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A "Liberal Paradise" would be a place where everybody has guaranteed employment, free comprehensive healthcare, free education, free food, free housing, free clothing, free utilities, and only Law Enforcement has guns.And believe it or not, such a place does indeed exist ……it's called prison.Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Maricopa County Arizona
With the passing of each day it becomes evident Obama's impact on our nation is increasingly negative.
Members of his own party are happy to have him fund their campaigns but are absent when it comes to appearing with him.
The CBO has just reported Obamacare has negative employment implications and more recently we know learn FOX News is to blame for his poll standings, not his failed policies and presidency.
The new head of the IRS offers an apology yet Obama tells us those who work for the agency are innocent lambs. Then why did one of his appointed higher up, Ms Lerner, takes The Fifth? Then Obama has his Justice Department appoint a maxed out fundraiser to investigate the scandal and before her whitewash investigation is finished he absolves all IRS employees of any shenanigans!
Fast and Furious never took place - figment of Fox reporter's imagination.
Benghazi never took place. Another figment of Fox reporter''s imagination.
Obamacare's flawed roll out, like Benghazi, just "a bump in the road" so 'what difference does it make?''
In five years it has become un-American to want to work,to be responsible to stand on your own feet.
Meanwhile, Kerry's current threats to Israel have begun to take on an Anti-Semitic tone. Again another figment of my own imagination but my view seems to be accompanied by some serious thinkers who find the Administration's bashing of Israel is not the way to strengthen a relationship with the region's sole Democracy. (See 1 below.)
Space limits me from listing other discouraging 'figments' but then any criticism of our president is out of bounds because of his color. (See 1a and 1b below.)
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My candidate for the First District and his assessment of our president. Hard hitting but four square!
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Obama's droning message to America is "Contribute little and demand much". The corollary is "Don't blame me, blame Bush, or Ted Cruz or any other Republican". He is a small-minded, petty man, with no dream for our great nation, only contempt, wrapped in a lawyerly film of meaningless canards. He is a bully at home, where his office and person are unassailable, blocking meaningful budget reform with his socialist wingman, Harry Reid. But in the world's arena of determined and evil forces he is a pathetic wimp. Putin, the Mullahs, the oil sheiks and even European leaders push him around the global chessboard like the pathetic pawn he truly is. Let us elect, in 2014, a supermajority in the House and Senate of determined, proven conservatives who can block him for 2 years and set the stage for a real American President in 2016, a man or woman of true JudaeoChristian values, integrity and character, who will guide us toward restoring liberty and free market principles in our nation.
Robert E. Johnson, MD, FACS"
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I just finished reading the Nov. 2011 copy of Commentary Magazine - talk about being behind in your reading. The issue was devoted to The Case for Pessimism
and The Case For Optimism and featured some 30 or more of America's
outstanding commentators, authors, educators etc.. I cannot summarize all of the divergent thoughts but suffice it so say even the optimists cited the decline in our nation's family structure and its replacement by Uncle Sam, and the statistically dire prospects for single parent children.
These articles reaffirmed my own thoughts about Liberals who sanctimoniously place themselves above everyone else when it comes to virtue. Yet, they are the ones who have perpetuated policies that encourage low expectations, they are the ones who support policies which demean the human spirit , they are the ones who support the dumbing down of America and profess everything they believe has a moral underpinning yet, find no fault in shifting cost to future generations.
One of the authors suggested that Republicans have bought the liberal social proposals and the only difference is they want to pay for them in current terms. Lamentably there is much truth in this.
Another author cited former Sen. Moynihan and how accurate his predictions about the plight of Black America would become if we continued along the path of dependency, breaking up the family and Uncle Sam replacing the Black husband, as we have.
This issue is very worthwhile reading.Though out of date the various messages are very of the moment. I commend Commentary to your reading.
The editor and publisher, John Podhoretz, will speak here at the SIRC's President Dinner Feb. 18, 2015.
Mark your calendar now!
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Dick
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A leader of the Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria (Shomron) has harshly criticized United States Secretary of State John Kerry for his declaration that Israel could face international boycotts if it does not succeed in making peace with the Palestinian Authority (PA).
Kerry’s boycott threat shows that he has bought into anti-Semitic thinking regarding Jews and Jewish motives, said Yesha Council official Adi Mintz.
“Until now, I thought that Kerry just didn’t understand the Middle East, that he was deluded, obsessive and messianic,” Mintz began, referencing comments by Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, in a post to his Facebook page.
“I thought that was why he is concerned solely with the Israeli-Arab conflict and not the violent conflicts of the world, such as the ongoing genocide in Syria,” he continued.
However, he said, “Tonight I realized that he is motivated by anti-Semitism, too. ‘Hit the Jew in his pocket’ – that has always been an anti-Semitic slogan.
“Anti-Semites think that Jews are motivated by just one thing: money. And if you want to hurt them, hit them in the pocket,” he explained.
“The problem is that Israeli left-wingers, particularly the tycoons among them, are doing everything they can to prove him right,” Mintz added, referring to the group of Israeli business leaders who recently urged further Israeli concessions in order to avoid economic sanctions.
Kerry is attempting to pressure Israeli leaders into accepting a plan for an Israel-PA agreement that would see Israeli concede most of Judea and Samaria, and split Jerusalem, putting much of the city in PA hands.
According to a recent report, Kerry has had a hand in manipulating the European boycotts that he has warned Israelis of.
The medium-term effects of Obamacare will likely be fewer hours worked and lower incomes for most income brackets, according to reports from the Brookings Institution and the Congressional Budget Office. If you live in a Senate battleground state, expect to hear a lot about this — but not a lot about the significant caveats that apply.
Obamacare will reduce the labor force and hours worked.
The Congressional Budget Office's annual economic projection was released on Tuesday, updating the non-partisan agency's expectations for the deficit and debt over the next decade. (Both are projected to continue during that time period, you will be unsurprised to learn.)
Oh: Obamacare will likely reduce the deficit by $206 billion between 2015 and 2024. That detail crops up in the more politically explosive part of the report, Appendices B and C, which outline how the Affordable Care Act will affect insurance coverage and the labor force. (Politically explosive appendices! Are you not entertained?) Among the CBO's findings: the botched healthcare roll-out meant one million fewer enrollments than the Obamacare exchanges would have otherwise seen.
But its the workforce data that's most significant over the long-term. (The CBO figures those lost enrollments will be regained over time.) Measuring out from 2016, the point at which Obamacare will be fully implemented:
CBO estimates that the ACA will reduce the total number of hours worked, on net, by about 1.5 percent to 2.0 percent during the period from 2017 to 2024, almost entirely because workers will choose to supply less labor—given the new taxes and other incentives they will face and the financial benefits some will receive.
There are three parts to that:
- Hours worked will drop 1.5 to 2.0 percent — “a decline in the number of full-time-equivalent workers of about 2.0 million in 2017, rising to about 2.5 million in 2024.”
- It's because “workers will choose to supply less labor,” or, in other words, people will leave or not take jobs. As the report states later, “The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor.”
- Workers will leave jobs because of new taxes, incentives, and financial benefits.
That last point is key. Some people will see that they can have more net income if they get the higher insurance subsidies that would come from a lower salary level. (Which, the CBO says, “reflects some of the inherent trade-offs involved in designing such legislation.”) Other workers might decide against staying at an existing job because external health insurance offers them more mobility. But it will not be the case that people are working less because businesses slow hiring — at least, not because of Obamacare.
Obamacare will slightly reduce incomes for most income brackets.
A report out at the end of January from the Brookings Institution offers this graph showing how incomes will change after the Affordable Care Act is implemented.
In every income range except the bottom two, the net effect will be a reduction in average income. Byron York, writing for the conservative Washington Examiner, seized on this data, saying that “Obamacare's redistribution will be stunningly lopsided” against the middle class.
In 2012, the lowest two deciles (the bottom quintile) was those who made $20,599 or less. The next two deciles had an upper limit of $39,764, according to the Census Bureau. Obamacare subsidies are linked to income, so those lower tiers will see more subsidies. It's like tax brackets: at a certain point you get bumped into a higher bracket, providing a disincentive at lower levels of the new income bracket.
Brookings, less conservative than York, says that 1) insurance isn't usually included income assessments, which tweaks the analysis, and that 2) the income declines in other groups are “modest”. That modesty is in the eye of the beholder; for someone making $21,000, a 0.9 percent dip to $20,811 will mean more than someone who goes from $250,000 to $249,250. But these are averages, linked to shifts in hours worked, as above. The CBO figures that the “largest declines in labor supply will probably occur among lower-wage workers,” the group figuring out what makes the most sense economically. More will change jobs or salary levels, changing the averages.
None of this has anything to do with politics, though. Long-time opponents of Obamacare (like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz) and Republicans challenging incumbent Democrats this November will almost certainly not dive into the nuanced explanations of why and how work-hours and incomes are expected to drop under Obamacare. Feel free to share this link with them.
Update, 3:45 p.m.: Business Insider's Josh Barro makes a good point. Once people begin to leave the job market, the demand for employees won't also drop off. So wages may increase in that range York worries about simply to keep people on the job.
Cato joins the minimum wage debate. President Obama has made raising the minimum wage a centerpiece of his campaign against “income inequality.” Meanwhile, numerous governors are pushing to increase their state minimum as well. Such proposals may be politically popular, but are they effective?
The overwhelming body of evidence suggests that increasing the minimum wage would do little to reduce poverty or inequality. On the other hand, it would almost certainly reduce employment opportunities, especially for those low-skilled, entry-level workers for whom a job represents the first rung on the ladder of opportunity.
Over the last several years, Cato scholars have written extensively on the pitfalls of raising the minimum wage. Our new one-stop-shop for minimum wage research makes learning about the minimum wage and its effect on the economy easy.
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