Tag: bankruptcy

The House is about to vote on a trillion dollar spending bill that no one has really read.

7:41 pm

This sums it up: The House is about to vote on a trillion dollar spending bill that no one has really read.

It might include some specific cuts, but in general this budget plan is a surrender to more spending.

The only real solution to this madness, however, really rests with the voters. The spenders in both parties have to be fired, and the only way to do that is to fire them. Sadly, I see no sign of that happening in the hardcore Democratic states such as New York, California, and Illinois, to name just a few. There, the voters are so partisan that they’d rather die than vote for a Republican. And die they will.

Among Republican voters at least there is pressure from the right to spend less. To make it effective, however, the voters still have to do some firing, as far too many Republicans elected officials are willing to go along to get along.

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The agony of the world’s most influential focus group pollster.

3:26 pm

The agony of the world’s most influential focus group pollster.

Key paragraphs:

The crisis began, he says, after last year’s presidential election, when Luntz became profoundly depressed. For more than a month, he tried to stay occupied, but nothing could keep his attention. Finally, six weeks after the election, during a meeting of his consulting company in Las Vegas, he fell apart. Leaving his employees behind, he flew back to his mansion in Los Angeles, where he stayed for three weeks, barely going outside or talking to anyone.

“I just gave up,” Luntz says.

His side had lost. Mitt Romney had, in his view, squandered a good chance at victory with a strategically idiotic campaign. (“I didn’t work on the campaign. It just sucked, as a professional. And it killed me because I realized on Election Day that there’s nothing I can do about it.”) But Luntz’s side had lost elections before. His dejection was deeper: It was, he says, about why the election was lost. “I spend more time with voters than anybody else,” Luntz says. “I do more focus groups than anybody else. I do more dial sessions than anybody else. I don’t know s–t about anything, with the exception of what the American people think.”

It was what Luntz heard from the American people that scared him. They were contentious and argumentative. They didn’t listen to each other as they once had. They weren’t interested in hearing other points of view. They were divided one against the other, black vs. white, men vs. women, young vs. old, rich vs. poor. “They want to impose their opinions rather than express them,” is the way he describes what he saw. “And they’re picking up their leads from here in Washington.” Haven’t political disagreements always been contentious, I ask? “Not like this,” he says. “Not like this.” [emphasis mine]

My agony too. One of the most frustrating aspects I experienced while living in liberal havens like New York and Maryland was the inability to find anyone who disagreed with me politically who was also willing to listen to what I had to say. I ain’t a fool. I’m very well educated. I’m also a nice guy who strongly believes in the right of anyone to freely follow their dreams, no matter their race, religion, ethnicity, or political beliefs. But as soon as I would express a conservative opinion I was insulted and shut out, ostracized and blackballed.

The future is not good if this does not change. And there is strong evidence that it is not going to.

And then there’s this: Liberals’ bigoted and ignorant view of conservatives.

Have you ever been pigeon-holed at a party by a liberal? I recommend avoiding it at all costs, but if it happens, go with it. You’ll get an education in what our opponents actually think as he rails, whines and complains about the terrible, inhuman monster that lurks on the fringes of American society.

This scourge is called a “conservative,” and I hope I never meet one in a dark alley. They apparently carry automatic weapons as they stalk the streets, hating science and hunting the poor for sport.

You’ll quickly note how your liberal monologist – they literally never shut up – is a scholar of all things conservative. Of course, he has never actually met one, living as he does in an urban sewer like San Francisco or in a subsidized academic enclave of Marxist fantasy like Berkeley. But who needs experience when you can get convenient bite-sized morsels of pre-processed ideology from MSNBC.

Read it all.

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Nearly two thirds of the fraud and waste lost by the federal government in 2013 was paid by HHS, the agency running Obamacare.

3:57 pm

Nearly two thirds of the fraud and waste lost by the federal government in 2013 was spent by HHS, the agency running Obamacare.

The total amount lost by either fraud, waste, or error equaled $106 billion, slightly down from 2012’s $108 billion figure. Of that, about $65 billion occurred in Health and Human Services.

But hey, what’s a few billion dollars here and there. It’s not like the federal government has a debt problem, does it?

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The 30 counties with the highest medium income just happen to be where most people work for the federal government.

3:47 pm

I am shocked, shocked! The 30 counties with the highest medium income just happen to be where most people work for the federal government.

The only county among the Top 5 for median household income not located near Washington, D.C., was No. 3 Los Alamos County, N.M.—which is the smallest county in that state, and which is also home to the U.S. Energy Department’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. The median household income in Los Alamos County in 2012, according to the Census Bureau, was $112,115.

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Obamacare includes absurd regulations that will cost the vending machine industry millions.

8:52 am

Finding out what’s in it: Obamacare includes absurd regulations that will cost the vending machine industry millions.

Around 457 pages into Obamcare, section 4205 stipulates “the vending machine operator shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button that includes a clear and conspicuous statement disclosing the number of calories contained in the article.” This new mandate will cost the vending machine industry an estimated $25.8 million initially and an additional $24 million for every subsequent year.

Expect some companies to go out a business because of this craziness.

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The first theorem of government: Government is a racket that benefits the political elite by taking money from everyone else.

9:40 am

The first theorem of government: Government is a racket that benefits the political elite by taking money from everyone else.

He has the data. Look especially at his first graph. And he correctly notes that this has been a bi-partisan effort.

The solution? Vote these bums out of office, repeatedly and often, so that no one has a motive to concentrate power and money in Washington.

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Thirteen insane projects funded by our federal government.

9:49 am

Thirteen insane projects funded by our federal government.

I especially like #5: “NASA spends $3 million looking for signs of intelligent life…in Congress.”

These idiotic programs, which certainly only scratch the surface of the wasteful and corrupt spending in Washington, prove once again that the most recent budget deal is a fraud, that there is no reason to support any increase in federal spending, that we probably could cut the budget in half and not notice anything.

Sadly, that budget deal appears about to pass the Senate.

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Paul Ryan says House Republicans are going to demand something in exchange for raising the debt ceiling again in February.

9:07 am

We shall see: Paul Ryan says House Republicans are going to demand something in exchange for raising the debt ceiling again in February.

Though I’m glad he’s saying this, forgive me if I am skeptical. The Republican leadership in the House has proven itself weak and willing to back down all too often. For example, they have allowed the lie that they alone caused the government shutdown to become accepted as truth, merely by acting as if it were true. The result: they were unwilling to demand any concessions in the just completed budget negotiations, even though they had a strong hand and could have easily obtained concessions, especially on Obamacare.

Then there’s this: Ten quotes that explain why conservatives do not trust the Republican Party.

His conclusion is most pertinent:

Incidentally, the solution to all of this is not to leave the Republican Party. To the contrary, it’s to treat the Republican Party like a puppy that’s having difficulty with house training. When Republicans do the right thing, praise them, support them and do what you can to help them out. When they do the wrong thing, rub their noses in it. Attack Republicans who betray their principles relentlessly, primary them at every opportunity and take over the Republican Party so we can shove the politicians who won’t listen to us to the side. While we will never be able to build an entire party full of men like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and Rand Paul, we can make it miserable enough for bad actors that the go-along-to-get-along Republicans will conclude it’s better to work with us than face primaries and incessant attacks from their own side in the new media. Most people don’t realize it, but we have already started moving the Republican Party to the Right and the time will come when Republicans are just as afraid of their base as Democrats are of Planned Parenthood and the unions. It’s not going to happen overnight, but if we keep going after Republicans who sell us out, even the ones that are as hostile as John McCain, Peter King and Lindsey Graham will eventually have to get on board if they want to keep their jobs.

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It appears that Senate Republicans will filibuster the Ryan budget deal.

8:56 am

Maybe not so stupid: It appears that Senate Republicans will filibuster the Ryan budget deal.

If the Republicans in the Senate can force some changes, to both the reduction in the sequester cuts over the next two years as well as the procedural change that ends the minority’s ability to block tax increases, then they will have accomplished something.

What I like about this is that they appear to be willing to fight, something Republicans all too often fail to do.

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A survey of 400 chief financial officers finds that nearly half plan to cut back on employment because of Obamacare.

11:00 pm

A survey of 400 chief financial officers finds that nearly half plan to cut back on employment because of Obamacare.

And there’s also this:

Besides altering the makeup of their workforces, companies said they also plan to change the health benefit packages offered to employees. “Two-thirds of companies will change health benefits in response to ACA,” reads the Fuqua/CFO Magazine report summary. Forty-four percent of CFOs said they are considering reducing health benefits for employees. Thirty-eight percent said that employees and retirees may be forced to contribute more to their health plans.

“The inadequacies of the ACA website have grabbed a lot of attention, even though many of those issues have been or can be fixed,” said John Graham, Duke Fuqua School of Business finance professor and director of the survey, in a press release. “Our survey points to a more detrimental and potentially long-lasting problem. An unintended consequence of the Affordable Care Act will be a reduction in full-time employment growth in the United States,” the study says. [emphasis mine]

So, tell me again why the Republicans in Congress should not challenge the Democrats over Obamacare?

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Yup, this sums it up nicely.

9:07 am

Yup, this sums it up nicely.

House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has now accomplished the astonishing task of pushing House Republicans substantially to the left of the Senate GOP. His budget deal, announced Tuesday night, was achieved by shutting conservative Senate Republicans out of negotiations, by resorting to the old trick of spending now while claiming savings later, by ignoring a symbolically important budgetary red line, and by treating as Democratic “concessions” things to which even Democratic budgeteers already had agreed.

The chess equivalent of Ryan’s deal would be trading a castle for a mere pawn. No wonder conservatives are feeling rooked.

The absurdity of this deal is highlighted especially by the ongoing disaster of Obamacare. The Republicans have a very strong negotiating hand right now. They could have actually demanded a repeal of Obamacare in budget talks and thus pushed the Democrats into a corner for which there really is no escape. What would the Democrats do, shut the government down again so that more people could lose their health insurance?

Instead, Ryan behaved as if the Democrats have a Royal Flush and he only had a pair of twos. The stupid party strikes again!

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The Ryan budget deal includes a provision that limits the ability of the Senate minority to block tax increases.

10:49 pm

The stupid party: The Ryan budget deal includes a provision that limits the ability of the Senate minority to block tax increases.

The bill includes language from the Senate Democrats’ budget that voids senators’ ability to raise a budget “point of order” against replacing the sequester cuts with tax increases. The process is quite complicated, but in practice it grants Harry Reid the authority to send tax increases to the House with a bare majority, rather than the 60-vote threshold that would be required under a point of order.

In other words, another example of a Republican getting hosed in negotiations.

Though I have read several conservative reports about this deal that outline some of its positive benefits, on the whole it appears to be another defeat for the right.

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This detailed look at the budget deal suggests it isn’t as much of a surrender as first implied.

12:23 pm

This detailed look at the budget deal suggests it isn’t as much of a surrender as first implied.

I have to admit this analysis leaves me more hopeful, especially with this point:

That the Democrats would accept a deal like this is a pretty striking indication of how the Republican House has changed the conversation on the spending front since 2010. Think of it this way: In their first budget after re-taking the majority—the FY 2012 Ryan budget, passed in 2011—the House Republicans wanted discretionary spending to be $1.039 trillion in 2014 and $1.047 trillion in 2015. These budgets were of course described by the Democrats and the political press (but I repeat myself) as some reversion to humanity’s barbaric past. Yet this proposed deal with the Democrats would put discretionary spending at $1.012 trillion in 2014 and $1.014 trillion in 2015—in both cases below that first House Republican budget.

Check out the graph at the link. It does illustrate bluntly that the Republicans are beginning to force the budget curve downward, if slowly. It also suggests that should they win big majorities in both Houses of Congress next November they will be posed to finally push for some real reductions in the size of the federal government, as they will have the votes in Congress and will be doing it with the strong endorsement of the voters.

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The Republican leadership expresses contempt for any opposition to its budget deal that abandons the cuts imposed by sequestration

11:11 am

The Republican leadership expresses contempt for any opposition to its budget deal that abandons the cuts imposed by sequestration.

The Republican leadership are fools. If anything, this is the moment to push harder, to not only demand that the sequestration cuts stay in place, but to demand a repeal of Obamacare.

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Why Republicans should reject the surrender budget deal rumors say Paul Ryan is negotiating with Democrats.

9:54 am

Why Republicans should reject the surrender budget deal rumors say Paul Ryan is negotiating with Democrats.

Expect more articles like this. There are a lot of conservatives in the Republican House caucus who are no longer willing to lick the feet of Democrats, even if the Republican leadership is. And any deal that gives up sequestration is going to face their wrath.

Also, these kinds of articles serve to pressure Ryan so that he does not agree to a surrender.

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Another news report suggests that Republicans are preparing to surrender in budget talks.

10:02 am

Another news report suggests that Republicans are preparing to surrender in budget talks.

Senior aides familiar with the talks say the emerging agreement aims to partially repeal the sequester and raise agency spending to roughly $1.015 trillion in fiscal 2014 and 2015. That would bring agency budgets up to the target already in place for fiscal 2016. To cover the cost, Ryan and Murray are haggling over roughly $65 billion in alternative policies, including cuts to federal worker pensions and higher security fees for the nation’s airline passengers.

Republican leaders are also seeking additional savings to knock a small dent in deficits projected to exceed $6 trillion over the next decade. But the deal would do nothing to trim the debt, which is now larger, as a percentage of the economy, than at any point in U.S. history except during World War II. [emphasis mine]

To me, the biggest disappointment of this surrender is that Paul Ryan is negotiating it, proof that he too is no fiscal conservative and worse is far more stupid than I had thought.

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Rumors suggest that Republicans are moving to accept a budget deal that would end sequestration.

8:30 pm

The stupid party strikes again! Rumors suggest that Republicans are moving to accept a budget deal that would end sequestration.

At issue are efforts to craft a compromise that would ease across-the-board spending cuts due to take effect in January, known as the sequester, and replace them with a mix of increased fees and cuts in mandatory spending programs.

As de Rugy notes:

The sequester, no matter how imperfect a policy, is arguably the only victory for fiscal conservatives in a very long time. Their victory is also president Obama’s biggest defeat (outside of the self-inflicted disastrous Obamacare rollout). It is also another opportunity to remind the American people that the alarmist predictions that we were all subjected to about the devastating impact sequestration would have on our economy didn’t materialize.

She adds:

So let’s sum this up: a massive and unnecessary surrender on the sequester, some tax hikes, and more unemployment benefits. It seems to me that the Republicans are learning their moves from the French army.

Not only do most Democrats have to be replaced, so do a significant number of Republicans. Too many of these politicians have no interest in serving the citizenry being crushed by this out-of-control federal government. Instead they serve that government instead.

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The planetary science community is in an uproar over the Obama administration’s proposed restructuring and possible budget cuts to NASA’s planetary research program.

11:41 pm

The planetary science community is in an uproar over the Obama administration’s proposed restructuring and possible budget cuts to NASA’s planetary research program.

Though the Obama administration has been consistently hostile to the planetary program, attempting to cut it severely several years in a row, and though I generally have found these particular cuts to be short-sighted, in this case the article is not very clear about the cuts NASA is proposing. It appears they are going to eliminate for one year the general research fund. I suspect there is waste in this budget, but I also suspect that this is a meat cleaver approach that has not been thought out well, as suggested in the article.

One quote from the article reinforces the foolishness of these management decisions:

Next year, a high-level NASA review is likely to have to decide between shutting down either the Mars Curiosity rover or the Cassini mission to Saturn. Both are successful missions that cost around $60 million a year, a level that Green has said the division simply cannot afford for the long term.

Talk about penny wise, pound foolish. The cost to get these probes to their destination was in the billion dollar range, each. To shut them down when they are working and cost relatively so little now is beyond stupid.

As I have written repeatedly, we have a big federal deficit. We need to cut, and I think NASA’s budget can be cut. It just makes no sense to cut planetary research, when there are other portions of that budget that are accomplishing little and cost far more.

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The federal budget deficit for October was “only” $91 billion.

8:59 am

The day of reckoning looms: The federal budget deficit for October was “only” $91 billion.

The AP article makes a big deal about how much lower this deficit is compared to past Octobers, but at this level, we would still have an annual deficit over $1 trillion. Even it ends up as half that, the numbers are still terrible.

The budget deal that ended the government shutdown ends on January 15. Be prepared for another shutdown. I expect some Republicans are going to once again tie that shutdown to repealing Obamacare.

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The Pentagon has for years routinely been doctoring its budget numbers, and has no idea where billions of its money is going.

12:45 pm

Good enough for government work: The Pentagon has for years routinely been doctoring its budget numbers, and has no idea where billions of its money is going.

In its investigation, Reuters has found that the Pentagon is largely incapable of keeping track of its vast stores of weapons, ammunition and other supplies; thus it continues to spend money on new supplies it doesn’t need and on storing others long out of date. It has amassed a backlog of more than half a trillion dollars in unaudited contracts with outside vendors; how much of that money paid for actual goods and services delivered isn’t known. And it repeatedly falls prey to fraud and theft that can go undiscovered for years, often eventually detected by external law enforcement agencies.

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In his weekly radio address today, President Obama called for new taxes and increased spending.

8:51 am

Broken record: In his weekly radio address today, President Obama called for new taxes and increased spending.

It is always the same. No matter what happens, Obama calls for more spending and higher taxes. It seems quite unimaginative on his part to never propose some other ideas for solving the federal deficit and the government’s other problems.

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A new poll, taken by a liberal poll company, finds that Democratic incumbents took a much bigger hit than Republican incumbents after the government shutdown.

11:02 am

A new poll, taken by a liberal poll company, finds that Democratic incumbents took a much bigger hit than Republican incumbents after the government shutdown.

As I’ve said repeatedly, the shutdown was a team effort of both parties, that occurred because of their disagreement over Obamacare. The spin has said the Republicans lost big. The evidences says otherwise.

Also, this poll was taken before the most recent disasters relating to Obamacare became public knowledge. I suspect the numbers will worsen for Democrats in subsequent polls.

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The president and the Democrats lied us into a bad law.

9:19 pm

“The president and the Democrats lied us into a bad law.”

The Right opposed the law on principle. A single party — the Democrats — own this law in a way that no party has had complete ownership of any major social legislation in a century. They bought this legislation with deceit and the GOP said so. Now that it is going into effect, the facts on the ground are confirming that deceit. Moreover, the same haughty condescending bureaucrats and politicians who told us they were smart enough and tech-savvy enough to do just about anything are being exposed as incompetent political hacks.

And remember: This same President and those same Democrats re-affirmed their support of Obamacare less than one month ago by insisting on shutting the government down rather than agree to even the slightest revision of this disaster of a law.

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Unnamed healthcare officials admit that the Obama administration specifically wrote the Obamacare regulations so that millions would have to lose their healthcare plan.

7:35 pm

He lied: Unnamed healthcare officials admit that the Obama administration specifically wrote the Obamacare regulations so that millions would have to lose their healthcare plan.

Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”

That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.

Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”

These regulations were written in the executive branch, which is the complete responsibility of Obama. So, the agency he controls wrote regulations they knew would force the cancellation of millions of healthcare plans, and Obama went around the country lying about it. It is as simple as that.

But remember! Obama and the Democrats forced a government shutdown so Obamacare would go into effect now. Shouldn’t we all be grateful?

Update: The quote above is from the original version of the story. The article itself disappeared from the web on Monday night and then reappeared at a new url (which I have linked to above) with some changes to some paragraphs, none of which did much to change the essential content.

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Half a million Californians to lose their health insurance because of Obamacare.

5:19 pm

Half a million Californians to lose their health insurance because of Obamacare.

We are learning now that Obamacare was very specifically designed to eliminate many health insurance plans, especially the ones that cost less and provided fewer benefits (the kinds of plans that young, healthy people prefer). Considering the blatant promise by Obama, repeated over and over again before Obamacare was passed, that if people liked their plan they would get to keep it, these appalling numbers and the fact that Obamacare is very clearly designed to eliminate these low-cost plans, Obama either knew his statement was an outright lie, or he is truly one of the most incompetent presidents ever.

In the first case he was dishonest and corrupt, intending to force a change that people did not want. In the second, Obama was pushing for the passage of a law to which he literally had no understanding. I’m not sure which is worse.

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Data from the Census Bureau reveals that in 2011 the number of people working full time was outnumbered by those getting government aid.

9:40 am

The day of reckoning looms: Data from the Census Bureau reveals that in 2011 the number of people working full time was outnumbered by those getting government aid.

Many of those getting aid according to these numbers could also be full time workers. Nonetheless, the data is stark and depressing, as it illustrates how American culture has declined. Once it was considered shameful to be “on the dole.” Now everybody does it. You can’t have a robust healthy society under those conditions.

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Even when they admit that Obamacare isn’t working, liberals still refuse to recognize that they are now agreeing with Ted Cruz.

9:27 am

Leftwing bigotry: Even when they admit that Obamacare isn’t working, liberals still refuse to recognize that they are now agreeing with Ted Cruz.

I call it bigotry because that is what it is. No matter what you say to these types of liberals, no matter what they experience or conclude, they remain incapable of considering the possibility that a conservative or Republican might have the right idea. Instead, they believe that conservatives or Republicans must be opposed at all costs because conservatives or Republicans must be evil and wrong.

And such close-mindedness is nothing short of downright bigotry.

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Progressives made their beds; it’s time they lay in it.

8:41 am

Progressives made their beds; it’s time they lay in it.

In short: Obamacare is a massive wealth “spreading” from the young and struggling to the old and well off. Add to that Obamacare’s devastating impact on the economy and part-timing of the American workforce, and you can almost see the train flying off the rails.

There will be attempts at bi-partisan “fixes” to some of the more visible problems caused by Obamacare. Republicans and Democrats have been working together to delay or repeal the medical device tax and change the definition of a full-time employee back to 40 hours per week from Obamacare’s 30 – to name just two.

Republicans must resist the urge to help with these “fixes.” We just spent a month being lectured by arrogant know-it-alls about how Obamacare is “settled law.” So keep it settled. Obamacare is failing already, and it will continue to fail in more spectacular ways as we move forward, let it.

Democrats wrote the bill, Democrats voted for the bill, a Democrat president signed it into law. It’s theirs. Make them live with it. As is. [emphasis in original]

I would add that Democrats just re-endorsed the law aggressively during the government shutdown battle. Rather than revise it by the smallest amount, they insisted instead on shutting down the government to defend it.

When the 2014 elections roll around, the responsibility for this Obamacare disaster must fall on the perpetrators of that disaster: The Democrat Party and President Obama.

In related news: Thousands get health insurance cancellation notices. Actually, that’s “Hundreds of thousands,” but who’s counting?

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