Decision day in accelerated New Jersey Senate race

TRENTON, N.J. –  In a race for U.S. Senate that that touched upon a candidate's tweets with a stripper and a political strategist's profanity-laced rant, perhaps it's only fitting that the outcome will be decided on a Wednesday in October.

The two-month campaign in New Jersey between Democrat Cory Booker and Republican Steve Lonegan ends amid a lingering federal government shutdown, underscoring the different approaches each would take as a senator.

Booker, Newark's high-profile mayor, circulated a petition to end the shutdown and accused Congress of failing voters by not finding a way to work together.

Lonegan supports the shutdown fight, arguing that the Affordable Care Act should be delayed a year and objecting to the concept of government-directed health insurance.

The campaign has played out under a compressed schedule for the seat held by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, a liberal Democrat, until his death in June.

Republican Gov. Chris Christie appointed a GOP caretaker and ordered the election held Oct. 16, the soonest date the law allowed following an unprecedented August primary.

Via: Fox News

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New Senate GOP demand: Force Obama and HHS to carry out ObamaCare’s anti-fraud provisions

Just in case you missed it in July and are coming late to the news: HHS announced three months ago that, for the next year, ObamaCare enrollees will be more or less on the honor system in reporting their income for subsidies purposes. If you make $50,000 and aren’t happy with the amount of subsidies you’re getting for your new insurance, good news — no one’s going to check too closely if you decide to pencil in $25,000 as your annual income instead. In other words, they’re trusting the public not to steal. The Healthcare.gov trainwreck and the one-year delay of the employer mandate have gotten plenty of ink but the fact that Obama’s basically inviting people to cheat for the next 12 months because his new health-care bureaucracy doesn’t have its act together well enough to police fraud is more revealing of the administration’s incompetence and corruption than either of those. And now, as an eleventh-hour negotiation demand, Senate Republicans are going to try tomake him pay for it.

America 2013: Where the president’s willingness not to let people massively defraud his new health-care program is something to be bargained over. May the glorious Hopenchange legacy last a thousand years.

Now, Senate Republicans are putting another Obamacare measure on the table as part of negotiations to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling: Requiring the government to verify the eligibility of Obamacare applicants before they receive subsidies…

The No Subsidies Without Verification Act was passed by the House in September, but it has not been part of the shutdown showdown until now.

“Medicare and Medicaid are already fraught with fraud. I don’t think we want to start Obamacare even worse by not even attempting to verify incomes,” Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD. Johnson says he would like to see an end to Congress’s special treatment or the anti-fraud measure “attached to any increase to the debt ceiling or any continuing resolution agreement.”

Jay Cost writes in the Standard today that it’s time for the GOP to either fight or quit this whole shutdown business, as there’s simply no middle ground. I don’t know; this particular proposal feels like middle ground. Unlike the nascent House plan, it does demand that Obama concede something on ObamaCare that’s valuable to him — not a defunding or a delay but a provision which his Keystone Kops Healthcare.gov team might simply not yet have the manpower or sophistication to enforce. And yet how could he say no, especially if the anti-fraud demand becomes key to negotiations and reporters start paying attention to it? It’s politically radioactive for the president to insist on blocking anti-fraud measures when the whole country’s watching; and yet, if he agrees to it, the logistical load on an HHS bureaucracy that’s already struggling to keep the websites running might further bog the program down in delays and turn people against it. The messaging for the GOP couldn’t be easier. As John McCormack says, “A top concern Senator Ted Cruz is that too many people will become ‘addicted’ to Obamacare’s subsidies after January 1. Ensuring the subsides aren’t going to people who aren’t eligible is in the interest of those who hope to repeal Obamacare.” And in the interest of people who don’t care much about O-Care one way or another but do care lots about good government! If Obama’s dead set on letting people rip his program off, let him defend that at the White House podium.

Via: Hot Air

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OBAMA'S NEGATIVE POLLING WORSE THAN CLINTON'S IN 1995 SHUTDOWN

Gallup released a poll last week showing President Barack Obama's negative polling among Americans during the current government shutdown is substantially worse in comparison to the numbers the last Democratic president, Bill Clinton, had during his administration's shutdown in 1995. 

According to Gallup:

A majority of Americans, 57%, say they now view President Obama more negatively as a result of the shutdown, while 28% see him more positively. By contrast, during the December 1995 shutdown, 49% of Americans viewed Clinton more negatively and 35% more positively. Clinton's overall approval rating would tumble to 42% by the end of the 1995-96 shutdown, but rebounded later in 1996.

Gallup points out that Americans view the present shutdown as more serious than the 1995 government shutdown. Republican Congressional leaders are viewed similarly to how they were viewed during the 1995 shutdown, with 61 percent viewing them negatively. Democratic Congressional leaders are also viewed negatively by 58 percent of Americans.

President Obama's overall job approval rating has taken a sharp drop since he first came to office. Gallup's recorded Obama's approval rating at 67 percent when he first took office. That number has since plunged to 44 percent. 

Via: Breitbart

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New year brings hundreds of new laws

It's true. Someday, everything is going to be illegal.

Take California, for instance. Californians will celebrate the new year by welcoming 876 new laws that need bureaucrats to monitor and enforce.

And we wonder why government grows?

Homeowners behind on their mortgage payments and negotiating with their banks to find a way to work things out won't have to worry about getting a surprise foreclosure notice.

Women will have expanded access to birth control, as registered nurses will be able to dispense contraceptives such as the pill.

Apartment dwellers concerned about the possibility of carbon monoxide poisoning will be able to breathe easier.

Employers will not be allowed to require workers or job applicants to divulge their social media accounts or provide passwords to them.

Those are among the legal changes in California that will kick in Tuesday as a result of some of the 876 laws signed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2012. By historic standards it was a somewhat low number but was the most new laws put on the books in the state since 2006.

Just as an aside, are nurses able to judge drug interactions well enough to allow them to dispense contraceptives? It is amazing that there has been a political decision to allow nurses to do this. There is no medical advantage and, in fact, may prove to be tragic if a nurse mistakenly writes a prescription for the pill for a patient who, for whatever reason, shouldn't get it.

Via: American Thinker

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FISCAL CLIFF DEAL: $1 IN SPENDING CUTS FOR EVERY $41 IN TAX INCREASES

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the last-minute fiscal cliff deal reached by congressional leaders and President Barack Obama cuts only $15 billion in spending while increasing tax revenues by $620 billion—a 41:1 ratio of tax increases to spending cuts.

When Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush increased taxes in return for spending cuts—cuts that never ultimately came—they did so at ratios of 3:1 and 2:1.

“In 1982, President Reagan was promised $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes,” Americans for Tax Reform says of those two incidents. “The tax hikes went through, but the spending cuts did not materialize. President Reagan later said that signing onto this deal was the biggest mistake of his presidency.

"In 1990, President George H.W. Bush agreed to $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. The tax hikes went through, and we are still paying them today. Not a single penny of the promised spending cuts actually happened.”

Via: Breitbart

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The 2013 Anxiety Meter

All through 2012 I kept telling myself that, if I could just wait it out until the elections, a majority of Americans would surely set things right by electing Mitt Romney, but we have since learned that he was a reluctant candidate who, if we are to believe his son—and I think we can—really didn’t want to get in the race, but thought the others in the primaries had little chance of winning.

I won’t blame Romney for the loss. Running against an incumbent President has rarely yielded victory. He had all the right qualifications, but he always struck me as just “too nice” and, as we know, Republicans were reluctant to tear into Obama’s appalling record on the economy and other issues. Like Romney, they are “too nice” despite being up against political thugs.

I think 2013 is going to be a very unlucky year for the United States and it has a lot to do with the fact that Barack Hussein Obama is now free to finish off his destruction of America because he does not have to run again for office.

Anyone who has seen Obama in action over the past four years has reason to fear 2013 and beyond. Any man who wants to be President has to have a lot of confidence in himself and a very thick skin. Obama, however, turns every occasion, including the recent funeral service of Sen. Denial Inouye, into an opportunity to talk about himself. A National Standard article noted that during the recent funeral for Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye, Obama “in the short 1,600 word speech…used the word “my” 21 times, “me” 12 times, and “I” 30 times.”

Via: Canada Free Press

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Report: NY, NJ, CA Worst Business Tax Climates

CNSNews.com) -- Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nevada, in that order, have the "business-friendliest" tax climates, according the Tax Foundation in its report, the 2013 State Business Tax Climate Index, which was released today.

Those three states held the same top three  “business-friendliest” rankings as last year, according to the Tax Foundation.

The 2013 State Business Tax Climate Index measures the components of an individual state's tax system, such as the corporate tax index, individual tax index, Sales Tax Rank, unemployment insurance tax rank, and property tax rank.

Six states are tied for first in the individual tax index rank. However, three states –Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nevada – ranked first, second, and third respectively in the “overall” business tax climate index category. The top ten rankings in that “overall” category are as follows:

1. Wyoming
2. South Dakota
3. Nevada
4. Alaska
5. Florida
6. Washington
7. New Hampshire
8. Montana
9. Texas
10. Utah

At the bottom of the list were New York (50th), New Jersey (49th), and California (48th).

Via: CNS News

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Budget analysts project $1.1T federal deficit

 Fourth Straight Year Exceeding $1 Trillion…

Prepare for another year of $1 trillion-plus deficits. 

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected Wednesday that the deficit for 2012 will run $1.1 trillion, the fourth year in a row the shortfall will exceed $1 trillion. 

The projection is down a bit from an earlier estimate pegging the deficit this year at $1.2 trillion. 

The report also warned that a new recession is likely if an ongoing stalemate over tax and spending cuts continues between Democrats and Republicans. 

In its annual summertime report, the budget office said Wednesday that letting decade-old tax Bush tax rates expire and sweeping spending cuts occur in January -- which will happen without congressional action -- "would lead to economic conditions in 2013 that will probably be considered a recession."

If that happened, the economy would contract by 0.5 percent -- a gloomier projection than the budget office made earlier this year when it envisioned slight growth under that scenario. Unemployment would rise to around 9 percent by late next year if the standoff persists, the analysts said. 

The budget office's latest warning came amid a presidential and congressional election year in which neither President Obama nor congressional Republicans have shown any signs of giving ground in their protracted battle over taxes, spending and the budget. The lethargic economy and massive federal deficits are top-flight issues in this year's campaigns. 

Via: Fox News

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