Tag: budget

The Treasury Inspector General has found that the IRS cannot account for $67 million of Obamacare funds.

3:06 pm

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!

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The Obamacare wars are just beginning.

10:35 am

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.

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Obamacare was written and passed solely by Democrats.

9:53 am

A reminder: Obamacare was written and passed solely by the Democrats.

The no-trespass sign to the GOP during the writing of the Affordable Care Act deprived it of the benefits of critical scrutiny and helpful ideas from the business community that is a primary GOP constituent. That kind of input might have prevented many of the calamities caused by ObamaCare: the uncertainty prompting employers to put off hiring; the high costs provoking big businesses like Delta and Walgreens to shed coverage, and others to shift parts of their workforce from full to part time; the threat to union-negotiated medical insurance, and the unpopularity of the law.

While Social Security and Medicare always had hard-core foes on the right, that was nothing like the broad, persistent and combative enmity directed at ObamaCare. Democrats have no one to blame but their our-way-or-the-highway approach. [emphasis mine]

This law is the fault of the Democrats, and no one should allow them to distract us into forgetting that. Moreover, when or if the government shuts down, it will be because the Democrats in power once again voted in support of this terrible law. And they did it now, when its destructive consequences have become all too evident.

As much as they like to blame others for their failures, this failure is their responsibility, through and through.

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Senator Cruz’s speech today in trying to get the Senator to pass the House bill funding the government but defunding Obamacare.

7:06 pm

An evening pause: Senator Cruz’s (R-Texas) speech today in trying to get the Senate to pass the House continuing resolution funding the government but defunding Obamacare. His speech begins at 6:25, after Majority Leader Senator Harry Reid (D-Nevada) rejected that bill.

I think it worthwhile for everyone to watch this speech, as Cruz makes it very clear that the only people willing to shut the government down are the Democrats. Moreover, Reid’s rejection establishes unequivocally the fact that the Democrats are once again endorsing Obamacare, despite its now very obvious disastrous problems.

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The Republican battle plan for defunding Obamacare while keeping the government operating.

10:12 am

The Republican battle plan for defunding Obamacare while keeping the government operating.

What makes me skeptical is their fear of having the government shut down, a fear that somehow does not worry the Democrats. While Obama and the Democrats are quite willing to shut everything down to save Obamacare, the Republicans don’t seem to have the same courage. Under these circumstances, they will likely lose the battle.

And why is it that everyone assumes the Republicans will be blamed for the shutdown when they seem to be the ones most interested in avoiding it?

Update: The House has now voted to defund Obamacare but fund the goverment.

Note that the Democrats in the House have once again voted in support of Obamacare, a law that is very clearly destroying the health insurance business.

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A NASA veteran slams SLS.

7:25 am

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.

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