"The Just Do Your Job Act"....The 792 Day Budget Train Wreck

‘So, after what is believed to be an all-time record 792 days of waiting, the Senate Democrats have finally produced a federal budget plan. Or have they? There's no public document yet, but earlier this week Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad of North Dakota triumphantly announced: "We've reached an agreement after weeks of work."


If it's true, this would be big news. There was no Senate Democratic budget last year, and this year's budget was supposed to arrive no later than April. But here we are at the start of July and a budget is merely rumored to be arriving. Even the usually sympathetic New York Times and Washington Post were starting to poke fun at the Democrats for this dereliction of duty.

Mr. Conrad said the Democrats had a plan ready back in April that was "good to go." But he and his colleagues weren't at all ready to go because Democrats couldn't get a majority to agree on a proposal. Meanwhile, over in the House, freshman Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle introduced a bill titled "The Just Do Your Job Act," which cut off payments to the Senate Budget Committee until a budget is approved. In the two-year period without a budget, the Senate Budget Committee spent $12 million. "Even the Libyan government passed a budget," Ms. Buerkle decried.

The latest purported budget is expected to save $4 trillion over 10 years, with half of the deficit reduction coming from spending cuts and the other half from tax increases. Those tax increases are expected to include higher profits taxes on oil and gas companies; loophole closings for high-income filers; and perhaps a three-percentage-point increase in the income-tax rate on millionaires, which was in an earlier draft. The Bush-era tax rate cuts for those making more than $250,000 would be gone, too.

On spending, Democrats announced what they wouldn't cut rather than what they would. Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are pretty much off the table, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California told the Hill newspaper. In other words, expect deep cuts in the military budget. Like Ms. Boxer said, Democrats "know what our priorities are." ‘

-- Stephen Moore, Wall Street Journal Political Diary 07/01/2011

New York City Schools: calling in sick.

"Last week the United Federation of Teachers, the local teachers union, filed a lawsuit to stop the Bloomberg administration from closing 22 of the city's worst schools. It's the second time in as many years that the union has sued to protect the status quo.


On average, just 16% of the students who attend one of the elementary or secondary schools slated for closer are proficient in reading, and 19% are proficient in math, according to Education Department data. The citywide averages are 42% for reading and 53% for math. The average graduation rate of a high school in the lawsuit is 49%, versus a citywide average of 63%.

The statistics at some individual schools are even more shocking. Last year, 3% of students at the Academy for Collaborative Education in Harlem were performing at grade level in English, and 9% were performing at grade level in math. By what definition are these places even called "schools"?

Yet the UFT wants to keep these schools open to preserve jobs for their members. It's another example of teachers unions putting the interests of adults ahead of the needs of students. Moreover, the local NAACP is collaborating with the teachers unions in their efforts to consign poor kids to these failing schools. The civil rights organization has joined the union lawsuit against the city. Apparently, labor leaders have convinced black leaders that protecting union jobs is more important than providing the minorities who populate these dropout factories with a decent education." - Jason L. Riley, Wall Street Journal Political Diary, 05/24/2011

Richard Foster, the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Let's Talk About ObamaCare - Kim Strassel, Wall Street Journal, Political Diary, 01/28/2011

"Their health-care repeal vote behind them, Republicans this week got down to exercising the power of hearings that House control now affords them. And the Obama administration, for its part, got a glimpse of how painful those hearings will prove to its policy causes.

Fresh off of his State of the Union response, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan plowed into a hearing Wednesday morning on the true costs of ObamaCare -- a public-education service that Mr. Ryan has been performing for much of this past year. Now finally wielding the spotlight, Mr. Ryan called as a witness Richard Foster, the chief actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Mr. Foster, whose job is to provide independent economic analysis, confirmed the central charges that Republicans have leveled at the health-care law.

Mr. Foster was asked by California Rep. Tom McClintock to provide true or false responses to two key questions. The first: Will ObamaCare bring down medical costs? Mr. Foster's answer: "I would say false, more so than true." Behind his argument was the obvious -- that because the law now requires coverage for people who weren't covered before, costs will by necessity rise.

The second: Will the law allow people to keep their current health insurance? Mr. Foster: "Not true in all cases." Mr. Foster's office has projected that some seven million members of Medicare Advantage -- which was hurt by the law -- will have to find other coverage. Mr. Foster also took a whack at the slippery accounting that was used to calculate the cost of the legislation.

This isn't Mr. Foster's first time as the health-care party pooper. He's developed a reputation for skepticism about political promises made by members of both parties. His non-rosy projections tweaked the Obama administration during the ObamaCare debate, just as his financial warnings annoyed the Bush administration during the run-up to the creation of its prescription-drug plan. And if Republicans have their way, Mr. Foster will no doubt continue to be in front of the cameras over the coming months."