Lawmakers huddle as options dwindle for tackling fiscal crisis

President Obama and congressional leaders were facing a rapidly shrinking set of options for averting the fiscal crisis as they met Friday afternoon, with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell warning they are "running out of time." 

Just a few weeks ago, lawmakers had high hopes for a "grand bargain" that would narrow the deficit, overhaul the tax code and set the country on a course to curb its entitlement spending -- all while averting massive tax hikes and spending cuts set to hit Jan. 1. 

Having squandered that time, lawmakers -- and taxpayers -- will now be lucky if they can just avert the tax hikes.

Obama and the top four congressional leaders were meeting Friday afternoon at the White House, along with Vice President Biden and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner. At the meeting, Obama was expected to pitch a "Plan C" that's essentially a version of the scaled-back proposal he floated a week ago before leaving for Hawaii. 

Under the proposal, lawmakers would extend the current tax rates for the "middle class." What income level defines middle class remains up for debate -- Obama had previously pushed for tax hikes on families making over $250,000 and later upped that threshold to $400,000. House Speaker John Boehner, in a proposal that died in the House last week, called for tax hikes only on those making over $1 million. 

Beyond the tax rate issue, Obama wants to extend long-term jobless benefits for 2 million people set to lose them at the end of the year, and perhaps agree to some spending cuts that could short-circuit the automatic spending cuts scheduled to hit the Pentagon next month. 

Via: Fox News

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Sandy’s Coup de Gras for Obama

Remember how Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath was blamed on President Bush? Remember his words to then-FEMA director, “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job”?

No doubt FEMA is all geared up for the damage Hurricane Sandy will do throughout the Northeast and wide swatches to the West. And no doubt it will be the States and local communities and utilities that will do the heavy lifting as FEMA tries to give the appearance of doing anything useful.

All of which is bad news—actually more bad news—for President Obama who, insanely campaigning, flew to Orlando, Florida on Sunday and then immediately flew back to Washington, DC, without leaving the airport. Just how much did that little round-trip cost the taxpayers? How stupid and indifferent does one have to be to leave Washington as a major hurricane is bearing down on the Northeast’s coasts?

Via: Canada Free Press

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OBAMA CALLS ROMNEY 'A BULL******* '

Politico reported on Thursday that President Obama recently displayed his idea of "the new civility" in an interview with historian Douglas Brinkley for Rolling Stone:

FIRST LOOK – Rolling Stone cover, “Obama and the Road Ahead: The Rolling Stone Interview,” by Douglas Brinkley: “We arrived at the Oval Office for our 45-minute interview … on the morning of October 11th. … As we left the Oval Office, executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his six-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president. … [S]he said, ‘Tell him: You can do it.’ Obama grinned. … ‘You know, kids have good instincts,’ Obama offered. ‘They look at the other guy and say, “Well, that’s a bullshitter, I can tell.”’” (emphasis added)

After four years of privately insulting his opponents, President Obama has decided it's time to share his real approach to "cooperation" with the voting public just days before the election. Undecided voters are certain to notice the President's demeanor. It's a preview of the style and tone he's likely to display if he were to be elected to a second term.

Via: Breitbart

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OBAMACARE'S HEAVY TOLL ON MIDDLE CLASS AMERICANS

President Obama likes to say his campaign is about building up the middle class, but his signature initiative in office — ObamaCare — will pile thousands of dollars in new taxes and higher health costs on top of America’s middle class.

How so? Through redistribution, of course. The president has made no secret of his fondness for using the government’s tax and spending powers to spread our diminished wealth around from one group of Americans to another. And ObamaCare is nothing if not a massive redistribution machine. It places huge new financial burdens on some Americans — primarily those who already have health insurance, including the vast majority of middle-class families — in order to extend new federal entitlement commitments to other households, primarily the uninsured.

In broad terms, the amount of redistribution is easily ascertained form the aggregate expenditures and taxes contained in ObamaCare. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), in 2020, ObamaCare will spend $229 billion on a Medicaid expansion and a new subsidy program for health insurance. These expenditures will primarily benefit 29 million people newly enrolled in Medicaid and the insurance subsidy program. That works out to nearly $8,000 for every newly insured American, or about $21,000 per newly insured household.

Much of the rest of the legislation is devoted to extracting these resources from everyone else in the country — about 290 million people — who won’t benefit from the new spending programs, and doing so in way that obscures what’s taking place. For these Americans who already have insurance, the law contains nothing but new financial burdens, in the form of higher taxes, higher premiums for their existing plans, and lower benefits, particularly for those on Medicare.

The sum total of the new taxes and Medicare and Medicaid cuts is about $278 billion in 2020. That’s nearly $1,000 in costs on average for most of the country, or $2,500 per household.

ObamaCare’s apologists say that these costs will primarily affect the rich, but that is not true. ObamaCare’s taxes and benefit cuts will directly increase burdens on middle class families. Among the most burdensome provisions are the following.

• The “Mandate” Tax. The Supreme Court officially designated ObamaCare’s individual mandate as a new “tax” on persons who don’t enroll in government-sanctioned insurance. CBO recently indicated that about 11 or 12 million uninsured people will have to pay this tax, but only about 6 million will do so (the others will successfully evade it). The total tax payment for these individuals will reach $8 billion in 2020, or an average of about $1,400 per person. Almost all of these taxpayers will be middle-class Americans, as the poor are exempt and there are very few rich people who are uninsured. According to CBO, 80 percent of those paying the tax will have incomes below five times the poverty rate, or about $115,000 in income for a family of four in 2012.\

Via: E21

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