deal about government transparency and giving citizens ample opportunity to read pieces of legislation before they’re voted on.
With this in mind, all 40 Republican Senators signed a letter sent to Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) Thursday demanding the new healthcare reform proposal be published on the Internet so that [...]
CNN:
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.
Still, auto sales contributed heavily to the economy’s expansion in [...]
Whoops, I meant “Consumer Option”. *snort*
AJC:
WASHINGTON — Democratic moderates who control the balance of power on health care legislation balked Tuesday at a government-run insurance option for millions of Americans, underscoring the enormity of the challenge confronting Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid one day after he unveiled the plan as a consensus product.
Republican opposition stiffened, [...]
By ANDY SOLTIS
New York Post
New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers — and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows.
More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New [...]
Politico
By DAVID ROGERS
Costs and the political calendar are catching up with health care reform.
Having bet the farm, President Barack Obama needs a win and is willing to settle for a cheaper bill and a weaker public insurance option. Democrats in Congress, increasingly worried about the 2010 elections, want stronger medicine for fear the reforms [...]
Heritage Foundation
by David C. John
Since Social Security recipients will get no cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) next year, President Obama wants to give each of them $250, a move supported in principle by the Republican House and Senate leadership. However, this move is not only unjustified; it makes a fundamental change to Social Security’s structure and starts [...]
AP
The US government’s 700-billion-dollar financial rescue helped bring the system back from a near-meltdown, but the overall outcome of the program is unclear, a report to Congress said Wednesday.
The report also said it is unlikely taxpayers will get all their money back from the massive investments to stabilize the financial system and economy through the [...]
Washington Post:
The federal budget deficit soared to a record $1.4 trillion in the fiscal year that ended in September, a chasm of red ink unequaled in the postwar era that threatens to complicate the most ambitious goals of the Obama administration, including plans for fresh spending to create jobs and spur economic recovery.
Still, the figure [...]
The Washington Times:
Senators diverted $2.6 billion in funds in a defense spending bill to pet projects largely at the expense of accounts that pay for fuel, ammunition and training for U.S. troops, including those fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to an analysis.
Among the 778 such projects, known as earmarks, packed into the bill: [...]
