‘I’ve been lucky enough to live in Silicon Valley for a while, and work for a small startup company quite well. So I’m unemployed by choice,” former Google director of consumer marketing and brand management Doug Edwards told President Barack Obama at a town hall in Mountain View last month.
“My question is: Would you please raise my taxes?” Edwards asked.
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Health insurance is never free. A recent study by PricewaterhouseCoopers found that health care spending increased by 7.5 percent in 2010 and will grow by 8 percent this year, and will rise by another 8.5 percent in 2012.A big reason why health spending continues to grow is because more and more Americans have health insurance. Contrary to what advocates of Obamacare claimed, expanded health insurance coverage increases health care spending, it doesn’t decrease spending.
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‘There are no guarantees in the business world about success and failure. That is just the way business works,” White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters last week. He was answering a question about the bankruptcy of Solyndra, a solar panel manufacturing firm.
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When the United States Supreme Court examines the individual mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act sometime next spring, it will undoubtedly give great weight to the text of the United States Constitution and relevant Commerce Clause case law.
But some on the court may be hesitant to invalidate the new law due to the significant strain it would place on an already divided Congress. These worries are misplaced.
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Seventy-seven percent of Americans polled by Gallup in the first week of August believe the United States economy is getting worse.According to Gallup, Americans have not been this pessimistic about the economy since the depths of the recession. Majorities of Americans also routinely tell pollsters that the “economy” or “unemployment and jobs” are the most important issues facing the country today.
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Standard & Poor’s announcement downgrading the United States’ credit rating claimed “the political brinkmanship of recent months” shows “America’s governance and policymaking becoming less stable, less effective, and less predictable.”
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The Washington Post reported yesterday: “In 2012, the contrast between the two parties seems certain to be drawn in sharp relief. The Republican vision is of a dramatically smaller government and of a budget that is balanced without raising taxes.
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“My proposal would bring down the cost of health care for millions – families, businesses, and the federal government,” President Obama said in early March 2010 before Obamacare became law. Controlling health care spending was supposed to be one of the major benefits of Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment.
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If true, this Stephen Hayes story is terrible news for conservatives worried about what the debt limit deal's Super Congress might produce:
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This astonishing admission from Mother Jones’ Kevin Drum has not gotten nearly enough attention. Defending Obama’s negotiation performance in the debt limit debate Drum writes:
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President Obama has not yet signed the $2.4 trillion debt hike into law, but already conservatives are plotting how best to maximize their gains and minimize their losses from the debt deal. As House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis., told Sean Hannity last night, “This bill brings discretionary spending next year lower than it is this year. That’s never happened before.” That is a concrete victory for limited-government conservatives, but a qualified one.
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Slate's David Weigel calls it The Democratic Unemployment Act. The New York Times worries From Spending to Cuts, While the Economy Stalls. The Huffington Post reports Durbin: Debt Deal Will Be The Death Of Keynesian Economics. All three of these stories worry that the massive spending cuts in the debt limit deal will hurt the economy.
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My colleague Tim Carney tweets out this morning: "Ross Douthat's column http://nyti.ms/ofYXAD supports my view: Obama's more about getting the right poltical frame than the right policies." Indeed, Tim's column this morning argues: "Democrats put politics ahead of policy -- again." In the short-term, I think Douthat and Carney are right, the debt deal is a big policy
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Assuming that Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., can work together and find enough votes to get it through the House, the debt limit will be raised by the $2.4 trillion needed to allow the federal government to pay it’s bills through the 2012 election. But this does not mean that President Obama will be able to avoid the debt, or any of the other surrounding issues, in the election.
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