And About That Goose and Gander: Harry Reid Exempts Staffers from Obamacare

‘Washington (CNN) -- Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, one of Obamacare's architects and staunchest supporters, is also the only top congressional leader to exempt some of his staff from having to buy insurance through the law's new exchanges.

Reid is the exception among the other top congressional leaders. GOP House Speaker John Boehner, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell have all directed their staffs to join the exchange, their aides said.’

‘In the charged atmosphere surrounding Obamacare, Reid's decision only gives Republicans more ammo to attack Democrats already suffering politically from the law's botched rollout.

In September, Reid told reporters, "Let's stop these really juvenile political games -- the one dealing with health care for senators and House members and our staff. We are going to be part of exchanges, that's what the law says and we'll be part of that." ‘ - Some Reid staffers exempt from Obamacare exchanges, CNN, 12/04/2013

Link to the entire article appears below:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/politics/reid-obamacare-staff/index.html

ObamaCare: Liking What You Don’t Understand Transforms into Disliking What You Understand

‘Labor unions are among the key institutions responsible for the passage of Obamacare. They spent tons of money electing Democrats to Congress in 2006 and 2008, and fought hard to push the health law through the legislature in 2009 and 2010. But now, unions are waking up to the fact that Obamacare is heavily disruptive to the health benefits of their members.

Last Thursday, representatives of three of the nation’s largest unions fired off a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, warning that Obamacare would “shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”
The letter was penned by James P. Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; Joseph Hansen, international president of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union; and Donald “D.” Taylor, president of UNITE-HERE, a union representing hotel, airport, food service, gaming, and textile workers.


“When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act,” they begin, “you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat…We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision. Now this vision has come back to haunt us.”


‘Unintended consequences’ causing ‘nightmare scenarios’
The union leaders are concerned that Obamacare’s employer mandate incentivizes smaller companies to shift their workers to part-time status, because employers are not required to provide health coverage to part-time workers. “We have a problem,” they write, and “you need to fix it.”


“The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe,” they continue. “Perverse incentives are causing nightmare scenarios. First, the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below 30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold: fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits.”
What surprises me about this is that union leaders are pretty strategic when it comes to employee benefits. It was obvious in 2009 that Obamacare’s employer mandate would incentivize this shift. Why didn’t labor unions fight it back then?



Regulations will ‘destroy the very health and wellbeing of our members’

The labor bosses are also unhappy, because of the way Obamacare affects multi-employer health plans. Multi-employer plans, also called Taft-Hartley plans, are health insurance benefits typically arranged between a labor union in a particular industry, such as restaurants, and small employers in that industry. About 20 million workers are covered by these plans; 800,000 of Joseph Hansen’s 1.3 million UFCW members are covered this way.
Taft-Hartley plans, they write, “have been built over decades by working men and women,” but unlike plans offered on the ACA exchanges, unionized workers will not be eligible for subsidies, because workers with employer-sponsored coverage don’t qualify.’ - Labor Unions: Obamacare Will 'Shatter' Our Health Benefits, Cause 'Nightmare Scenarios', Avik Roy, Forbes, 07/15/2013

　

The entire article appears in the link below:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/07/15/labor-leaders-obamacare-will-shatter-their-health-benefits-cause-nightmare-scenarios/?partner=yahootix

1,200 Days With No Budget From the U.S. Senate

“Tomorrow marks another disappointing record for the United States Senate: Senate Majority Leader Reid and his Democrat conference will have gone an unprecedented 1,200 days without adopting a budget plan as required by law. Not only have they failed to adopt a budget, but with America under threat of financial calamity, they have refused to even present a plan for public scrutiny. Last year, Majority Leader Reid said it would be ‘foolish’ to do a budget and the legally required Budget Committee mark-up was cancelled. No plan from his conference has seen the light of day. He refuses to disclose who he plans to tax and how he plans to spend taxpayers’ money.

This year, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad committed to bringing forth a budget plan and conducting a mark-up, and was shut down by the Majority Leader. Once again, the conference put forward no proposal and offered nothing on the Senate floor. The Senate Majority did not offer up a single plan or even cast a vote in support of a single plan. By contrast, House Republicans laid out and adopted a credible, responsible plan that avoids this looming debt crisis with spending cuts and pro-growth tax reform while preserving the safety net." (1)

Notes:

(1)  Ryan And Sessions press release: 'Unprecedented 1,200 Days' Since Senate Democrats Passed A Budget, 08/10/2012

http://budget.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=306183

Globular Objects

The Light Bulb Cops

The budgetary gridlock in Washington in the final legislative days before Christmas took on a farcical atmosphere when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid refused to move a government-funding bill because, among several other features he objects to, it would overturn a de facto federal ban on incandescent light bulbs.

But late last night Mr. Reid and House Speaker John Boehner agreed to terms on the spending bill, and Republicans won on the light bulb issue. The ban is suspended for one year. The GOP also prevailed on its prohibition of funding for abortions in the District of Columbia, though most of their deregulatory policy directives were stripped from the legislation.

The fact that the light bulb ban even made the list of Mr. Reid's grievances indicates how captive Democrats are to the anti-carbon police. Fluorescent light bulbs are more energy efficient, and though they cost more they last longer than traditional incandescent bulbs. But many consumers just haven't taken to the curly cue bulbs and prefer the older, cheaper kind. So Congress decided to take away the choice for consumers by requiring that all bulbs meet energy efficiency standards. This has meant that stores like Wal-Mart and Home Depot have been clearing the shelves of the traditional bulbs.

The new "green" bulbs can cost as much as $40, which in these tough times is a financial pinch. It's also the height of global warming hysteria to think that letting a family screw a traditional light bulb into the bedroom lamp is going to melt the Arctic ice caps. For another year, at least, American consumers can still by the light bulbs they want. It was a rare victory for liberty on Capitol Hill.

-- Stephen Moore, The Wall Street Journal,  Political Diary, 12/16/2011

Social Security: can one lose a lost horizon?

Certain politicos are currently shaping a political argument that Social Security is an item that should be excluded regarding any debt reduction/debt ceiling negotiations. That Social Security’s mere existence is of benefit to the “greater good“.

‘Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., attacked the bill as a "radical plan to kill Medicare and Social Security," and said House Republicans needed to know it was dead‘. (1)

Don’t reduce benefits but reduce benefits?


The fall back position of those advocating no reductions in Social Security benefits is that any changes to Social Security, if they must occur, the changes should come in the form of raising the retirement age qualification [which in fact is a reduction in benefits]. (2)

The history of don’t reduce benefits but reduce benefits.


When Social Security was first proposed by Franklin Roosevelt the plan would be completely voluntary. The plan is no longer voluntary and hence the voluntary benefit became a coercive state mandated benefit. However, one would only be taxed at 1% of the first $1,400 of income. Sorry, today the tax is 7.65% of the first $90,000.

Then again, your contribution would be tax deductible and hence some other tax relief would be gained. Sorry the contributions are by and large no longer tax deductible.
At least their would be a Trust Fund and the Social Security contribution would be sequestered and not part of the general operating fund. Under the Lyndon Johnson Administration the Trust Fund corpus was moved to the general fund and subsequently spent.

Well, at least the future income derived from Social Security would not be taxed. Ops! Under the Clinton Administration the retirement income proceeds of Social Security became taxable of which 85% can be included as income based on the total income of the recipient.


Who created a plan that doesn’t reduce benefits but reduces benefits?


Was Social Security just so much pie-in-the-sky dreamed up by the public who wanted a secure retirement? That in the end the public outcry for retirement security was just so much populist blather? Sorry, no. The public demanded no such plan. Really? Oh yes, almost every state-run retirement plan in the world is a concoction of politicos and by no means a grass root phenomena. That’s right, state run retirement plans are the brain child of politicos. (3)


Why were we not warned of a plan that doesn’t reduce benefits but reduces benefits?


Due warning was given. How so? W.R. Williamson, Travelers Insurance Company actuary testified before the House Ways and Means committee in 1935 explaining how the plan would incur deficits. That a major burden of deficits would be passed onto [in his 1935 actuarial estimate] to those in 1965 or 1980. (4) (5)



Can one lose something that was lost in the first place? Can one consider value lost where no value exists?


Exactly who values Social Security the most? If Social Security checks can not be sent out 08/02/2011 without raising the debt ceiling exactly where is the value to James and Jane Goodfellow? Is the value increasing debt? Increasing debt can be considered “value”? (6)

Arguably the “value” of Social Security is an illusionary political value of, by, and for the politico. How so? By convincing James and Jane Goodfellow that value exists, and that somehow, someway a concrete, sustainable, and asset based value is being taken away [that indeed represents value] politicos merely extend and pretend the illusion of Social Security.

Notes:


(1) Boehner pulls out of White House debt talks. msnbc.com, 07/22/2011, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43851666/ns/politics-capitol_hill/

(2) The red-hot debate over raising the retirement age, cnnmoney.com, 08/02/2010
http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/02/news/economy/social_security_retirement/index.htm

(3) Carolyn L. Weaver, The Crisis in Social Security: Economic and Political Origins, (Durham, NC.: Duke Press Policy Studies, 1982), p.33.

(4) Statement of W.R. Williamson, Assistant Actuary, Travelers Insurance C0., Hartford, Conn., House Ways and Means Committee, January 1935, pp.1013, 1014.

(5) Statement of W.R. Williamson, Assistant Actuary, Travelers Insurance C0., Hartford, Conn., House Ways and Means Committee, January 1935, p. 1014.

(6) Obama: Debt Ceiling Impasse Threatens Social Security, Veterans, Medicaid Checks. ABC news, 07/12/2011,
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2011/07/obama-debt-ceiling-impasse-threatens-social-security-veterans-medicaid-checks-.html