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--Patriot Post
Finally, the president's crown jewel, ObamaCare, projected to cost at least $1 trillion over the next 10 years, is entirely omitted from the deficit estimate because Obama pledges that it won't add to the deficit. Next, he'll be trying to sell us some oceanfront property in Arizona.
---By Jim Pettit
As the Obama Administration completes its victory lap on behalf of the American people on the “Cash for Clunkers” program, automotive dealers will be navigating through a bureaucratic maze indefinitely. And U.S. taxpayers will pay the bill, having subsidized new cars for a tiny percentage of the population who happened to meet the government’s strict requirements, and who very well may have been in the market for a new car anyway. Cash for Clunkers is not working for the businesses it was intended to help or for the vast majority of consumers. The White House has moved on, leaving the messy details to the Transportation Department. This is government out of control.
To help the President finish this victory lap, the phrase “wildly successful” has been used consistently in Administration talking points, speeches and press releases. There is nothing successful, wildly or otherwise, about giving away free money. What’s more, the money isn’t free. There is interest to pay due to a chronic budget deficit and national debt. There are costs associated with what the Department of Transportation calls “private sector” contractors – a thousand or so part-time workers, probably temps, to process the paperwork. The Government had to create a new IT system so dealers can get paid. And while it doesn’t work well, it certainly was not free. Then, of course, there is the cost of the program itself.
This widely-reported $3 billion scheme, borrowed from Germany, involves consumers trading in relatively poor gas mileage vehicles and receiving up to $4500 to purchase a new, fuel efficient one. Cash for Clunkers, or C4C in industry short-hand, generated nearly 700,000 new car sales according to government data released August 25. To put this number in context, there are 136 million registered automobiles in the U.S. Most people did not qualify, unless they had a worn out SUV and desired a new small car and could afford to forego the trade- in value of the used vehicle. For everyone else - too bad.
Dealers, who live or die on a basic financial concept known as the time value of money, are left in the aftermath, with untold millions waiting to be processed in some Transportation Department office in Washington. The website that dealers were required to use to get paid crashed so many times that government-imposed deadlines had to be pushed back.
According to a survey published in Automotive News August 24, 61% of dealer respondents were not confident they will get paid for all their C4C transactions. Yet, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s web site has a prominent link to a statement that is remarkable in both simplicity and arrogance. This statement is now front and center on CARS.gov under bold type saying “CARS closed, ”the aforementioned required website for reimbursement submission. The statement says,
”The CARS program has been a wild success. It … has provided an economic boost to the car dealers, the auto manufacturers, the people who provide consumer loans and scrap yards.” A disclaimer at the bottom, in true bureaucratic fashion, reads: “Please note the submission deadline has no effect on continued processing of invoices that have been or will be rejected for errors.”
According to the U.S. DOT, Maryland dealers submitted $75 million for reimbursement as the program ended. DOT has not disclosed how much dealers in Maryland, or elsewhere, have received to date.
Darcars Automotive Group Vice President Tammy Darvish, who oversees multiple dealerships across Maryland, said 1651 vehicle sales are attributable to C4C. The work that remains is another matter – the dealership has been paid on just 16 of those deals. Stated another way, Darcars has $6.5 million outstanding, and they’ve only been paid 1%. This is what Darvish told me:
“I can tell you that we have hundreds of hours of overtime, over 25,000 pages of photo copies that had to be made to scan the deals for CARS.gov requirements, and we had to purchase computer equipment for each of our dealerships.”
No wonder. The rule, not the law, but the final rule to implement the law, is 136 pages that goes into mind-numbing detail ranging from engine disabling procedures, assessing EPA mileage, and how dealers must mark the title of the trade in vehicle for submission. Darvish goes on to say that additional costs were incurred to comply with rules for junking the vehicles - draining the oil, storage and transportation to the scrapping facility.
As of now, C4C adds expenses to an industry sector already beleaguered with credit problems, dealer closures and slow domestic sales. According to the U.S. DOT, 7% of dealer reimbursements have been “reviewed and approved” for payment as of August 19. What does that mean? Maybe it means the DOT can’t say what the status is of 93% of payments owed to dealers all across the country. And they should know real-time because electronic funds transfer is specified in the rule.
Meanwhile, don’t expect delays in the White House message machine. The Council of Economic Advisors was ready for the August 26 DOT announcement that C4C had concluded, predicting a 0.3-0.4 percentage point boost in the GDP annual rate as a result of the clunker program. It’s hard to say whether that projected economic growth assumes dealers have been paid. Equally hard to say is whether the Council will project future negative impacts with 700,000 people now out of the market.
The only good thing to say about Cash for Clunkers is that it officially ended. However, it was a bad deal for business and consumers alike, sloppy in execution and expensive to administer. This is not what the American government is supposed to be doing. Maybe in Germany, but not here.
---Ellen Sauerbrey
If Mark Lloyd has his way, Rush Limbaugh, Tom Marr and Ron Smith may have to broadcast from an offshore Island. Mark Lloyd is the newly appointed Chief Diversity Officer for the Federal Communications Commission. His writings make it clear that he wants to tax and regulate “right wing” radio out of existence.
Liberals understand that talk radio is the major source of conservative grassroots networking and information sharing. It encourages and empowers individuals to have a voice and to use it. When the Congressional switchboards light up it is often because talk radio has admonished their listeners to “call your member of Congress and tell them how you feel”.
With virtually all of the major network and print media parroting the same liberal message, talk radio remains the only powerful obstacle to the passage of the leftist agenda. Case in point, the effort to jam a dismantling of the U.S. health delivery system through, unread and undiscussed. The strategy has foundered because Rush, Hannity , and a litany of local hosts have revealed on a daily basis new outrageous provisions found buried in the House health care bill. They were equally vocal about Cap and Trade and the budget busting deficits. Vermont’s Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders has complained that talk radio is drowning out their message.
The left knows that a frontal assault on talk radio, re-implementing the Fairness Doctrine would set off a firestorm in the United States. So while there are some members of Congress who are calling for it to be revived, the President said during his campaign that he is not in favor of bringing back the Fairness Doctrine.
But there is more than one way to skin a cat. The Administration has created a diversity officer position that has never before existed at the FCC and appointed Mark Lloyd, whose stated goals would tax and regulate conservative and Christian radio into bankruptcy and give the proceeds to public radio.
As a senior fellow of the Soros funded Center for American Progress, Lloyd co-authored a report titled “The structural imbalance of political talk radio”. The conclusion is that there is too much conservative programming and not enough liberal talk. It matters not to the authors that radio station owners air Rush and Hannity and Mark Levin because that’s what the public supports and want to listen to, or that Air America could not attract enough listeners to succeed in the marketplace.
The report suggests remedies to fix the “imbalance” that would put local and national caps on commercial radio station ownership and ensure greater “accountability” over radio licensing.
Most astonishingly, Mark Lloyd is calling for each private radio station every year to pay a fee (tax) for their broadcast license, equal to their gross operating budget, with the monies going to the liberal public stations, with whom they compete for listeners. This is a clear formula for driving private radio out of business. And just in case any survived, Lloyd would regulate much of the programming on these stations to make sure they focused on “diverse views” and government activities.
He calls for national and local public stations to be funded at levels above that of commercial broadcasters. He further argues that funding for public radio should not come from congressional appropriations and that sponsorship should be prohibited for all public broadcasters.
It is hard to imagine that even this administration could adopt such whacky ideas but it not hard to imagine a left leaning FCC writing rules that set standards for more “local” programming and meeting diversity needs. The Senate has already passed a bill introduced by Senator Dick Durban that requires local radio stations to set up community advisory boards, including “under-served groups”. These groups would be involved in the license renewal process. Being confronted by Acorn or the Reverend Al Sharpton at a hearing contesting their license renewal would have a chilling effect on decisions made by station owners regarding conservative programming.
Michael Copps, an FCC commissioner has expressed concern that deregulation of media ownership has undermined democracy and has called for re-examining licensing regulations to make them “more reflective” of public interests.
People equal policy. In appointing a radical “Diversity Czar”, the Obama administration has placed a leftist into a position to promote policy that will squelch conservative speech.
Few subjects in America are more controversial than abortion, but on one thing both opponents and supporters of abortion generally agree. Taxpayers should not have to pay for that “choice”.
Proponents of Obamacare have repeatedly asserted that their health care proposal would not pay for abortion. Most recently President Obama held a conference call with religious leaders in an attempt to build support from the pulpits for his program. He passionately argued that those who claim abortion would be covered are engaging in blatant fabrication.
But the President himself, while still serving in the Senate pledged to Planned Parenthood that abortion is a“fundamental issue” and “is at the center and at the heart of the plan that I proposed”. He further pledged “reproductive care is basic care, it is essential care.... Essentially, what we are doing is to say that we’re gonna set up a public plan that all persons and all women can access if they don’t have health insurance. It will be a plan that will provide all essential services, including reproductive services." So, where does he really stand?
In addition Senate and House Committees defeated every amendment offered to clarify that the health care plan would not fund abortion. If proponents really do not intend for taxpayer funding of abortions, why not just say so? If the bill passes with no reference to abortion funding, the matter will be resolved by Obama appointees who will write regulations or judges who will hear future complaints.
Elected officials have only so much political capital and only so much credibility. The President is using up a lot of both on his health care overhaul. It is obvious that he is not being square with the American people about many aspects of his health care plan. When voters realize that he is speaking out of both sides of his mouth on the abortion issue, he may have permanently lost their trust.
IBDeditorials.com
The serious, and sometimes chilling, provisions of the medical care legislation that President Obama has been trying to rush through Congress are important enough for all of us to stop and think, even though his political strategy from the outset has been to prevent us from having time to stop and think about it.
What we also should stop to think about is the mind-set behind this legislation, which is very consistent with the mind-set behind other policies of this administration, whether the particular issue is bailing out General Motors, telling banks whom to lend to or appointing "czars" to tell all sorts of people in many walks of life what they can do.
The idea that government officials can play God from Washington is not a new idea, but it is an idea that is being pushed with new audacity.
What they are trying to do is create an America very unlike the America that has existed for centuries — the America that people have been attracted to by the millions from every part of the world, the America that many generations of Americans have fought and died for.
This is the America for which Michelle Obama expressed her resentment before it became politically expedient to keep quiet.
It is the America that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright denounced in his sermons during the 20 years when Barack Obama was a parishioner, before political expediency required Obama to withdraw and distance himself.
The thing most associated with America — freedom — is precisely what must be destroyed if this is to be turned into a fundamentally different country to suit Obama's vision of the country and of himself.
But do not expect a savvy politician like Barack Obama to express what he is doing in terms of limiting our freedom.
He may not even think of it in those terms. He may think of it in terms of promoting "social justice" or making better decisions than ordinary people are capable of making for themselves, whether about medical care or housing or many other things. Throughout history, egalitarians have been among the most arrogant people.
Obama has surrounded himself with people who also think it is their job to make other people's decisions for them. Not just Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, his health care adviser who complains of Americans' "overutilization" of medical care, but also professor Cass Sunstein, who has written a whole book on how third parties should use government power to "nudge" people into making better decisions in general.
Then there's a whole array of Obama administration officials who take it as their job to pick winners and losers in the economy and tell companies how much they can pay their executives.
Just as magicians know that the secret of some of their tricks is to distract the audience, so politicians know that the secret of many political tricks is to distract the public with scapegoats.
No one is more of a political magician than Barack Obama. At the beginning of 2008, no one expected a shrewd and experienced politician like Hillary Clinton to be beaten for the Democratic nomination for president of the United States by someone completely new to the national political scene. But Obama worked his political magic, with the help of the media, which he still has.
Obama's escapes from his own past words, deeds and associations have been escapes worthy of Houdini.
Like other magicians, Obama has chosen his distractions well. Insurers are currently his favorite distraction as scapegoats after he tried to demonize doctors without much success.
Saints are no more common in the insurance industry than in politics or even among paragons of virtue like economists. So there will always be horror stories, even if these are less numerous or less horrible than what is likely to happen if ObamaCare gets passed into law.
Obama even gets away with saying things like having a system to "keep insurance companies honest" — and many people may not see the painful irony in politicians trying to keep other people honest.
Certainly most of the media are unlikely to point out this irony.
Copyright 2008 Creators Syndicate, Inc
---Ellen Sauerbrey
What on earth is going on here? Is the Obama administration now going into the oil drilling business? Why is the Obama administration lending up to ten billion dollars from the deficit ridden U.S. economy to Petrobras, an oil company owned by the government of Brazil, to drill for offshore oil. Are we now branching out from ownership interests in distressed banks and auto manufacturers into the energy field? And why would an administration that does not support drilling for American resources chose instead to invest in Brazil?
Bloomberg reported on August 15th, that one of Obama’s biggest benefactors, billionaire investor George Soros bought an $811 million stake in Petroleo Brasileiro SA in the second quarter, making the Brazilian state-controlled oil company his investment fund's largest holding. As of June 30, Petrobras, made up 22 percent of the $3.68 billion of stocks and American depositary receipts held by Soros Fund Management LLC, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Is there any connection there??
According to the Latin American Herald Tribune, the exploration field is believed to contain between 5 billion and 8 billion barrels of oil. “But Brazil has been forced to seek external financing because the fields pose an enormous technical and financial challenge due to the depth and thickness of the salt and the drastic changes in temperature as the oil is brought to the surface… Acknowledging that Petrobras alone is not capable of developing the massive pre-salt reserves, Brazil announced in May that it will invite international oil companies to bid for concessions in that region beginning next year”, the Tribune reported.
Meanwhile 10 billion barrels of domestic oil located in ANWR, that private industry would like to retrieve, in an area with a proven track record for environmentally responsible drilling, remains off limits.
--Ellen Sauerbrey
During the recent health care Town Hall meeting in Towson, Senator Cardin presented attendees a false choice by suggesting that there was the big government solution or nothing. He repeatedly responded to a variety of different questioners with, “If nothing is done ……. it will be worse”. President Obama presents the same options. We must pass “his plan”, which by the way does not exist, or sink under the weight of an existing system which leaves some people without affordable health insurance.
Nationwide, elected officials are very adverse to being charged with doing nothing and too often in trying to ”do something”, do the wrong thing. If a bad decision to raise taxes has adverse consequences, a future Congress can repeal them. If a massive government health system is imposed and destroys the infrastructure of the private health insurance system there will be no turning back,.
In reality most opponents of Obamacare want to do something. But they want to do the right thing. The states have always been the laboratories of democracy. Incremental changes tried at the state level would allow the opportunity to experiment with things that make insurance more affordable and accessible. If states get it wrong, people have the option of moving to another state. If the U.S. gets it wrong, there is no place left to go.
The attendees at the town hall meeting gave Senator Cardin a lot of things they think should be done, starting with tort reform. Citizens understand that doctors prescribe unnecessary tests to avoid the consequences of a law suit and these tests are very expensive to the system. Neither the Senator or the President have addressed why this obvious remedy is ignored
A really big step would be to provide individuals who are not covered by employer based health insurance the same tax break to buy their own insurance as General Motors currently gets for covering its employees. Is it fair that the waitress in the local diner whose owner can’t afford to insure her, has to buy her own health insurance with no tax break, while the insurance provided to the CEO of GM is a tax write off?
Proponents of Obamacare want a public option to provide “competition”. Well if we really want competition, allow a Maryland citizen to buy an insurance policy in other states. Why? Because the Maryland General Assembly in its wisdom has passed so many mandated benefits that it is impossible in Maryland to purchase an affordable “stripped down Model T” insurance policy. Instead, under Maryland law individuals, as well as businesses that offer insurance to their employees, are forced to buy the “Cadillac” version with many coverages that they neither want nor can afford. If consumers prefer a less expensive plan, limited to those coverages they need, offered in Texas or South Carolina why should they not have that right? If reformers are really serious about competition, that is a good place to start.
When my husband and I were first married we did not need insurance that covered every trip to the doctor for a cold or a sprained ankle. We were however worried about being wiped out by a major illness. And so, we purchased a major medical plan whereby we paid the doctor out of pocket when we showed up with the sniffles but were protected against the big things. If we apply today’s health insurance rules to auto insurance, we would be forced to buy auto insurance that covers oil changes and flat tires. Obviously, people take care of their minor auto maintenance and repair out of pocket. Why can’t we chose to do that with health insurance? .
Medicare and Medicaid are both ripe with inefficiencies and fraud. They are major drivers of the escalation in health care costs. Before applying a government run or regulated system to the entire population, why not start by fixing the problems in the existing programs.
Finally, it should be noted that if the government (or our employers) paid for our food, our housing or our new car, we would not have to make wise spending choices. We would not have to look at prices and decide on the best buy. And before long the cost of all of those things would skyrocket. That is the state of health care in America. Medical costs were not escalating out of control when Mom took me to the doctor for my vaccination or my scraped shin and she paid him the old fashioned way – out of pocket. And think of the money saved when the doctor did not have to file all those insurance claims!
The American people have already impacted the debate, but it is no time to let up. There continues to be a huge push to do the wrong thing but maybe to do it in disguise. Remember, when you put lipstick on a pig, it is still a pig.
