“How can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn’t work?”
This seems like a perfectly reasonable question to me.
Posted driving past Radford, Virginia.
Government marches on! The Obamacare website — that doesn’t work and probably never will — was originally supposed to cost $93.7 million and ended up costing more than six times more, $634 million.
Gee, this is almost as good as the James Webb Space Telescope, which is probably going to end up cost nine times more than originally budgeted.
And obviously, this disaster must be the fault of either George Bush or the tea party!
Former NASA shuttle head outlines a pessimistic future for NASA expensive Space Launch System.
Continuing to develop programs in the same old ways, from my observations, will certainly lead to cancellation as government budgets are stretched thin.”
Shutdown fascism: The Obama administration has ordered 1100 square miles of open ocean off limits to private fisherman and tourists because of the government shutdown.
The article above also has a link to a story where voluntary unpaid Catholic priests have been told by the Obama administration that they will face arrest if they try to serve mass at military chapels or minister to military personnel during the shutdown.
Finding out what’s in it: Ten states where Obamacare has wiped out health insurance.
Read it. The details are quite horrible.
But don’t worry. President Obama and the Democrats in Congress are willing to shut down the government rather than even simply delay the implementation of this law for one year. For them, this law must stand, and that’s all there is to it.
We’ve only just begun: The Treasury Inspector General has found that the IRS cannot account for $67 million of Obamacare funds.
he “Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund” (HIRIF) was tucked into Obamacare in order to give the IRS money to enforce the tax provisions of the healthcare law. The fund, totaling some $1 billion of taxpayer money, was used to roll out enforcement mechanisms for the approximately 50 tax provisions of Obamacare. According to the report: “Specifically, the IRS did not account for or attempt to quantify approximately $67 million [from the slush fund] of indirect ACA costs incurred for Fiscal Years 2010 through 2012.”
The report also found other spending abuses, including using the money for travel that was unjustified.
But everything’s under control. The Democratic Party will make sure Obamacare is funded, no matter what!
The Obamacare wars are just beginning.
This is war—turning sectors of the economy into partisan battlefields is a cost of their agenda that liberals, with their pure faith in “programs,” never factor in. But wars also have a way of leading to unexpected outcomes.
Read the whole thing. The author outlines how this terrible law, defended again today by the Democrats in the Senate, will have numerous unintended consequences that were unexpected and are generally bad.
The first and second launch of the Space Launch System are likely to be delayed due to budget issues.
“It’s very clear that we could have slips of a year or two,” said [deputy administrator Lori] Garver, referring to both the 2017 launch — which won’t have a crew — and the first planned flight of NASA astronauts aboard the SLS rocket in 2021.
Garver claims that it is insufficient funds for SLS that will cause the delays, despite getting $3 billion per year, or ten times the money the private commercial program is getting.
I’m on a hike today, but so any additional comments about this insanity will have to wait.
A engineering problem during construction of one of the shuttle-derived solid rocket boosters for SLS is causing delays.
[The] original test target of mid-2013 slipped when an issue with the aft segment [of the booster] was found. Inspection of the segment showed it was contained an area where propellant had debonded from the inside of the segment wall. Following analysis – which notably found no voids in the propellant itself – NASA decided to ask ATK to scrap the segment and cast a replacement.
Preparations … continued, with the shipping and integration of forward and center segments at the test site, while ATK went to work to replace the aft segment, following approval – post investigation – from NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. After ATK successfully cast the replacement segment in July, technicians carried out routine ultrasound and x-ray tests. Unfortunately, the tests showed this segment had also had similar voids. [emphasis mine.]
The Space Launch System (SLS), was mandated by Congress to use as much shuttle-derived components as possible in order to supposedly save money as well as employ as many of the companies that built those components as possible. In reality, however, every one of those components has required significant redesign to make them work in SLS. In the case of the solid rocket boosters, the four segment shuttle boosters were not powerful enough. They had to be expanded to five segments.
Moreover, it appears from this article it was other technically unnecessary changes to the boosters that are now causing this problem.
» Read more
Finding out what’s in it: Obamacare is forcing a number of artist organizations to cancel health insurance for their members.
The College Art Association website posted a notice this month: “The New York Life Insurance Company recently informed CAA that it will no longer offer catastrophic healthcare coverage previously available to CAA members.” Why? Because it “is no longer an option” for “associations whose members reside in different states” to provide such coverage. These members will have to seek help from their home states’ newly formed Obamacare exchanges. Plans offered to Modern Language Association (MLA) members will suffer a similar fate.
Other insurance providers are reporting cancellations. The Entertainment Industry Group Insurance Trust (TEIGIT) website posts the following notice: “All individual and/or Sole Proprietor Health Insurance will terminate January 1, 2014. This includes plans acquired as Members of our Affiliated Associations & their groups.” Those affiliated associations include the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the Dramatists Guild, the Graphic Arts Guild, NY Women in Film and Television, and many others.
From my experience in the movie industry it is almost certain that the vast majority of these artists, writers, musicians, and actors are Democrats who blindly supported Obama and Obamacare. I am also certain that, even after this disaster, they will still blindly support the Democratic Party.
A NASA veteran slams the Space Launch System (SLS).
The problem with the SLS is that it’s so big that makes it very expensive. It’s very expensive to design, it’s very expensive to develop. When they actually begin to develop it, the budget is going to go haywire. They’re going to have all kinds of technical and development issues crop up, which will drive the development costs up. Then there are the operating costs of that beast, which will eat NASA alive if they get there. They’re not going to be able to fly it more than once a year, if that, because they don’t have the budget to do it. So what you’ve got is a beast of a rocket, that would give you all of this capability, which you can’t build because you don’t have the money to build it in the first place, and you can’t operate it if you had it.
Q: What do you see as the alternative?
A: In the private sector we’ve got an Atlas and a Delta rocket, and the Europeans have a rocket called the Ariane. The Russians have lots of rockets, which are very reliable, and they get reliable by using them. And that’s something the SLS will never have. Never. Because you can’t afford to launch it that many times.
Finding out what’s in it: City governments nationwide are cutting employees’ hours to below 30 hours per week to avoid Obamacare.
