Medicare Farud Killing The System

The National Center for Political Analysis hi lites Medicare fraud and how congress continues to fix it but fails over and over again.

Medicare fraud.

In the latest investigation against Medicare fraud, the federal government recently nabbed more than 100 people who stole about $452 million from the Medicare and Medicaid systems. Now the Senate Finance Committee is looking for ideas on how to combat waste, fraud and abuse. Sound familiar? See the nearby history of Medicare waste, fraud and abuse.

Health Care Melt Down : ObamaCare

Obama officials live in a different world, that is, one where life doesn't exist to expand and mature, the progressive sees life for all underclasses as just surviving from one day to the next.

It's not about self fulfillment and exceptional reward for hard work and intellectual achievement for progressive liberal, it's one of waiting for others to determine their future.

National Center for Policy Analysis
The House Ways and Means Committee released a report that says 71 of the nation's top companies could save almost $30 billion in 2014 by dropping health insurance coverage for their employees and paying the fine instead.


Critics say employers won't drop health insurance to stay competitive in the job market. But remember what happened to defined benefit pension plans that top companies used to offer? In 1985, 89 percent offered a traditional defined benefit plan to new employees. By 2007, just 28 percent offered a defined benefit plan to new employees.

The nation's top companies don't want to drop health insurance benefits their employees like but expensive new federal mandates under ObamaCare will force them to re-evaluate and possibly drop the benefits. And once that happens, the floodgates could open. There are millions of smaller companies that will face the same problem.

EPA Responsible for Nothing : Controls Everything

The EPA is not the solution to anything especially when it comes to the regulation of the environment. Hmmm - a conundrum, sure. Just what we need at this time in our daily lives, more regulation, more over sight, more control of everything that is important to us.

The Pollution Solution
Source: Gary D. Libecap, "The Pollution Solution," Hoover Institution, April 23, 2012.

By far the most common response to providing air quality control has been command-and-control regulations where the government decides what actions shall be taken by individuals and organizations to meet the environmental objective and enforces them with its police powers, says Gary D. Libecap of the Hoover Institution.

There are several fundamental problems with this approach that limit its effectiveness and exacerbate its negative impacts.

•Regulators do not have the information required to set a cap on the right amount of air pollution, and this lends itself to inefficient regulatory actions.
•Furthermore, because regulators do not have the correct information, they typically mandate uniform technologies or performance standards for all parties that inhibit flexibility and retard market forces' adaptability.
•Finally, because the ultimate decision usually lies with an agency expert, it is susceptible to manipulation by those with a vested interest and political inroads.

An alternative form of environmental regulation that maximizes flexibility for market participants is a cap-and-trade system that allows strong property rights on issued permits.

•The way this works is that, in the case of air pollution, the total annual amount of allowable emissions is set by a regulator.
•The regulator subsequently issues permits to firms in the market that they can trade in to allow a given amount of emissions.
•This is the limit of the agency's participation in the regulation -- the market will then adapt as firms seek to reduce their emissions levels.
•The total number of allowable emission shares can be reduced each year until the desired cap or pollution objective is met.
•Crucially, firms can trade permits, allowing those with high pollution control costs to buy shares from others that have lower control costs.
•By placing the ball in the court of the firms and providing them ample flexibility in meeting emissions standards, the incentive to protect the environment is internalized into the firm's decision making.

Regulation through this mechanism captures the inherent creativity and innovativeness of the market to meet emissions goals: firms that can create new, emissions-reducing technologies will be rewarded, while those with little interest in that endeavor can simply pay for additional permits.

Federal Job Training A Fool's Journey

'Job training is the only way to get the poor back to work, and the only way to do this is with the federal government in control', screamed the progressive leftists.

Please explain how anything that the federal government has ever done that has had a positive out come, and where the money spent actually wasn't wasted, defrauded or out right stolen? Is that too much to expect? Proof is in the pudding and the eating.

The Folly of Federal Training

Source: James Bovard, "The Folly of Federal Training," The Freeman, May 2012.


In his State of the Union address President Obama proposed an array of new federal job training programs. While this was one of the more popular parts of his speech, history shows us that Uncle Sam has a long and dismal training record, says James Bovard in The Freeman.

The Left would be quick to respond that new training programs with unique methods and priorities will succeed where previous efforts failed. However, the government's track record suggests that there are fundamental flaws in government-provided job training that destines it for failure. Consider:

•Franklin D. Roosevelt, with his Works Progress Administration (WPA), fathered modern government training and employment programs, yet by 1938 the WPA was widely recognized as an embarrassment and an utter waste of government resources.
•The WPA would be resurrected in the Area Redevelopment Act (ARA) of 1961, dedicated to diverting federal funds to low economic growth areas to increase employment.
•When this was found ineffective by the General Accounting Office (GAO) (the ARA enrolled only 1,300 workers in fields to which their training was related), Congress passed the Manpower Development and Training Act (MDTA) to help workers replaced by machine automation.

•In a 1972 report the GAO concluded that these federal manpower programs were failing on every score.

•Faced with a confusing hodgepodge of floundering training programs, Congress passed the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) in 1973 in response to the GAO's finding. Yet CETA continued many of the same policies as MDTA, awarding even larger grants to the same contractors and making the same mistakes under a different acronym.

•Among its follies, CETA spent over $175 million on art projects, Maryland CETA workers offered free rides to the welfare office, and New York CETA workers busied themselves attaching fake doors to old buildings to beautify the city.

•Widely recognized as a joke at best and a nepotistic opportunity to employ campaign supporters at worst, CETA was replaced in 1982 by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA).
•Over its lifetime (lasting until 1998), JTPA had a similar track record.

Government job training efforts are plagued by inefficiencies and failing priorities, failing to train enrollees properly or preparing them for jobs that don't exist. The failures of the WPA, ARA, MDTA, CETA and JTPA undermine confidence in President Obama's training program.

Earth Day / May Day : Same People Same Agenda?

I wonder if earth day is for the environmentalist like May Day is for the communists and liberal progressives. Just another day to proclaim they need for more power to save the world from prosperity.

Earth Day, the Free Market Way

Source: Henry I. Miller, "Earth Day, the Free Market Way," Defining Ideas, April 19, 2012.


In recent years, Earth Day has provided an opportunity for passion and zeal to trump science, as environmentalists promulgate fears and bash technological advancements. Specifically, biotech-enhanced crops have been bludgeoned by the environmental community, especially in Europe, which has attempted to blunt their use by the spreading of rumors, says Henry I. Miller, the Robert Wesson Fellow in Scientific Philosophy and Public Policy at the Hoover Institution.

However, these crops offer unprecedented opportunities to do good for the global population. Farmers worldwide can benefit from more efficient farming techniques and yields, and consumers can attain staple food items at lower prices. All of this can be accomplished in tandem with environmental benefits.

•Crops engineered with higher nutritional inputs, such as vitamin A, can deliver necessary components of a healthy diet to those who have had minimal access to them.
•Biotech also offers the opportunity to grow crops in places that were previously unavailable as the plants are genetically engineered to resist pests and adverse climate conditions.
•Similarly, the higher crop yields afforded by engineering allow food items to be sold at lower prices, thereby benefitting all consumers.
•Additionally, higher yields limit the need to cultivate new lands, such as forests, thereby limiting the environmental footprint of farmers around the world.

These benefits are not only provable by listing them out on paper: people vote with their feet, and the number of farmers that are shifting their focus toward genetically engineered crops suggests that individuals at the ground level are well aware of their superior performance.

•In about three dozen countries worldwide, more than 17 million farmers are using agbiotech crop varieties.
•In 2009, the shift to biotech crops reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 17.6 billion kilograms, equal to the removal of 7.8 million cars from the road for a year.
•Interestingly, organic farming -- which prohibits the use of genetically engineered plant varieties and is the darling of the environmental movement -- has opposite effects on this parameter.

In spite of these achievements and an extraordinary safety record, there remains widespread opposition to cultivating genetically engineered plants and even to importing grains grown from genetically engineered seeds. Even governments have imposed moratoria on commercial-scale cultivation of plants and regulatory approvals are virtually non-existent.

General Motors Still Using More Taxpayer Dollars

It's great to see that most of the corporations that got taxpayer hand outs have payed the money back, all that is except General Motors. Maybe it's time to cut that organization loose and let it seek it's own level in the market.

Administration Pushes False General Motors Success Story

Source: "Obama Pushes False GM Success Story," Investor's Business Daily, April 30, 2012.


Of the top bailout recipients, General Motors (GM) is the biggest laggard, the TARP watchdog says in its latest quarterly report to Congress, says Investor's Business Daily.

•Bank of America, Citigroup, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial all have paid off their debt and left the TARP program.
•Even AIG has paid back more than 75 percent of what it owes taxpayers.
•GM, on the other hand, still owes more than half the $50 billion in federal funds it received when the combination of the recession and its costly union contracts drove it into bankruptcy.
•And its lending arm, GMAC (now Ally Financial), still owes $14.5 billion.

What's worse, it's not clear that GM actually repaid what it's gotten credit for repaying. Indeed, the inspector's report notes: "As part of a credit agreement with Treasury, $16.4 billion in TARP funds were placed in an escrow account that GM could access only with Treasury's permission."

As it turns out, GM got Treasury's OK to "repay" more than $6.7 billion "using a portion of the escrow account that had been funded with TARP funds." So GM is merely paying the government back with government money, not money GM is earning selling cars, as the administration has claimed.

Worse, GM in effect is still borrowing money. Consider this item from the report: "What remained in escrow was released to GM." Bottom line: Taxpayers have not been paid back and are still on the hook as GM continues to require government help.

Green Cars : Not So Green

As one might expect, the government is hosing us with managed information. This is just what we need at this time is more information that's designed to mislead. Welcome to the world of progressive liberal big government.

Hybrids and Hype


Source: Kathryn Shelton and Richard B. McKenzie, "Hybrids and Hype," The Freeman, May 2012.


Car companies suggest that hybrids will help stave off global warming, prevent the country's coastline from flooding, and save the arctic ice shelves to boot. To this end, they point to hybrids' exceptional Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)-estimated miles per gallon ratings, which they argue will result in lower emissions and an overall positive impact on the environment, say Richard McKenzie, a professor at the University of California, Irvine, and Kathryn Shelton, a research associate in the O'Neil Center for Global Markets and Freedom.

However, a number of additional factors must be considered that, when weighed properly, strongly suggest that hybrids are not all they are cracked up to be. Specifically, if their aggregate impact on the environmental is completely accounted for, they may be more harmful than their gasoline-only predecessors.

•The EPA has regularly overstated the mileage of hybrids, with estimates before 2008 being inflated by as much as 20 percent.
•The disposal of integral parts of hybrids, specifically their specially designed batteries, poses environmental dangers (the acid in their batteries, for example, can eat through steel)
•By lowering the cost of driving, hybrids encourage their drivers to adapt their driving habits to drive more. Researchers have found that hybrid owners drive 25 percent more miles on pleasure trips than their counterparts.

The incorporation of so many factors is extraordinarily difficult because they occur at different points in the life of the hybrid and vary by consumer. Nevertheless, they should at least serve to dispute the claim that hybrid vehicles are the silver bullet to environmental woes.

Additionally, much of this same logic applies to the up-and-coming market for electric vehicles (EVs), which may even exacerbate several of the pitfalls faced by hybrids.

•Roughly half of all the electricity generated in the United States is produced from coal.
•While EVs have no dirty emissions flowing from their tailpipes, their contribution is nonetheless visible in the smokestacks of the coal-fired power plants that dot the nation.
•Research shows that all-electric cars that charge their batteries off coal-fired generators emit 6.5 ounces of carbon per mile -- a fact that is often missed by EV drivers.

Treasury Dept Hires The Incompetent

Who knew we could hire such fantastic people in the government to save us from ruin. Little wonder why Obama hired Hank Paulson to continue screwing the entire country as he did under Bush.

(author unknown)
“Total awesomeness!” enthuses Fusion IQ founder Barry Ritholtz, who’s dug into a stash of emails and documents pertaining to the epic collapse of Lehman Bros. The New York Fed put them online this week.


“Some of the emails between Lehman execs are laughable — naive, silly, hubristic, childish,” he says. “But my favorite piece simply has to be the Morgan Stanley research report from June 30, 2008. It gives an ‘overweight’ rating to Lehman under the title: ‘Bruised, Not Broken, Poised for Profitability.’”   That was 47 days before Lehman vaporized.

“This is (literally),” says Mr. Ritholtz, “what the category ‘Really Really Bad Call’ was invented for.”

But that’s not the best part, nor what brings out his most colorful language: “Who was the author of this steaming piece of $@#*, and where is he today? Why, he is Patrick Pinschmidt, and he is a senior policy adviser at U.S. Treasury Department!”

“You could not make up stuff this un-#($*ing-believable even if you tried.”

America In Decline : Why? Bush! Really?

This is just a little information that will clear the air and help to understand why Obama is always touting how bad things were when he took over.

The facts here are generally known to most of us that care what happens to our country but many are missing as well that have propelled us into the moral and financial disaster that confronts us today.

(author unknown)
This tells the story, why Bush looked so bad by the end of his second term.

Don’t just skim over this, read it slowly and let it sink in. If in doubt, check it out.

The day the Democrats took over was not January 22nd, 2009, it was actually January 3rd 2007 the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress.

The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this:

January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress. At the time:

The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment ate was 4.6%

George Bush's economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB GROWTH.
Remember the day...

January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.

The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?

BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!

Unemployment... to this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES!

Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy.

And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA
And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie? OBAMA and the Democrat Congress


So when someone tries to blame Bush...

States Without Income Tax Move Forward

Still, having no income tax gives more control to the individual over who gets to pay and how much. But the bottom line here is if one doesn't like the tax situation they are in, leave that state and go to one that you like.

If you can't leave or won't, then suck it up and live with the consequences of how and who you voted for. If you just look in the mirror and see someone else to blame other than yourself, you have to be a progressive Democrat. 


States Without Income Taxes Rely on Varying Forms of Revenue

Source: Alex Raut, "States Without Income Taxes Rely on Varying Forms of Revenue," Tax Foundation, April 26, 2012.


According to the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, state-level individual income taxes make up the largest share of total state government tax collections. In 2011, state governments brought in $259 billion through these taxes, approximately 34 percent of total collections.

However, there are currently nine states that do not tax wage income (New Hampshire and Tennessee tax interest and dividends): Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming. The composition of tax collections in these states varies considerably, says Alex Raut of the Tax Foundation.

•For example, Florida, South Dakota and Washington each raised about 60 percent of their collections through sales taxes in 2011 -- nearly double the national average.
•New Hampshire collected 39 percent of its $2.3 billion of tax revenue from excise taxes (national average: 17.4 percent), and around 25 percent from corporate income taxes (national average: 5.3 percent).
•Alaska and Wyoming, both of which rely heavily on severance taxes on natural resource extraction, each collected a much larger percentage of their tax revenue from "other taxes" than the national average of 12.1 percent -- 82.4 and 59.9, respectively. Besides severance taxes, this category includes state-level property taxes, death and gift taxes, documentary and stock transfer taxes, and licenses.

•Nevada and Texas each collect about half of their respective totals from sales tax collections, splitting the rest between excise and other taxes.

Since 2000, some of these states have seen large changes in the overall make-up of their tax collections, while others have stayed rather consistent.

•For example, in 2000, over 30 percent of Alaska's tax revenue came from its corporate income tax; in 2011, that same figure accounts for less than 5 percent of total collections.
•This has not been caused by decreases in corporate tax collections, which in fact increased by 64 percent between 2000 and 2011, but by enormous increases in severance taxes.
•On the other hand, the composition of tax collections in Tennessee and Texas has largely remained unchanged over the last decade.