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Grover Norquist to Newsmax: This Is Obama Saying 'My Plan
Sucks' by: Paul Scicchitano
Conservative
activist Grover Norquist tells Newsmax that the Obama administration’s decision
to delay implementation of the penalty on employers who fail to comply with the
requirement to purchase healthcare for their employees amounts to an
acknowledgement of failure. “Ouch. This is not the president’s critics
saying his plan sucks,” asserted Norquist, in an exclusive telephone interview
from England on Tuesday. “This is the president saying ‘my plan sucks. If you
knew what was in it you wouldn’t like it. So I’m going to delay pieces of
what’s in it.’” Earlier, the Obama administration announced a one-year
delay in the penalty’s effective date — from January 2014 to January 2015 — for
companies with 50 or more workers to provide affordable coverage to their
full-time employees or risk a series of escalating tax penalties if just one
worker ends up getting government-subsidized insurance. Business groups have
complained since the law passed that the provision was too complicated. But Norquist,
the Harvard-educated president of Americans for Tax Reform (ATR), says it’s
obvious that the White House wants to keep the president’s unpopular law from
damaging the chances of House and Senate Democrats in the 2014 elections.
“So they keep putting the pain off hoping to get past one more election,” Norquist explained. “If the premise was good they’d be up there bragging ‘this is great. Everybody wants this. It’s going to be good. You should be happy. Everybody’s happy.’” Norquist’s group has documented some 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses under the Obamacare law, which ATR believes will amount to one of the largest tax increases in American history. Norquist, who is also a Newsmax contributor, said the rollout of Obamacare has been politicized from the start.
“The whole timing of healthcare implementation was political where the pain was supposed to come after the (presidential) election,” he said. “Why was the whole thing not structured to take place all at once? Well certain things were done at the beginning and other things were done later — and the pain was done later,” he said. “What this does is it delays it until after the next election or at least delays it now, and they’ll delay it again for a year.” Norquist said the Obama administration should have faced the fact that the healthcare law is unworkable. “If you realized it wasn’t going to work you’d end it,” he said. “So they’ve delayed for a year something they think is a problem.” Norquist added, “it certainly sounds as if it’s pulling a brick out of the bottom of what’s supposed to be a house, and seeing the house come down.”
“So they keep putting the pain off hoping to get past one more election,” Norquist explained. “If the premise was good they’d be up there bragging ‘this is great. Everybody wants this. It’s going to be good. You should be happy. Everybody’s happy.’” Norquist’s group has documented some 20 new or higher taxes on American families and small businesses under the Obamacare law, which ATR believes will amount to one of the largest tax increases in American history. Norquist, who is also a Newsmax contributor, said the rollout of Obamacare has been politicized from the start.
“The whole timing of healthcare implementation was political where the pain was supposed to come after the (presidential) election,” he said. “Why was the whole thing not structured to take place all at once? Well certain things were done at the beginning and other things were done later — and the pain was done later,” he said. “What this does is it delays it until after the next election or at least delays it now, and they’ll delay it again for a year.” Norquist said the Obama administration should have faced the fact that the healthcare law is unworkable. “If you realized it wasn’t going to work you’d end it,” he said. “So they’ve delayed for a year something they think is a problem.” Norquist added, “it certainly sounds as if it’s pulling a brick out of the bottom of what’s supposed to be a house, and seeing the house come down.”
~~~~~~
Congress Must Empower People to Hold President
Accountable
One
could teach an entire civics course on the immigration debate still winding its
way through Congress, but no exchange is more symptomatic of our federal
government’s current dysfunction than the following discussion between
conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt and Sen. John Hoeven, R-N.D., about
the immigration bill’s provisions concerning the border fence. Hewitt: “I’ve
been through the law very carefully. … They actually don’t have to do anything.
In fact, I was going to ask you, what if they don’t turn in a strategy in 180
days? What’s the law’s penalty?” Hoeven: “They’d be breaking the
law.”
Hewitt:
“But
what’s the penalty?” Hoeven: “Well, you’d obviously have to enforce the
law … I mean, that would be saying any law we passed, what if they don’t bother
to enforce it.” Exactly. What if Congress passed a law and a president signed
it, but then a future president chose to completely ignore that perfectly valid
law? This is a question our legislators fail to ask far too often. This is not
an issue confined to the immigration debate. It is an issue that has existed
since the founding of the Republic and has been growing in importance as the
size and scope of our federal government also grows. And it has reached a
crisis point during Obama’s presidency. Obama is far from the first president
to stretch the law to meet his own political ends. In fact, just weeks before
Obama was sworn into office, the outgoing President George W. Bush used the
Troubled Asset Relief Program to bail out General Motors and Chrysler. Never
mind that TARP was passed by Congress for the express purpose of buying
specific types of “troubled assets” from near-insolvent banks to prevent a
financial panic. Bush’s auto bailout took that authority and used it to turn
TARP into a general slush fund for politically favored businesses.
And
there was nothing anyone in Congress, or the rest of America, could do about
it.
~~~~~~
Obama Announces New $7 Billion Power Initiative for Africa; with your money
~~~~~~
OBAMA ADMINISTRATION NEEDS TO EXPLAIN THIS ONE – WHEN DID
THEY KNOW?
by Greta Van
Susteren
It
is pathetic. The Obama Administration has had since March 2010 to figure this one
out (employer mandate implementation)…and well, the Administration failed.
They
claim they are just now discovering that it is too complex to implement.
The rest of us knew that years ago (what do you expect when you pass – without
reading – a 2,400 page bill that overhauls such a complex matter as the
nation’s healthcare…and then pass it to HHS to create 20,000 rules?) But more
annoying – how long has the Obama Administration been aware of this? Why do I
ask? Not because the Obama Administration releases this confession as we go
into a big holiday so that it gets minimal attention from the media — but
because many, many businesses have been for months and months frantically
trying to figure out what to do about the employer mandate. And why does that
matter to you? Because this business chaos has an enormous impact on our
economy and on JOBS!! It has delayed and postponed business decisions –
that means JOBS! I would bet my right arm this discussion about delaying
implementation has been going on for months and months in the Obama
Administration and that the discussion was not what is best for America but how
do we do damage control because it looks really bad that the Obama
Administration had 4 years to figure it out and did not. Am I wrong? “…This
is designed to meet two goals. First, it will allow us to consider ways to
simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law. Second, it will
provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are
moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their
employees. Within the next week, we will publish formal guidance describing
this transition." Well neither happened...FAIL
~~~~~~~
My jaw dropped when
I read this. We no longer live in a free country.
A Sonoma State University student has filed a religious accommodation request after she said she was ordered to remove her cross necklace because it might offend other students. “It’s amazing in this day of diversity and tolerance on university campuses that a university official would engage in this type of obvious religious discrimination,” said Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser. Liberty Institute is representing Audrey Jarvis, 19, a liberal arts major at the northern California university. On June 27 Jarvis was working for the university’s Associated Students Productions at a student orientation fair for incoming freshmen. During the event, her supervisor directed her to remove the cross necklace. Sasser said the supervisor told her that the chancellor had a policy against wearing religious items and further explained “that she could not wear her cross necklace because it might offend others, it might make incoming students feel unwelcome, or it might cause incoming students to feel that ASP was not an organization they should join.” [see below]
A Sonoma State University student has filed a religious accommodation request after she said she was ordered to remove her cross necklace because it might offend other students. “It’s amazing in this day of diversity and tolerance on university campuses that a university official would engage in this type of obvious religious discrimination,” said Liberty Institute attorney Hiram Sasser. Liberty Institute is representing Audrey Jarvis, 19, a liberal arts major at the northern California university. On June 27 Jarvis was working for the university’s Associated Students Productions at a student orientation fair for incoming freshmen. During the event, her supervisor directed her to remove the cross necklace. Sasser said the supervisor told her that the chancellor had a policy against wearing religious items and further explained “that she could not wear her cross necklace because it might offend others, it might make incoming students feel unwelcome, or it might cause incoming students to feel that ASP was not an organization they should join.” [see below]
~~~~~~
US Airport Uses Taxpayer Money To Construct Prayer Space
For Muslims by Tim Brown
As
if things couldn’t get any more ridiculous as more and more Americans pander to
Islam, San Francisco International Airport has constructed a special prayers
space for Muslims in which they can wash their hands and feet before they pray.
While the adherents to Islam are required to offer prayers five times a day,
along with a ritual that also calls for a ceremonial cleansing, many San
Francisco cab drivers are unable to accomplish this apparently in bathroom
facilities. At least that’s what it sounds like they want us to believe.
~~~~~~
The Mindset of the Left: Part II
By Thomas Sowell
The political left has long claimed the role of protector of "the poor." It is one of their central moral claims to political power. But how valid is this claim? Leaders of the left in many countries have promoted policies that enable the poor to be more comfortable in their poverty. But that raises a fundamental question: Just who are "the poor"? If you use a bureaucratic definition of poverty as including all individuals or families below some arbitrary income level set by the government, then it is easy to get the kinds of statistics about "the poor" that are thrown around in the media and in politics. But do those statistics have much relationship to reality?
One of the most successful investors of all time just drafted what many call the "blueprint" for escaping America… without leaving the country. It could help you make a fortune from the monumental shift in wealth to come… and details the No. 1 thing you can do right now to protect your money and your family. "Poverty" once had some concrete meaning — not enough food to eat or not enough clothing or shelter to protect you from the elements, for example. Today it means whatever the government bureaucrats, who set up the statistical criteria, choose to make it mean. And they have every incentive to define poverty in a way that includes enough people to justify welfare state spending.
Most Americans with incomes below the official poverty level have air-conditioning, television, own a motor vehicle and, far from being hungry, are more likely than other Americans to be overweight. But an arbitrary definition of words and numbers gives them access to the taxpayers' money. This kind of "poverty" can easily become a way of life, not only for today's "poor," but for their children and grandchildren.
Even when they have the potential to become productive members of society, the loss of welfare state benefits if they try to do so is an implicit "tax" on what they would earn that often exceeds the explicit tax on a millionaire. If increasing your income by $10,000 would cause you to lose $15,000 in government benefits, would you do it? In short, the political left's welfare state makes poverty more comfortable, while penalizing attempts to rise out of poverty. Unless we believe that some people are predestined to be poor, the left's agenda is a disservice to them, as well as to society. The vast amounts of money wasted are by no means the worst of it.
If our goal is for people to get out of poverty, there are plenty of heartening examples of individuals and groups who have done that, in countries around the world. Millions of "overseas Chinese" emigrated from China destitute and often illiterate in centuries past. Whether they settled in Southeast Asian countries or in the United States, they began at the bottom, taking hard, dirty and sometimes dangerous jobs.
Even though the overseas Chinese were usually paid little, they saved out of that little, and many eventually opened tiny businesses. By working long hours and living frugally, they were able to turn tiny businesses into larger and more prosperous businesses. Then they saw to it that their children got the education that they themselves often lacked. By 1994, the 57 million overseas Chinese created as much wealth as the one billion people living in China. Variations on this social pattern can be found in the histories of Jewish, Armenian, Lebanese and other emigrants who settled in many countries around the world — initially poor, but rising over the generations to prosperity. Seldom did they rely on government, and they usually avoided politics on their way up.
Such groups concentrated on developing what economists call "human capital" — their skills, talents, knowledge and self-discipline. Their success has usually been based on that one four-letter word that the left seldom uses in polite society: "work." There are individuals in virtually every group who follow similar patterns to rise from poverty to prosperity. But how many such individuals there are in different groups makes a big difference for the prosperity or poverty of the groups as a whole.
The agenda of the left — promoting envy and a sense of grievance, while making loud demands for "rights" to what other people have produced — is a pattern that has been widespread in countries around the world. This agenda has seldom lifted the poor out of poverty. But it has lifted the left to positions of power and self-aggrandizement, while they promote policies with socially counterproductive results.
The political left has long claimed the role of protector of "the poor." It is one of their central moral claims to political power. But how valid is this claim? Leaders of the left in many countries have promoted policies that enable the poor to be more comfortable in their poverty. But that raises a fundamental question: Just who are "the poor"? If you use a bureaucratic definition of poverty as including all individuals or families below some arbitrary income level set by the government, then it is easy to get the kinds of statistics about "the poor" that are thrown around in the media and in politics. But do those statistics have much relationship to reality?
One of the most successful investors of all time just drafted what many call the "blueprint" for escaping America… without leaving the country. It could help you make a fortune from the monumental shift in wealth to come… and details the No. 1 thing you can do right now to protect your money and your family. "Poverty" once had some concrete meaning — not enough food to eat or not enough clothing or shelter to protect you from the elements, for example. Today it means whatever the government bureaucrats, who set up the statistical criteria, choose to make it mean. And they have every incentive to define poverty in a way that includes enough people to justify welfare state spending.
Most Americans with incomes below the official poverty level have air-conditioning, television, own a motor vehicle and, far from being hungry, are more likely than other Americans to be overweight. But an arbitrary definition of words and numbers gives them access to the taxpayers' money. This kind of "poverty" can easily become a way of life, not only for today's "poor," but for their children and grandchildren.
Even when they have the potential to become productive members of society, the loss of welfare state benefits if they try to do so is an implicit "tax" on what they would earn that often exceeds the explicit tax on a millionaire. If increasing your income by $10,000 would cause you to lose $15,000 in government benefits, would you do it? In short, the political left's welfare state makes poverty more comfortable, while penalizing attempts to rise out of poverty. Unless we believe that some people are predestined to be poor, the left's agenda is a disservice to them, as well as to society. The vast amounts of money wasted are by no means the worst of it.
If our goal is for people to get out of poverty, there are plenty of heartening examples of individuals and groups who have done that, in countries around the world. Millions of "overseas Chinese" emigrated from China destitute and often illiterate in centuries past. Whether they settled in Southeast Asian countries or in the United States, they began at the bottom, taking hard, dirty and sometimes dangerous jobs.
Even though the overseas Chinese were usually paid little, they saved out of that little, and many eventually opened tiny businesses. By working long hours and living frugally, they were able to turn tiny businesses into larger and more prosperous businesses. Then they saw to it that their children got the education that they themselves often lacked. By 1994, the 57 million overseas Chinese created as much wealth as the one billion people living in China. Variations on this social pattern can be found in the histories of Jewish, Armenian, Lebanese and other emigrants who settled in many countries around the world — initially poor, but rising over the generations to prosperity. Seldom did they rely on government, and they usually avoided politics on their way up.
Such groups concentrated on developing what economists call "human capital" — their skills, talents, knowledge and self-discipline. Their success has usually been based on that one four-letter word that the left seldom uses in polite society: "work." There are individuals in virtually every group who follow similar patterns to rise from poverty to prosperity. But how many such individuals there are in different groups makes a big difference for the prosperity or poverty of the groups as a whole.
The agenda of the left — promoting envy and a sense of grievance, while making loud demands for "rights" to what other people have produced — is a pattern that has been widespread in countries around the world. This agenda has seldom lifted the poor out of poverty. But it has lifted the left to positions of power and self-aggrandizement, while they promote policies with socially counterproductive results.
~~~~~~
Liberals Blame Ariz. Firefighters’ Deaths on Global
Warming
Liberals
seem to not to have the ability to think before they speak. It’s a wonder that
anyone believes their nonsense ever. 18
firefighters — members of the Granite Mountain Hotshot Crew — were killed while
fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire near Prescott, Ariz. Twitter liberals wasted no time blaming the fires — and the
firefighters’ deaths — on global warming: “When firefighters die fighting
wildfires in Arizona, it’s a direct human cost of global warming &
pathological affluence.”
~~~~~~
White House Violates Law with Obamacare Delay
Laws
don’t matter to Obama. Obama administration officials are
illegally delaying enforcement of a central provision in the president’s
namesake legislation in a desperate attempt to manipulate the 2014 midterm
elections and swell the ranks of those who look to government for healthcare. The
White House is beginning to sense that when Americans realize the price of
“free” healthcare, they’re likely to take swift vengeance on those responsible.
Section 1513 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, better known as Obamacare)
requires all large employers to provide health insurance for their employees.
“Large employers” are those with at least 50 full-time employees, and
“full-time” is defined as averaging 30 or more hours per week. Section 1513’s
“Employer Mandate” is one of five parts of the ACA that are absolutely
essential for this government-run system to work, with the most well-known of
those five being the infamous “Individual Mandate” upheld by the Supreme Court
as a tax by a controversial 5-4 decision in 2012.
~~~~~~
Satan: Liberal Hero for Abortionists as They Chant his
Name
The
liberal hero of Satan is revealed. We always suspected it, now we know. Tensions in Texas ratcheted a bit higher
Tuesday as activists on both sides of the abortion issue squared off at the
Capitol in Austin for a somewhat odd religious-themed shout-down. Gov. Rick
Perry has called for a second special session to pass an abortion law that
would prohibit the procedure past the 20th week of pregnancy.
Pro-choice protesters
shouted, “Hail Satan!” as an attempt to drown out pro-lifers’ rendition of
“Amazing Grace.”
~~~~~~
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