Obamacare 'Glitch' Screws Middle Class

Ambiguity in Health Law Could Make Family Coverage Too Costly for Many

The new health care law is known as theAffordable Care Act. But Democrats in Congress and advocates for low-income people say coverage may be unaffordable for millions of Americans because of a cramped reading of the law by the administration and by the Internal Revenue Service in particular.

Under rules proposed by the service, some working-class families would be unable to afford family coverage offered by their employers, and yet they would not qualify for subsidies provided by the law.

The fight revolves around how to define “affordable” under provisions of the law that are ambiguous. The definition could have huge practical consequences, affecting who gets help from the government in buying health insurance.

Under the law, most Americans will be required to have health insurance starting in 2014. Low- and middle-income people can get tax credits and other subsidies to help pay their premiums, unless they have access to affordable coverage from an employer.

Via: New York Times

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Obama Signs Bill Which Exempts Presidential Appointees From Congressional Confirmation

President Barack Obama signed a bill Friday evening that would exempt some senior-level presidential appointees from Senate confirmation.

Sponsored by Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer and cosponsored by Republicans and Democrats, the bill, now law, weakens the power of the legislature and strengthens the executive branch, critics have warned. The bill skated through the Senate three months after being introduced in 2011 and was passed by the Republican-controlled House 261-116 in July.

The law now allows Obama and future presidents to name appointees to senior positions in every branch of the administration, from the Department of the Treasury to the Department of Homeland Security.

Conservative critics worried that the bill restricts congressional authority to monitor executive branch decisions, but the measure received bipartisan support because of the gridlocked, slow-moving Senate, which is known for being the more deliberative of the two bodies of Congress.

Whereas the House is a more populist body, the Senate grants more power to its fewer members. It only takes one senator to filibuster an appointee, forcing the majority party to find a “super majority” of 60 votes to end the filibuster and move ahead with an up-or-down vote.

Via: The Daily Caller

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Author: ‘Obama Would Have Trouble Getting A Security Clearance For An Entry-Level Government Job’

Author Paul Kengor wants you to know just how radical Frank Marshal Davis — a man many consider to have been a mentor to President Barack Obama during his teenage years — was.

“Obama’s mentor was considered so radical, and such a potential pro-Soviet threat, that the federal government placed him on the Security Index,” Kengor told The Daily Caller in an interview about his new book on Davis, simply titled “The Communist.”

“That meant that if a war broke out between the United States and the Soviet Union, Frank Marshall Davis could be placed under immediate arrest. Think about that. Obama had that sort of influence. And The Washington Post will focus on whether Mitt Romney was bullying in high school? With the kind of influence that Obama had, Obama would have trouble getting a security clearance for an entry-level government job.”

Obama refers to Davis in his memoir, “Dreams From My Father,” simply as “Frank” and never elaborates on his radical history. Kengor believes this is because Obama wanted to avoid the political liability of being associated with Davis’ politics. But if Obama was concerned about protecting his future political prospects while writing his memoir, why would he include details of his drug use?

Via: The Daily Caller

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Mark Steyn: Obama the great disabler

By MARK STEYN

Syndicated columnist

The other day, I passed a Republican Party county office here in my home state, its window attractively emblazoned with placards declaring "Believe in America. Romney 2012" and "New Hampshire Believes. Romney 2012." There's not a lot of evidence for the latter proposition, but I'm certainly willing to believe that Romney believes that New Hampshire believes. An hour or two later, I chanced to be passing a television set just as the station went to break. The words "WE BELIEVE" appeared on the screen, followed by youthful hands raised to a clear blue sky at the dawn of a new day, shafts of sunlight gleaming through ears of corn, a puppy gamboling across a meadow, a kitten playfully pawing, happy green t-shirted volunteers of many races unloading a recycling carton ... and I thought, despite myself, "Well, say what you like, but the reassuring vapidity of the Romney campaign is at least getting more professional." At the end, in the spot where the off-screen voice is supposed to say "I'm Mitt Romney, and I approve this message," it instead said: "Introducing Purina One Beyond: a new food for your cat or dog."

Well, what do I know? By contrast, the Obama campaign's theme is "Forward" – which, in the context of a second term for Mister You-Didn't-Build-That, I'd carelessly assumed was a poignant allusion to "The Charge of the Light Brigade":

President Barack Obama and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney

Via: OC Register

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"'Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns!' he said:

Into the valley of Death

Rode the six hundred."

But apparently the focus groups are oblivious to Lord Tennyson, and "Forward" is seen as sunny and optimistic rather than a deranged lemming-like march into the abyss. In that sense, "Forward" is unusually honest for the Democrats, at least compared with their recent assertions that Romney hasn't paid any taxes in 10 years and personally gives women terminal cancer. "Forward" means "Even more of the same": You can't say he isn't warning us.

Debt Up $6.35T Since Ryan Predicted--in 2008-U.S. Was Headed Toward Bankruptcy

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts in Norfolk, Va., on Aug. 11, 2012, where Romney announced Ryan as his running mate. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

(CNSNews.com) - Rep. Paul Ryan, whom Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has picked as his running mate, told CNSNews.com four years ago, in August 2008, that the U.S. was heading toward bankruptcy on the fiscal path it was then following and that it would be “mindboggling” to make the problem worse by adding the sort of health-care plan that then-Sen. Barack Obama was advocating in his presidential campaign.

CNSNews.com asked Ryan: “If our country, if the federal government of the United States, stays on the fiscal path it is currently following, is the government going to go bankrupt down the road?"

“Yes. We know that for a fact,” said Ryan. “All the actuaries, all the objective score-keepers of the federal government are predicting this. So, this much we know. What we know is our government is growing at an unsustainable pace and it will overwhelm our economy’s ability to pay the bills.”

Since CNSNews.com first published Ryan making this prediction on Aug. 4, 2008, the debt of the federal government has grown by $6.35 trillion--rising 66 percent, from $9,565,042,361,845.53 then to $15,915,814,457,919.46 now.

Via: CNSNews:

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MSM: Ryan does not have "Private-Sector Experience to be VP"

THE SPIN BEGINS -

The Drudge Report singled out political writer Ryan Lizza of The New Yorker as having the unintentionally hilarious first spin on the reported pick of Paul Ryan to be Romney's running mate. Lizza immediately started to "tally the risks."

"For one thing, Ryan has no significant private-sector experience," he wrote. He wrote this with zero ackowledgment of Obama's private-sector experience scooping mint-chip at Baskin-Robbins. If the rest of the media follows this line, this is going to be shamelessly biased:

Besides summer jobs working at McDonald’s or at his family’s construction company, or waiting tables as a young Washington staffer, Ryan has none of the business-world experience Romney frequently touts as essential for governing. In the run-up to his first campaign for Congress, in 1998, that gap was enough of a concern for Ryan that he briefly became a “marketing consultant” at the family business, an obvious bit of résumé puffing.

But that wasn't blind, deaf, and dumb to Obama's resume enough: he also didn't have enough Washington experience:

But Ryan’s Washington experience is also light, at least for a potential President—which, after all, is the main job description of a Vice-President. Ryan has worked as a think-tank staffer and Congressman, but he’s never been in charge of a large organization, and he has little experience with foreign policy. Given how Sarah Palin was criticized for her lack of such experience, I’m surprised that Romney would pick someone whose ability to immediately step into the top job is open to question.

Via: Newsbusters:

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The Romney-Ryan Ticket: 'We Won’t Duck the Tough Issues ... We Will Lead!'

Mitt Romney announced Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate Saturday, selecting the Republican Party's go-to man on budget issues in a decision that signals the campaign will make the nation's spiraling debt a centerpiece of its attacks on President Obama.

Romney made the selection official during a campaign stop Saturday morning in Norfolk, Va., before launching a four-day bus tour.  

The Republican presidential candidate called his new running mate a man of "steadiness" and "integrity." Speaking Saturday morning, Romney praised Ryan as an "intellectual leader" of the party, one who understands the toll the debt is taking on the country but is optimistic about the future.

"He doesn't demonize his opponents. He understands that honorable people can have honest differences and he appeals to the better angels of our nature," Romney said. "He's never been content to just curse the darkness. He'd rather light candles."

To the backdrop of retired battleship USS Wisconsin, an energized Ryan then riled up the crowd with a feisty speech that promoted Romney as the solution to the problems under President Obama. Ryan, met with chants of "USA, USA," gave a sweeping vision speech on free enterprise, one laced with attacks on the White House incumbent.

"No one disputes that President Obama inherited a difficult situation. And, in his first two years, with his party in complete control of Washington, he passed nearly every item on his agenda. But that didn't make things better," Ryan said. "In fact, we find ourselves in a nation facing debt, doubt and despair. ...

Via Fox Nation

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'1,200 Days and $5 Trillion in New Debt Since Senate Dems Passed a Budget'

Tomorrow will mark a milestone: It will be 1,200 days since Senate Democrats passed a budget, during which time Congress amassed $4.8 trillion in new debt.

Later today, the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will release this chart, detailing these startling numbers:

Congress has spent $11.2 trillion since passing its last budget on April 29, 2009, according to the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. The new debt since that date is $4.8 trillion.

"Since the last budget resolution was passed 1,200 days ago, the government has borrowed 42 cents of every dollar spent," the chart notes. The chart is  based on Treasury Department figures.

In a joint statement, Senate Budget Committee ranking member Jeff Sessions and House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan mark the milestone.

“Tomorrow marks another disappointing record for the United States Senate: Senate Majority Leader Reid and his Democrat conference will have gone an unprecedented 1,200 days without adopting a budget plan as required by law," write Sessions and Ryan. "Not only have they failed to adopt a budget, but with America under threat of financial calamity, they have refused to even present a plan for public scrutiny. Last year, Majority Leader Reid said it would be ‘foolish’ to do a budget and the legally required Budget Committee mark-up was cancelled. No plan from his conference has seen the light of day. He refuses to disclose who he plans to tax and how he plans to spend taxpayers’ money."

Via: The Weekly Standard

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Great news: The US fiscal gap just jumped $11 trillion … to $222 trillion

Forget the trillion-dollar deficits for a moment.  Forget today’s $15 trillion in national debt.  The real fiscal disaster isn’t our present — it’s our future, and it just got significantly worse.  Bloomberg economists Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns report that our “fiscal gap,” the measure of future liabilities to future revenue, grew by the same amount as our present public debt to reach $222 trillion.  That’s trillionwith a T:

Republicans and Democrats spent last summer battling how best to save $2.1 trillion over the next decade. They are spending this summer battling how best to not save $2.1 trillion over the next decade.

In the course of that year, the U.S. government’s fiscal gap — the true measure of the nation’s indebtedness – rose by $11 trillion.

The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones. …

The U.S. fiscal gap, calculated (by us) using the Congressional Budget Office’s realistic long-term budget forecast — the Alternative Fiscal Scenario — is now $222 trillion. Last year, it was $211 trillion. The $11 trillion difference — this year’s true federal deficit — is 10 times larger than the official deficit and roughly as large as the entire stock of official debt in public hands.

Via: HotAir

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Labor chief Trumka vows stronger ground game for elections

The nation’s largest labor federation says it is ready to unleash a new and improved political program ahead of the November elections with expanded outreach and more volunteers than past years.

AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka on Thursday outlined a strategy that will emphasis grass-roots efforts over TV ads, vowing that at least 400,000 volunteers — 100,000 more than during the 2008 election season — will hit the streets nationwide this autumn.

“You won’t see us doing all the ads, all the anonymous ads,” he said during a briefing with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor. “We turn out people at the grass-roots level, something [anti-union groups and candidates] can’t do. And this time we’re going to try to do it even better.”

“That’s where we’re going to shine this time.”

New laws allow labor activists to have more contact with voters in non-union households — a demographic Mr. Trumka vows not to ignore.

“It used to be that we would do a door-knock, and there’d be 500 houses in a small community, and if 100 were union, we had to skip 400 houses. Now we’re going to be able to go to those 400 houses, talk to them about the issues,” he said.

Via: The Washington Times

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Arrested illegals who were released charged with 16,226 subsequent crimes

President Barack Obama‘s decision not to deport some arrested illegal immigrants has enabled a crime wave — but no American or immigrant victims have been publicly identified, and GOP politicians have mostly remained mute.

Illegal aliens who have been released from custody between 2008 and mid-2011 have been charged with 16,226 subsequent crimes, including 19 murders, 142 sex crimes and thousands of drunk-driving offenses, drug-crimes and felonies, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.

“Rather than protect the American people he was elected to serve, President Obama has imposed a policy that allows thousands of illegal immigrants to be released into our communities,” said a statement from Rep. Lamar Smith, the chairman of the House judiciary committee.

The criminals “were in the government’s custody, were identified as illegal immigrants and then let go because this administration has refused to request the resources to hold them and deport them,” said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies.

Via: Daily Caller

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Rep. Steve King considering bill to repeal everything Obama has signed

If Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has his way, everything President Obama has signed into law would be repealed, and he is considering a bill to do just that, The Hill reported Wednesday.

"King put forward this suggestion to an Iowa audience on Tuesday, when he also reiterated his threat to sue the Obama administration for its June decision not to deport younger illegal immigrants," Pete Kasperowicz wrote.

He also told a group of about 60 people in Humboldt County that he intends to sue the administration over an executive orderstopping the deportation of certain illegal immigrants.

''I am bringing him to court and we're going to defend the Constitution of the United States and the separation of powers,'' he said.

According to the Messenger, King's lawsuit may be filed before Labor Day.

"He said Tuesday that he decided to sue the president the day the executive order was announced," the Messenger reported.

King said that President Obama violated the Constitution by usurping Congress' role in the lawmaking process.

''He has prosecutorial discretion, but he does not have the ability to grant blanket amnesty to entire classes of people," he added.

While King's proposal would certainly undo Obamacare, Think Progress said it would also end the Bush-era tax cuts that Obama extended in 2010, defund the military, strip Medals of Honor from 9/11 first responders and cancel plans to honor President Ronald Reagan.

Via: Examiner

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Gingrich slams Obama on welfare revamp

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused President Barack Obama and his “even more radical” appointees on Wednesday of plotting to destroy the work requirement in the 1996 welfare reform law.

Obama and his aides “have a real fight and it is a fight they can’t possibly win,” he said.

“This happens to be an issue that is devastating for liberals… [many voters are] really offended by government giving away money for nothing,” Gingrich said during a press conference arranged by the Republican National Committee.

Obama’s deputies are pushing back against Mitt Romney’s new focus on the July decision by the department of Health and Human Services to relax welfare-to-work rules.

Romney said Tuesday the change is an “insult” to hard-working Americans.

In July, HHS invited states to conduct “demonstration projects” that could exempt welfare recipients from long-standing work requirements.

Obama’s aides say the new proposal won’t reduce the popular requirement that welfare recipients also work, and they argue that officials will only approve projects that actually boost work rates by 20 percent.

Via: The Daily Caller

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IRS told employees to ignore potential fraud in program used by immigrants

IRS supervisors ignored employees who tried to warn agency higher-ups of fraud in a program designed to collect taxes from immigrants, resulting in the agency paying out potentially bogus refunds.

The Treasury inspector general for tax administration said the IRS even eliminated some methods employees had used to figure out questionable refund requests, and that the agency doesn’t have the ability to verify applicants’ identity or foreign status.

Investigators “found an environment which discourages employees from detecting fraudulent applications,” said J. Russell George, the inspector general.

The IRS pays out $6.8 billion in refunds to taxpayers who file using Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers (ITINs), who are generally immigrants, here both legally and illegally. The amount of fraud was not stated.

The agency said it has put new checks in place to try to crack down on fraud, with employees getting training from the Homeland Security Department on how to verify documents when an immigrant applies for an ITIN.

Via: The Washington Times

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Over 100 Million Americans on Federal Welfare

A new chart set to be released later today by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee details a startling statistic: "Over 100 Million People in U.S. Now Receiving Some Form Of Federal Welfare."

"The federal government administers nearly 80 different overlapping federal means-tested welfare programs," the Senate Budget Committee notes. However, the committee states, the figures used in the chart do not include those who are only benefiting from Social Security and/or Medicare. 

Food stamps and Medicaid make up a large--and growing--chunk of the more than 100 million recipients. "Among the major means tested welfare programs, since 2000 Medicaid has increased from 34 million people to 54 million in 2011 and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) from 17 million to 45 million in 2011," says the Senate Budget Committee. "Spending on food stamps alone is projected to reach $800 billion over the next decade."

The data come "from the U.S. Census’s Survey of Income and Program Participation shows that nearly 110,000 million individuals received a welfare benefit in 2011. (These figures do not include other means-tested benefits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit or the health insurance premium subsidies included in the President’s health care law. CBO estimates that the premium subsidies, scheduled to begin in 2014, will cover at least 25 million individuals by the end of the decade.)"

This is not just Americans, however. "These figures include not only citizens, but non-citizens as well," according to the committee.

Via: The Weekly Standard

Illegal Aliens CAN Vote, Military CAN’T?

Why is the Obama Campaign trying to disenfranchise military votes and at the same time, trying to make sure that illegal aliens remain on state voter rolls? Why are both political parties pandering for the Latino vote? Can illegal aliens vote now? The answer is yes, but I’ll get to that in a minute.

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As Obama’s so-called Department of Justice sues numerous states to block military votesfrom being counted in the upcoming November election, they are also suing states to keep them frompurging known illegal voters from voter registration files.

Just in case you needed iron-clad proof that Obama’s Democrat Party is as anti-American as Stalin’s Russia, this should do it for you. Directing the DOJ to use all of its power to block the vote of men and women who pay with their blood for every right to vote, while at the same time demanding that people not even in the U.S.A. legally, have their votes counted. That should cover any questions you might still have about Obama’s anti-American agenda for change.

And as usual, the good ole ACLU is engaged in protecting the illegal alien vote, but they are nowhere to be found in the fight to protect the military vote. There’s no link for the ACLU defense of the military vote, sorry.

Via: Right Side News

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Report says Obama amnesty plan will add 1.76 million new workers

A pro-amnesty group is forecasting that up to 1.76 million young illegal immigrants would get work permits under President Barack Obama’s de facto amnesty announced in June, amid a stalled economy and near-record levels of unemployment.

That estimate is twice as large as the 800,000 new workers predicted by White House officials.

Another 800,000 illegal immigrant youths will be eligible for the de facto amnesty once they graduate, said the report, released Aug. 7 by the Migration Policy Institute, a well-funded, D.C.-based pro-amnesty group.

The new estimate says the de facto amnesty would add as may workers to the legal rolls as the economy has created during the last 12 months, or during all of 2011. Currently, roughly 23 million Americans are unemployed or underemployed, or have dropped out of the workforce.

The officials unemployment rate is currently 8.3 percent, and that number is much higher among young people and minorities.

For example, half of African-Americans in New York are unemployed, and almost half of adults aged 18 to 24 are unemployed. Unemployment among Latinos is also high, with 10.3 percent recorded in July as formally unemployed and still looking for work, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The new estimates was released after administration officials relaxed the eligibility rules for the controversial amnesty plan, which was first announced by Obama in a June Rose Garden speech.

Via: The Daily Caller

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E-MAILS SHOW GEITHNER, TREASURY TERMINATED PENSIONS OF NON-UNION WORKERS

In what may contradict testimony by Obama administration officials under oath and may be a violation of federal law, The Daily Caller obtained emails that show Timothy Geithner’s Treasury Department “was the driving force behind terminating the pensions of 20,000 salaried retirees at the Delphi auto parts manufacturing company,” and the move, according to The Daily Caller, “appears to have been made solely because those retirees were not members of labor unions.”

As The Daily Caller notes, “Under 29 U.S.C. §1342, the PBGC is the only government entity that is legally empowered to initiate termination of a pension or make any official movements toward doing so” and “the White House and Treasury Department have consistently maintained” the PBGC “independently made the decision to terminate the 20,000 non-union Delphi workers’ pension plan.”

These emails contradict sworn testimony by several Obama administration figures and is yet another example of Obama’s administration misleading lawmakers, the courts, and the public -- as they did with Obamacare -- when it came to these pension cuts. 

Via: Breitbart

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Wife of steelworker in new Obama Super PAC ad still had job and health insurance after he lost his

I wonder if Bill Burton and crew knew about this and greenlit the smear anyway or if they didn’t care enough to even find out. Why would they? The point of calling Romney a murderer is to keep him on the defensive; the more ridiculous the charge is, the more media/online oxygen it sucks up and the less air there is for Mitt’s own attacks on O to breathe. They tried a straightforward offensive against Romney’s complex private equity record a few months ago but the results were inconclusive. Now they’re trying again with a bolder, simpler narrative: Romney’s layoffs literally killed people. If you’re a low-information voter who pays attention to this stuff in bits and pieces, a story you’re half-listening to about a rich guy and a steelworker and a plant closing and a young wife tragically dying from cancer sounds really bad, even if it’s a gross smear. In fact, the grosser the smear, the more compelling the half-listened-to story seems. Right, Harry?

Question: Knowing what we know now about the timeline of all this, what’s left of the accusation in the original smear ad? What is it, precisely, that Bain is being faulted for doing or not doing? They shouldn’t have closed down the plant because … it was unfair to expect the workers who were laid off to ever find new jobs with insurance? It was negligent not to predict that some workers’ wives might get laid off too and wouldn’t find a new job for years before they became ill? There appears to be no actual policy or business critique here. It’s just a string of events spread over five whole years, with certain key data omitted, and you’re supposed to infer causation without really being told why or how. This is what the Unicorn Prince has come to after promising four years ago to heal America or whatever. Perfect.

Via: Hot Air

Propaganda Minister Jay Carney: Being President “Restricts” Obama’s Ability To Campaign…

                   

Reporter: At this point, the president has had to attend so many more fundraisers than, say, George W. Bush had during this point in his reelection campaign. Does that impact the president’s ability to do his day job?

Jay Carney: Well, it does not. It certainly is part of running for president and running for reelection. But as we’ve discussed here, it is a simple reality that even as he is a candidate for reelection, he continues to be president of the United States. And the demands of the job restrict his capacity, in some instances, to focus entirely on the campaign. He simply cannot do that. So he, and we, carefully allocate his time, working with the campaign, and when matters of state trump campaign requests for his time, that’s a fact that he has to live with and we have to live with because that is his primary responsibility.

Via: Weasel Zippers

KILLING WELFARE REFORM: OBAMA RUNS ON CLINTON LEGACY WHILE DISMANTLING IT

President Obama spent nearly a trillion dollars of our children's and grandchildren's in a Kenyesian binge that not only hasn't lowered unemployment or created economic growth, but likely got in the way of what would've been a stronger economic recovery had Obama simply done nothing. This is a difficult economic record for a sitting president to run for reelection on but with the help of a corrupt and complicit media, Obama's not only a couple of points ahead of his challenger in the polls. he's pulling off the neat trick of running on Bill Clinton's record even as he dismantles Clinton's legacy -- including welfare reform.

From an ad the Romney camp released today:

--

Under Clinton and the Gingrich congress that reigned him in, America saw boom times; an extension of an unprecedented economic growth period that started with Reagan's tax cuts in the early eighties and was interrupted only by a single short-lived and shallow recession that, ironically, would be the downfall of Reagan's successor, George H. W. Bush.

Via: Breitbart

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