Sean Renaud
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Really. Why would it make any difference?
What happened to all of the doom and gloom economic threads?
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Clearly the NIGGER lied when he made promises on behalf of NIGGER CARE, or had no clue what was in it
WHICH IS WORSE?
The Unions vs. Obamacare
Disenchantment sets in.
"I heard [Obama] say, ‘If you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ ” John Wilhelm, chairman of Unite Here Health, representing 260,000 union workers, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “If I’m wrong, and the president does not intend to keep his word, I would have severe second thoughts about the law.” Besides Wilhelm, some of the nation’s largest union bosses have taken to publicly criticizing the Affordable Care Act.
Of course, keeping your health care plan, like many Obama-care promises, has turned out to be demonstrably untrue. According to the Congressional Budget Office, about 7 million Americans stand to lose insurance coverage through the law by 2022. But unlike most private-sector workers expected to lose their current health coverage, union workers were a powerful Democratic constituency granted specific exemptions from Obama-care. Labor leaders are just now realizing that those protections are fleeting, and Obama-care regulations and cost increases will fall on the politically connected and unconnected alike.
The Obama administration has thus far issued waivers from Obama-care’s onerous requirements to unions representing 543,812 workers. By contrast, the administration has issued waivers for only 69,813 nonunion workers. While these waivers are a significant benefit, they accrue to a small fraction of the nation’s 14 million union workers. Further, many of the waivers have been granted on an annual basis, and no waiver has been granted for longer than two-and-a-half years. Eventually even union health plans are going to have to comply with Obama-care regulations.
WHICH IS WORSE?
The Unions vs. Obamacare
Disenchantment sets in.
"I heard [Obama] say, ‘If you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ ” John Wilhelm, chairman of Unite Here Health, representing 260,000 union workers, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “If I’m wrong, and the president does not intend to keep his word, I would have severe second thoughts about the law.” Besides Wilhelm, some of the nation’s largest union bosses have taken to publicly criticizing the Affordable Care Act.
Of course, keeping your health care plan, like many Obama-care promises, has turned out to be demonstrably untrue. According to the Congressional Budget Office, about 7 million Americans stand to lose insurance coverage through the law by 2022. But unlike most private-sector workers expected to lose their current health coverage, union workers were a powerful Democratic constituency granted specific exemptions from Obama-care. Labor leaders are just now realizing that those protections are fleeting, and Obama-care regulations and cost increases will fall on the politically connected and unconnected alike.
The Obama administration has thus far issued waivers from Obama-care’s onerous requirements to unions representing 543,812 workers. By contrast, the administration has issued waivers for only 69,813 nonunion workers. While these waivers are a significant benefit, they accrue to a small fraction of the nation’s 14 million union workers. Further, many of the waivers have been granted on an annual basis, and no waiver has been granted for longer than two-and-a-half years. Eventually even union health plans are going to have to comply with Obama-care regulations.
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Unions also secured a five-year delay in the imposition of the law’s 40 percent excise tax on high-premium health care plans, known as the “Cadillac tax.” The tax would hit insurance plans in which annual premiums exceed $10,200 for individuals or $27,500 for family coverage. This hefty tax is designed to both drive down premiums and help fund the law. However, the fact that unions often secure more generous and expensive benefit packages than those found in the nonunion workforce is one of organized labor’s biggest selling points. Unions weren’t going to go along with this tax without a fight, and they eventually cut a deal with Democrats shortly before the passage of Obama-care.
Initially, unions were supposed to be exempt from the Cadillac tax until 2018, while expensive plans for nonunion workers would be taxed starting this year. Exempting just unions from the tax would cost an extra $60 billion during Obama-care’s first few years of implementation. But rather than appear to do an expensive favor for just one key special interest, Democrats delayed the tax for everyone until 2018.
The problem for unions is that 2018 isn’t that far off. Five years may seem like a lot of time to lobby for another exemption, but union members have to agree to employment contracts years in advance. The Cadillac tax has already become a collective bargaining sticking point. This is especially true for public-sector employees, who typically have much pricier health care plans than nonunion workers. Public-sector unions may be the last sector of the workforce where it is common for employees to not have to contribute anything towards their health care, and the Cadillac tax will make it much more difficult for taxpayers to continue footing the bill.
This is poised to wreak havoc at the state level. In Pennsylvania, teachers in 168 of the state’s 500 school districts are working without contracts, and by the fall a majority of districts could be without contracts. Most of the negotiations in the state reportedly hinge on reining in health care benefits, rather than salaries. “District negotiators fear if unions do not make concessions now, an excise tax called for in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2010, could cost districts thousands starting in 2018,” reported the Scranton Times-Tribune earlier this month.
The other problem is Obama-care’s sticker shock. In the runup to the law’s passage, the White House was dismissive toward anyone who claimed the law’s morass of new rules would raise insurance premiums. Now no one really denies this is happening. Even though the Cadillac tax’s $10,200 and $27,500 premium thresholds were seen as defining exorbitant insurance plans, plans that don’t offer lavish benefits are becoming expensive enough to be subject to the tax.
In Massachusetts, which has the highest average health care costs of any state thanks to the Bay State’s own misguided experiment expanding health care coverage, over half the state’s employees will be subject to the tax, according to a report by the Pioneer Institute. The report goes on to highlight that the tax is particularly punishing for middle-income public employees in Massachusetts. From 2018 to 2028, a police officer on a typical family plan will be subject to an extra $53,907 in new taxes. A teacher on an individual plan will owe an extra $20,807. Even granting that the problem is acute in Massachusetts, it’s safe to assume the Cadillac tax is going to cause turmoil across the country between public employees who have become accustomed to gold-plated health packages and taxpayers who are increasingly unable to pay for them.
Obama-care presents some additional challenges for those union members who aren’t public employees. Many employers of low-wage workers have expressed concern that they may have to drop existing health coverage, as Obama-care has outlawed the salient features of many cheaper insurance options. Offending plans had benefit caps and other drawbacks but were often the only affordable option for low-wage workers.
Owners of chain restaurants were particularly vocal about this problem, and in some cases subject to public opprobrium from Obama supporters for expressing concern that they might have to cut jobs or drop insurance as a result of the law. Now unions are expressing the same fears for the same reasons. Yet again, unions want a special dispensation for their own low-wage workers. The AFL-CIO, Teamsters, Unite Here Health, and other powerful unions are lobbying to let low-wage union workers remain on their existing insurance plans, while also collecting an Obama-care subsidy that is supposed to go only to low-wage workers without employer coverage.
The Obama administration hasn’t ruled the idea out. “These matters are the subject of pending regulations,” a Treasury spokesman told the Wall Street Journal. Aside from the question of cost, it would seem difficult for the administration to justify allowing only union workers to collect a subsidy on top of an existing insurance plan. If union workers lost their employer insurance coverage, they could take comfort in the fact Obama-care has a surprisingly expansive definition of who’s poor enough to qualify for government assistance to pay for health care. A family of four making up to $92,200 a year would qualify for a subsidy, and the subsidies are proportionally larger for those with lower incomes.
Beyond the specifics, what union leaders are really saying is that they have no confidence Obama-care will live up to its central promise—that the government can provide millions of uninsured Americans with health care coverage that both is affordable and meets their needs.
Surely organized labor must realize that Obama-care has only begun to be implemented. If the Democrats’ most ardent constituency and most prolific fundraisers are already having second thoughts about Obama-care—fearful that besides being expensive and unworkable, the law will make unions less attractive to workers and undermine collective bargaining—the law may be less secure than its apologists assume.
Mark Hemingway is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
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Busybody
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ENERGY: Obama touts energy production his administration has hindered.
resident Obama praised the growth of the U.S. energy sector during a visit to Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Il., on Friday, crediting his administration’s “all of the above” energy policy for increased oil and gas production.
“We produce more oil than we have in 15 years. We import less oil than we have in 20 years,” he said. “We’re producing more natural gas than we ever have before — with hundreds of thousands of good jobs to show for it.”
Those numbers are true. Between fiscal years 2010 and 2012, total U.S. oil production rose by about 1.1 million barrels per day over fiscal year 2007, and natural gas production rose 20 percent from 2007 to 2012.
What the president failed to mention is that the growth he is so proud of has taken place in spite of his administration’s energy policy, not because of it.
A recent study by the Congressional Research Service found that all of the increased production from fiscal years 2007 to 2012 took place on non-federal lands.
Kinda cheesy.
Related: Did Obama Just Block Keystone? “So the Obama administration could green-light the pipeline, file a report that stops short of calling Keystone a major global-warming hazard, and still find the project delayed for years by environmental groups bringing court challenges under the new NEPA guidelines. In this scenario, headlines loudly proclaiming Obama’s approval of Keystone would shield him from Republican attacks. Simultaneously, the president could mollify the left by claiming credit for guidelines that effectively allowed his allies to stop the pipeline.”
resident Obama praised the growth of the U.S. energy sector during a visit to Argonne National Laboratory in Lemont, Il., on Friday, crediting his administration’s “all of the above” energy policy for increased oil and gas production.
“We produce more oil than we have in 15 years. We import less oil than we have in 20 years,” he said. “We’re producing more natural gas than we ever have before — with hundreds of thousands of good jobs to show for it.”
Those numbers are true. Between fiscal years 2010 and 2012, total U.S. oil production rose by about 1.1 million barrels per day over fiscal year 2007, and natural gas production rose 20 percent from 2007 to 2012.
What the president failed to mention is that the growth he is so proud of has taken place in spite of his administration’s energy policy, not because of it.
A recent study by the Congressional Research Service found that all of the increased production from fiscal years 2007 to 2012 took place on non-federal lands.
Kinda cheesy.
Related: Did Obama Just Block Keystone? “So the Obama administration could green-light the pipeline, file a report that stops short of calling Keystone a major global-warming hazard, and still find the project delayed for years by environmental groups bringing court challenges under the new NEPA guidelines. In this scenario, headlines loudly proclaiming Obama’s approval of Keystone would shield him from Republican attacks. Simultaneously, the president could mollify the left by claiming credit for guidelines that effectively allowed his allies to stop the pipeline.”
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SNAP, Crackle, and Bust
By Mark Steyn
From Eli Saslow in The Washington Post, a portrait of America as Dependistan:
He wiped the front counter and smoothed the edges of a sign posted near his register. “Yes! We take Food Stamps, SNAP, EBT!”
“Today, we fill the store up with everything,” he said. “Tomorrow, we sell it all.”
At precisely one second after midnight, on March 1, Woonsocket would experience its monthly financial windfall — nearly $2 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. Federal money would be electronically transferred to the broke residents of a nearly bankrupt town, where it would flow first into grocery stores and then on to food companies, employees and banks, beginning the monthly cycle that has helped Woonsocket survive.
The “economy” (unemployment, shuttered factories, debt) is permanent, but the economic cycle is monthly, thanks to “Uncle Sam Day”:
The 1st is always circled on the office calendar at International Meat Market, where customers refer to the day in the familiar slang of a holiday. It is Check Day. Milk Day. Pay Day. Mother’s Day.
“Uncle Sam Day,” Pichardo said now, late on Feb. 28, as he watched new merchandise roll off the trucks. Out came 40 cases of Ramen Noodles. Out came 230 pounds of ground beef and 180 gallons of orange juice.
SNAP enrollment in Rhode Island had been rising for six years, up from 73,000 people to nearly 180,000, and now three-quarters of purchases at International Meat Market are paid for with Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards. Government money had in effect funded the truckloads of food at Pichardo’s dock . . . and the three part-time employees he had hired to unload it . . . and the walk-in freezer he had installed to store surplus product . . . and the electric bills he paid to run that freezer, at nearly $2,000 each month.
Pichardo’s profits from SNAP had also helped pay for International Meat Market itself, a 10-aisle store in a yellow building that he had bought and refurbished in 2010, when the rise in government spending persuaded him to expand out of a smaller market down the block.
That old Democrat Depression anthem is too idealistic for such a world. But, for the new normal, “Snappy Days Are Here Again”:
Grocery store chains had started discount spinoffs. Farmers markets had incentivized SNAP shopping by rewarding customers with $2 extra for every $5 of government money spent. Restaurants, long forbidden from accepting SNAP, had begun a major lobbying campaign in Washington, and now a handful of Subways in Rhode Island were accepting the benefit as part of a pilot program.
And then what? Where does this story end? What happens to change the trajectory of these lives?
By Mark Steyn
From Eli Saslow in The Washington Post, a portrait of America as Dependistan:
He wiped the front counter and smoothed the edges of a sign posted near his register. “Yes! We take Food Stamps, SNAP, EBT!”
“Today, we fill the store up with everything,” he said. “Tomorrow, we sell it all.”
At precisely one second after midnight, on March 1, Woonsocket would experience its monthly financial windfall — nearly $2 million from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. Federal money would be electronically transferred to the broke residents of a nearly bankrupt town, where it would flow first into grocery stores and then on to food companies, employees and banks, beginning the monthly cycle that has helped Woonsocket survive.
The “economy” (unemployment, shuttered factories, debt) is permanent, but the economic cycle is monthly, thanks to “Uncle Sam Day”:
The 1st is always circled on the office calendar at International Meat Market, where customers refer to the day in the familiar slang of a holiday. It is Check Day. Milk Day. Pay Day. Mother’s Day.
“Uncle Sam Day,” Pichardo said now, late on Feb. 28, as he watched new merchandise roll off the trucks. Out came 40 cases of Ramen Noodles. Out came 230 pounds of ground beef and 180 gallons of orange juice.
SNAP enrollment in Rhode Island had been rising for six years, up from 73,000 people to nearly 180,000, and now three-quarters of purchases at International Meat Market are paid for with Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards. Government money had in effect funded the truckloads of food at Pichardo’s dock . . . and the three part-time employees he had hired to unload it . . . and the walk-in freezer he had installed to store surplus product . . . and the electric bills he paid to run that freezer, at nearly $2,000 each month.
Pichardo’s profits from SNAP had also helped pay for International Meat Market itself, a 10-aisle store in a yellow building that he had bought and refurbished in 2010, when the rise in government spending persuaded him to expand out of a smaller market down the block.
That old Democrat Depression anthem is too idealistic for such a world. But, for the new normal, “Snappy Days Are Here Again”:
Grocery store chains had started discount spinoffs. Farmers markets had incentivized SNAP shopping by rewarding customers with $2 extra for every $5 of government money spent. Restaurants, long forbidden from accepting SNAP, had begun a major lobbying campaign in Washington, and now a handful of Subways in Rhode Island were accepting the benefit as part of a pilot program.
And then what? Where does this story end? What happens to change the trajectory of these lives?
Busybody
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Eurozone About To Put Levy On Bank Deposits In Cyprus
Translation: They are going to seize 10% of everyone’s bank accounts to stop the country from economic collapse.
Yes, let’s continue to emulate European socialism because it makes so much sense.
(Reuters) – Cyprus’s parliament has postponed until Monday an emergency session to vote on a levy on bank deposits after signs that lawmakers might block the surprise move agreed in Brussels to help fund a bailout and avert national bankruptcy.
In a radical departure from previous aid packages, euro zone finance ministers want Cyprus savers to forfeit up to 9.9 percent of their deposits in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout to the island, which has been financially crippled by its exposure to neighboring Greece.
The decision, announced on Saturday morning, stunned Cypriots and caused a run on cashpoints, most of which were depleted within hours. Electronic transfers were stopped.
The move to take a percentage of deposits, which could raise almost 6 billion euros, must be ratified by parliament, where no party has a majority. If it fails to do so, President Nicos Anastasiades has warned, Cyprus’s two largest banks will collapse.
Translation: They are going to seize 10% of everyone’s bank accounts to stop the country from economic collapse.
Yes, let’s continue to emulate European socialism because it makes so much sense.
(Reuters) – Cyprus’s parliament has postponed until Monday an emergency session to vote on a levy on bank deposits after signs that lawmakers might block the surprise move agreed in Brussels to help fund a bailout and avert national bankruptcy.
In a radical departure from previous aid packages, euro zone finance ministers want Cyprus savers to forfeit up to 9.9 percent of their deposits in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout to the island, which has been financially crippled by its exposure to neighboring Greece.
The decision, announced on Saturday morning, stunned Cypriots and caused a run on cashpoints, most of which were depleted within hours. Electronic transfers were stopped.
The move to take a percentage of deposits, which could raise almost 6 billion euros, must be ratified by parliament, where no party has a majority. If it fails to do so, President Nicos Anastasiades has warned, Cyprus’s two largest banks will collapse.
jeninflorida
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We can't fault SeanR, he's just a product of his environment. Ignorant folks like him, well they can't help themselves and must look to place blame for their own failures on to others.
richard_daily
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If it were the 1950s, you'd probably be lynched by right wingers for pretending to be a woman.
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threats and inanity and banality and idiocy
the ONLY 4 things you are semi coherent in
jeninflorida
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Richard is another one of those unfortunates, who needs to redirect his failures on to others
jeninflorida
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I find it totally amazing how many GB'ers do not understand basic economics
Thank God! we have social welfare nets to protect these less fortunates
Thank God! we have social welfare nets to protect these less fortunates
U
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richard_daily
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Ulaven_Demorte
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My my, seven Dizzybooby posts in a row this morning. There must have been some good news to send him into such a tizzy. 
Sean Renaud
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Failure? I'm a business owner, job creator, wealth maker and independent. I just want more people to be like me. Sorry sweet heart.
What do you understand of basic economics. Everything you state shows you understand nothing. Why don't we stop having cops and just let people have more of their income? Don't answer Jen. You won't. You can't.
RobDownSouth
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The European Union decreed this past weekend that "insured" bank accounts were no longer insured.
Cypress announced that uninsured (over 100,000 euros) savings accounts would be subject to a one-time special tax of 9.9% as a condition of "austerity" financing from the IMF. Oh, and all the little people (less than 100,000 euros) would get a 6.75% haircut.
Non-stop lines at ATMs of people trying to get their money out of the suddenly unstable banks.
When the banks open for business on Tuesday morning I suspect we'll see a bank run of monumental proportions.
But hai, American conservatives say we need "austerity" here too! DERP!
Cypress announced that uninsured (over 100,000 euros) savings accounts would be subject to a one-time special tax of 9.9% as a condition of "austerity" financing from the IMF. Oh, and all the little people (less than 100,000 euros) would get a 6.75% haircut.
Non-stop lines at ATMs of people trying to get their money out of the suddenly unstable banks.
When the banks open for business on Tuesday morning I suspect we'll see a bank run of monumental proportions.
But hai, American conservatives say we need "austerity" here too! DERP!
richard_daily
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We're getting austerity here. It's called the sequester.
Sean Renaud
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Citation is needed.
RobDownSouth
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Here ya go
Sorry I misspelled "Cyprus" as "Cypress" originally....been here in Cypress, Texas too long.
Busybody
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THE ECONOMY IS REALLY IMPROVING: More than 25 percent of Americans raiding 401(k)s to pay bills. “U.S. workers are tapping into nearly a quarter of the $293 billion placed into their retirement savings each year to pay for mortgages, credit cards and other debts, according to a report from financial advisory firm HelloWallet. Those in their 40s are the most frequent raiders, with about one-third using their 401(k)s to pay current bills.”
Busybody
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That a slight cut of INCREASES, unsustainable increases
is
Akin to Cypress
NIGGERIZES, DICK DAILY more then ever
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"The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the law of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence."
-John Adams
What happened in Cyprus is the canary in the coal mine
I Know
Lets talk COLORECUNTS toned arms
-John Adams
What happened in Cyprus is the canary in the coal mine
I Know
Lets talk COLORECUNTS toned arms
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