Not long after Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told seniors at Century Village of Boca Raton they could be socked with $6,300 a year in higher Medicare costs under Mitt Romney, Vice President Joe Biden acknowledged the figure is based on an analysis of an outdated plan.Ends, means, justified.
But Biden argued it’s fair for Democrats to keep using the number, anyway.
That $4 trillion in deficit reduction takes credit for nearly a trillion dollars in pared back war spending that is already scheduled to happen. The Medicare cuts called for by the plan are of the dubious slashing-provider-reimbursement variety that Congress has had serious trouble maintaining before and that the administration has already put the brakes on in one instance. The plan plays games with the budget baseline, counts $800 billion in debt payments as a "spending cut," and cleverly spreads is deficit reduction out over 12 years rather than the industry-standard 10 year window in order to meet the $4 trillion threshhold but make the early cuts — the ones he'd actually have to oversee as president — quite a bit smaller.In other words, it's just more "making stuff up" and hoping nobody will notice.
As The Washington Post's Fact Checker Glenn Kessler wrote earlier this month, "virtually no serious budget analyst" buys the president's $4 trillion deficit reduction figure, and "most of Obama’s claimed deficit reduction comes from his proposed tax increases."
Budget gimmicks and tax hikes: That's Obama's version of a balanced plan.
We are not trying to make excuses for the fiscal excesses of the Bush administration — and Congress — in the last decade. But at some point, a president has to take ownership of his own actions."Take ownership"? Oh that's rich. Anyway, after - what - three years of different variations of this theme, it's sure nice that somebody in the media notice that Obama lies about the deficit. And only six weeks from the election.
Obama certainly inherited an economic mess, and that accounts for a large part of the deficit. But Obama pushed for spending increases and tax cuts that also have contributed in important ways to the nation’s fiscal deterioration. He certainly could argue that these were necessary and important steps to take, but he can’t blithely suggest that 90 percent of the current deficit “is as a consequence” of his predecessor’s policies — and not his own.
As for the citing of the discredited MarketWatch column, we have repeatedly urged the administration to rely on estimates from official government agencies, such as the White House budget office. It is astonishing to see the president repeat this faulty claim once again, as if it were an established fact.
Apparently leaders of the Islamic world present a non-negotiable demand to the West that they be given a blank check for their governments to defame Jews, Christians, and Americans, but the United States must condemn any private individual who, quite apart from the knowledge of the U.S. government, does the same to Muslims. That is the issue, and anything less than an unapologetic defense of free speech is not only a betrayal of our Constitution, but a very dangerous concession that will only incite more violence in the near future.The other day on NPR, professor Noah Feldman explained that freedom of speech is really unique here in the U.S.A. Here's one excerpt from "Held dear in U.S., free speech is perplexing abroad"
"In the U.S., we value the liberty of the speaker much more highly than either the dignity of the person who feels insulted or the state's interest in trying to avoid violent protest. ...One thing I took away from this interview is that every time the United States rolls out a new apology, the response from the Islamic world is bewilderment and more anger. The apology itself feeds into the mistaken belief that the American government can curtail speech if it really wanted to.
"What's most distinctive from our perspective is that we think that if your feelings are hurt, then that's your problem. We don't believe that you ought to be protected from the hurly-burly of political insult. And that's a very deeply ingrained American notion. ...
"And because we're concerned not to allow what's called the heckler's veto, where the fact that one particular group or person will make a fuss, means that we will prohibit the speech, we've tended to be extremely permissive, and that does make us very different from other countries."
Americans' distrust in the media hit a new high this year, with 60% saying they have little or no trust in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly. Distrust is up from the past few years, when Americans were already more negative about the media than they had been in years prior to 2004.Funny thing: although we all know the media is totally fair and objective, Republicans and independents don't see it that way. Democrats, on the other hand, think they're doing a great job.
We see what happens when Obama's asked some difficult questions: He screws up. The reason we don't see this often is not that he is a cognitive high evolutionary; it's because he's never asked difficult questions. Questions about wedge issues. With follow-ups. With contradictions.Obama has been either lying or vague on the campaign trail with nobody to press the issue. Today he told the AARP that he'll protect Medicare by "keeping costs down" but there were no details and nary a journalist in sight will note that the only remedy he's ever proposed to meet this goal is an unelected board whose only power is to cut reimbursement rates to medical providers. Both Obama (and Bill Clinton) keep insisting that $716 billion in Medicare cuts won't affect benefits but good luck finding a doctor who will accept Medicare reimbursement rates reduced to the same level as Medicaid. Plus, there's the magic accounting of money taken from Medicare will both extend the program and pay for Obamacare.
Then Letterman went back to the tally: “Now, do you remember what that number was? Was it $10 trillion?”He don't know nothin' about no debt. This one:
Then came the payoff, as the president made clear that he really didn’t want to utter the word “16”: “I don’t remember what the number was precisely.”
This was recorded awhile back at a fundraiser, just like Obama’s infamous “bitter/clinger” comments in 2008. Remember how big that blew up? That’s how we ended up with President McCain.
We're asked to believe that the Obama administration knew all along that things would take longer than four years to improve. "I never said this journey would be easy," the president claimed in Charlotte. On the contrary, the president stated explicitly on Feb. 1, 2009, that if he failed to get the economy turned around in three years, he would be looking at a "one-term proposition."It's pretty clear that Obama never thought his policies would lead to such a weak recovery and had no Plan B. Should have told better stories.
If the Obama administration knew from the start that the so-called "hole" left by the previous administration was too deep to climb out of in one term, why did they repeatedly claim that the recovery was at hand? "Recovery Summer," the White House website promised, would begin in June 2010.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner authored a New York Times op-ed in August 2010 proclaiming "Welcome to the Recovery." Geithner wrote, "(A) review of recent data on the American economy shows that we are on a path back to growth." Though acknowledging continuing challenges, Geithner assured readers that "the actions we took ... to stimulate the economy helped arrest the freefall, preventing an even deeper collapse and putting the economy on the road to recovery."
GM loses around $49,000 on each Volt it builds says Reuters. GM sold a record 2,831 Volts in August, but that may “have pushed that loss even higher. There are some Americans paying just $5,050 to drive around for two years in a vehicle that cost as much as $89,000 to produce,” says Reuters after a deep data dive into the elusive profitability of GM’s green halo car.With tax credits, the Chevy Volt costs around $32K and GM loses $49K. Remember when the White House was criticizing Romney's time with Bain by saying government is not about making a profit? They weren't kidding.
Seriously. They really do think you’re this stupid. I’m surprised they aren’t pointing out that she’s delivering her lines to a cardboard cutout, not the real Obama, and calling that a “problem.”I think they're trying a little payback after "Republican women for Obama" were actually Democrats. For extra fun today, a "former Bain employee" who spoke at the DNC never worked for Bain. Fake but accurate, I presume.
When Democrats accuse Republicans of wanting to “end Medicare as we know it,” they are right. But Democrats do too. “Medicare as we know it” is no longer an option.The Democrats and their cronies in the AARP are trying to sell Americans on the soothing notion that Medicare is a "sacred promise" but the truth is that the well is running dry:
Leaving aside Medicare’s fatal moral defect—that it’s coercively funded—the program is doomed. It has tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities. It threatens working generations with a crushing tax burden. Because of the relative size of the Baby Boom generation, soon there will be only two workers to pay each retiree’s medical bills. Younger people might have other plans for their money.
So something’s got to give, no matter which party is in power.
One of the great ironies of this convention already is that speaker after speaker denounces Republicans for being unable to tell the truth or get their facts straight. Meanwhile, one of the most important truths of modern governance—we are well and truly out of money—sits neglected in the corner. This might be a great way to rally the Democratic base, but it's thin gruel for the majority of Americans who think, correctly, that the nation's finances have spun out of control.Now let's pass that Buffett rule already. It will pay for literally hours of government spending.
Raise caseloads by 20% and Sebelius’ standard will probably be met. (Maybe raise caseloads 30% just to be sure.) So what looks like a tough get-to-work incentive is actually a paleoliberal “first-get-on-welfare” incentive. But the point of welfare reform isn’t to get more people onto welfare.Judging by the MSM's over-reaction to Paul Ryan's speech, it's pretty obvious they're wired into the Obama campaign's Twitter feed and swallows whole the spin. "False balance" indeed.
It’s understandable that MSM reporters and non-profit checkers–some of whom may have been given only a few hours to get to the bottom of a subject they’ve never written about before–would easily fall for a bit of bureaucratic fakery. Do they have to be so self-righteous about it?
The Lexington economic forecasting firm takes two economic indicators plus three political variables, plugs them into a formula, and out pops the percentage of the popular vote the incumbent party is expected to win. The formula has correctly predicted the outcome in 14 of the last 16 presidential elections.Indeed, most of the model's predictions have been within a percentage point and the worst miss was the 1972 election that underestimated Nixon's re-election share by 4.8%. And what does the model predict for The One?
The most recent update of the formula, using July economic data, shows President Obama losing decisively, with just over 45 percent of the popular vote.In other words: landslide territory for Romney. But if you want to go old-school, there's always the President's approval rating:
A president’s job approval rating is one of the best indicators for assessing his chances of reelection. Typically, the president’s job approval rating on Election Day will be close to the share of the vote he receives. Currently, 48% of voters say they at least somewhat approve of the president's job performance.That's Rasmussen's poll. This morning, Gallup posted Obama's approval rating at 43%.
