Demcare’s backroom Big Labor buyoff
Photoshop credit: American Power
Remember the proposed Dem tax on investment income to pay for the government health care takeover that I told you about the other day?
Just a follow-up on the backroom deals being cut by Obama and his Big Labor thug-cronies, via The Foundry. Here’s what the tax will pay for:
Yesterday, President Barack Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and nine other lawmakers met face-to-face for seven hours to resolve differences between the House and Senate health care bills. At the same time these talks were going on, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern and United Auto Workers President Ron Gettelfinger met with other Obama administration officials in a separate room in the White House. This all comes after these same labor leaders met personally with Speaker Pelosi yesterday, and after they met face-to-face with President Obama in the White House on Monday. Despite then-candidate Barack Obama’s explicit promises to the American people, absolutely none of these meetings were open to the public or televised on C-SPAN. In fact, Politico reports: “Those involved in the talks sought to keep details of their progress under wraps.”
And just what deals were Big Labor, the leftist majorities in Congress and the Obama administration making behind closed doors? How to pay for President Obama’s likely $1 trillion health care plan without raising taxes on one of the President’s most loyal constituencies: labor unions. Specifically, Big Labor reportedly has struck a deal with health care negotiators to exempt union members from the 40% excise tax on high-priced health insurance premiums. By some estimates, the tax would hit one in four union members. Now Big Labor will get all of the big government health care spending they always wanted, but they will not have to pay for it.
And Obamacare’s Big Labor handouts don’t end there. The legislation also sets aside $5 billion to subsidize the costs of employer health benefits for early retirees. As Heritage fellow James Sherk notes, few nonunion employers, of course, pay pension and health benefits for workers to retire at 55. And then there’s the small business exemption from the employer mandate for businesses with less than 50 employees. At first this applied to all small businesses, but after aggressive lobbying by Big Labor, non-unionized construction businesses were unexempted. Big Labor lobbyists explicitly admitted they wanted to use Obamacare’s job-killing employer mandates as a competitive advantage to drive non-unionized firms out of business.
Most unethical, non-transparent, punitive Congress ever!
***
More on the backroom deal:
Officials familiar with the negotiations said Wednesday that options being considered to lessen the impact on union members included raising the threshold at which the tax would be levied — it’s $23,000 for family plans in the Senate-passed bill — and exempting collective bargaining agreements negotiated before 2013 from the tax.
Under that scenario the tax wouldn’t hit until union contracts were renegotiated, delaying its impact on most union health plans until perhaps 2015 or 2016. There was also discussion of lessening the impact of the tax in high-cost regions of the country — where insurance premiums cost more — by imposing the tax on a sliding scale.
Obama and Democratic leaders spent all day Wednesday working intensely to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the legislation, which would expand coverage to more than 30 million people now uninsured, bar insurers from denying coverage to people with medical problems, and attempt to rein in ruinous increases in health care costs.
Negotiators were to meet again Thursday at the White House, and Obama planned to go to Capitol Hill to make a personal appeal to House Democrats, who are being asked to make major concessions. Democratic bargainers were also considering seeking more money from drugmakers and other provider groups to help subsidize care for the uninsured.
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I have heard more than one person hypothesize that they are trying to force the people into armed revolt so they can declare martial law and bring in the UN thugs.
At first I thought it was just paranoid ramblings. It’s seeming more plausible every day.
I feel like I’m in an episode of the Twilight Zone.
BTW, those new bank taxes being levied against the top 50 banks? Fannie and Freddie are exempted. Why? They certainly should qualify based on the reasons Obama listed as to how the other banks got on the list. But…. $$$$$$$$$ and Barney Frank. You connect the dots. The economy is being carved out for the benefit of the very crooks doing the carving.
There are no “good guys” here which is why it is so hard to rally behind any of the crooks making up our entrenched criminal class of elected weasels.
The UN is supposed to scare Americans?
So, so many dangerous, evil idiots need to be prosecuted and then locked up for a very, very long time.
Even if that is what they are trying to do, do you understand how what would have to happen for that to come about? Bypass our own military? Obama doesn’t have the power and neither does Congress. Get serious.
We have to continue calling out all of these tactics in the most public way possible. It is having the desired effect in MA. and will have that same effect eveywhere else as long as we keep it up. Go to a tea prty!
Yes, we would most likely win that fight, but a lot of women and children would be raped by the “peacekeepers” before all was over (if they follow their usual pattern).
Maybe that’s why Zero is sending more troops overseas: so he can get rid of them in his Palpatineesque takeover. /paranoia
Aaauurgh! I’m tired! (Just got off work.) Being tired is a good excuse, right?
Pasadena Phil said:
I used to think that also until The Sock Puppet signed an executive order allowing Interpol unfettered access to our country and its citizens with no limitations on what they can do.
At this point there is no turning back. The Socialist anti-American Democrats have made their decision. They know the American people are going to crucify them going forward so they are going to push this through regardless of what happens. The socialits have wanted to run the U.S. into the groun and they will not pass this opportunity up even if it means they will be slaughtered.
I think the point is that given the seriousness of the situation that the country is in, and that things will only get worse — I’m going out on a limb here with another wild-eyed prophecy! — the matter will eventually reach an explosive stage, tipping point, however one wishes to describe it. How the events will unfold is impossible to know, but I do know the democrat party would much prefer to have a Vichy-America, than one in which they are at risk of losing their rapidly growing power. Their vision from the start has been that of a one-party state, a “unionocracy” as it is shaping up to be. Does anyone seriously believe that if it looks like that vision is going to be defeated, the Obamistas will say: “Oh darn. Well, I guess better luck next time. Sorry guys, but it’s back to limited government, fiscal restraint, and a strong military for the good of the country.”
Get serious, indeed.
And you wonder why I dislike unions and Democrats.
What’s scary about the hypothesis above (if true) is that even if 99.999999% of us are sane and don’t take the bait, it would only take a handful of crazies to start something.
In this political powderkeg they are building by pushing the people farther and farther, anything is possible.
beenthere said:
I am with you, looking at these individuals running Washington I firmly believe they will do anything and everything to destroy this country now and even more so if they loose elections this year. These are vindictive little snots that if not given their way they will throw a destructive tantrum.
Bring it! I ain’t afeared o’ no blue pantyheads!
I believe that is what they want…a few “right-wing extremists” to go nuts and start a “revolution”. Most of us are not ready for that and believe things can be resolved in a less violent way (at least for now). But there are always some who will go nuts. OR, some lefties will pretend to be right-wing militia and start shooting. It doesn’t matter. The effect will be the same. Blame the tea party people and declare martial law. I definitely can see this happening.
You’re right that it only takes a few crazies but the problem is there are not 99+% of the people who see what’s going on. Duh Won’s support, albeit fading, is still 45%. I hear people in my area try to tell me what a good job he’s doing. It’s insanity but there are die-hards who believe he is just cleaning up the mess that Booooosshhhhh made. Unbelievable!
I’d be surprised if our domestic enemies did not try something like that.
It’s been done before by socialists / fascists / statists / opposite wordlview-holders:
http://www.willy-brandt.org/bwbs_biografie/German_attack_on_Poland_B1535.html
That’s pretty close. The donks actually believe that what they’re doing is “heroic” — many who know that they won’t get re-elected see themselves as taking one for the team, throwing themselves down on the barbed wire or leaping on top of hand grenades so that their fellow storm-troopers can go on to final victory (i.e., a permanent one-party state).
It all sounds so noble, until you realize that the “enemy” they are trying to conquer with their “selfless sacrifice” is the American People…
I Absolutely Agree!
We are not dealing with sane people or wise people. We are dealing with immature, spoiled, self centered, egotistical, greedy people who are all guilty of multiple crimes.
They will stop at nothing, lie about everything and do anything to get their way and do everything to appear as though they are “just trying to help the poor get justice” from the evil in society.
If they want to help the poor and stop the evil in society, they should make the ultimate sacrifice and leave this world
Man, I really don’t want to get into another of those dopey UN troops in the US conversations. Our entire military is sworn by solemn oath to defend America from enemies foreign AND DOMESTIC. There is an entire process and series of events that would have to take place in order for the issue of calling out our troops against citizens to get to the table and to get to the UN phase would mean the our military refused to obey an executive order.
There is no mechanism whereby the POTUS can bring in UN troops. It takes more than an executive order or unconstitutional and secret international agreement. You seriously believe that our military would just stand by while those sissy blue helmets walk in to take over their country? Our military is part of the “us” we keep referring to.
And spare me the “you are so naive” comments alright? The UN is incapable of coming into this country effectively. Half of this country would meet them disembarking to shoot them down and I would be one of them. Who would stop us? The police? They are also included in what we like to refer to as “us”. It’s just not going to happen ok?
Some of you people are just crazy.
I don’t expect to see an armed resistance to the gubmint. I do expect to see private citizens protect themselves and their property. It’s all about money. Without $$$ the whole thing collapses – and it’s ready to implode. And, yes, it’s deliberate. They will not see the results they have worked so hard to achieve.
Vote them all out.
We can force the issue by staging a massive peaceful Tea Party rally in DC and across the country on the same day. We can call for a “ten million man march” and turn out 15 million. (Not like those many “Million Man Marches” that only turn out 100,000.)
That would scare the DC establishment to death and if they were ever going to try to impose martial law, that would be the moment. Our military would “crack down” on their friends and family protesting peacefully for the same issues that they themselves care about and agree with us?
That should be the plan for 2010. It would leave Americans with a renewed sense that our constitutional system really does work.
We are currently living through a War of 1812 moment when most Americans feared that the Spirit of 1776 was dying with the generation that had fought the War of Independence. That the British would inevitably re-impose their rule over us. All it took to revive that spirit was a poem by Francis Scott Key called “The Star Spangled Banner” and suddenly the Spirit of 1776 was rekindled in time to reaffirm our national commitment to our freedoms and our constitutional form of government. We need to do it again.
This may put Scott Brown over the top. Thanks Obama, Pelosi and Reid. Keep up the good work and don’t forget to cover illegal aliens before Tuesday.
I’m confused over one aspect of this union lobbying. Aren’t non-union construction firms the ones that hire illegal aliens and pay them off the books to dodge compensation insurance premiums and claims? Or do unionized companies do the same? Some clarification is in order here to sort out the arguments and pursue the right course of action.
What I want to know is why do union members get to be privileged and do not have to use their taxable income to buy their health insurance.
They balk about paying a tax on “Cadillac” plans, but everyone fails to mention that the rest of society has to use taxed income to buy their own insurance plans. Unions are already receiving a privilege by not paying this tax, now they will receive another special exemption on this new tax.
Who the heck gives them this special privilege and why is it constitutional to levy a tax on everyone but a privileged few? Income is not the issue as UAW members already net more in pay and retirement than everyone else.
if this constitutional lawyer in charge does not understand that he can’t tax only republicans, he needs to get his affirmative action money back. this tax will be challenged and as it is so patently biased and unequally applied, i see no way that it can pass constitutional muster, even with this doj. besides, it harms the elderly and rewards the young, as the old pay way more for insurance than the young, for obvious reasons.
Uh, when it comes to military action from the UN, the only effective forces are US and western allied forces. The non-western militaries are amateur at best. If it comes to Marshall Law, it will be state controlled National Guardsmen. You will be in safe hands then.
I agree, Phil, except the last huge rally with close to one million participants barely got a mention anywhere. Unlike the “one million man march” that is still talked about today as if it was some big deal. 15 million people would be downplayed to “a handful”. That is what is so scary. The media is part of the planned takeover of this country.
This is what civil wars are made of.
I think your question more or less answers itself.
And why Amish but not Christian Scientists? This is such a can of liberal worms!! It is exactly like the tax code and every other stupid liberal idea…it gets so convoluted and bureaucratic it is impossible to monitor and the average citizen can’t possibly understand any of it.
And that is not an unintended consequence, by any stretch of the imagination.
(Yes; “double negative” intentionally used….)
Yes, but I just had the need to ask the question anyway
How soon we forget. It was actually over two million participants and it did get broad coverage where people are tuned in… the blogosphere. The dinosaur government-sponsored media doesn’t count. I’m sure Tass and Pravda didn’t cover the upcoming collapse of the USSR either.
I assure you, there was a reason Congress and Obama chose 9/12 to be out of town. Ten million people protesting peacefully in DC would get reported across the world in banner headlines because it would be the biggest story ever. It would be the best demonstration in history for the world to witness as to where power lies in all societies. In ours, we don’t give it up as easily as they do elsewhere.
Besides, it’s not about getting reported. It’s about leaning hard into the government and forcing them to show their hand. Are they going to test the system by risking an attempt to get the military to crack down on us or are they going to knuckle under and finally disband for us to retake the government.
You really should watch “The Singing Revolution” about the Estonian revolution. It works.
I’ll check it out. Thanks. And don’t get me wrong…I am totally for the Tea Parties and the gatherings!! We need to keep it up. The movement is growing quickly. I was remembering the day, not very long ago, when we were discussing sending tea bags to DC in protest. Then someone suggested forming grass roots groups called Tea Parties. The rest is history and I am proud to be living in the midst of it.
YES, very happy we are (Yoda agrees).
Yeah, well this sounds illegal to me.
How in the hell can the gov’t make one person making a salary of X and getting a HC package worth Y pay exorbitant taxes on that HC package, then go to a person who happens to be in a union making the same money and has the same HC plan and let him get off with ZERO tax????
This is a friggin’ outrage. The Dems are just making this crap up as they go along.
If you don’t believe this situation exists, go ask a coal miner. They have both union and non-union employees and have very comprehensive health care insurance.
These people are way out of line.
We don’t need an armed revolution. Instead, I propose a nation wide strike. During the swine flu thing, the gov wanted to immunize those individuals deemed to be too necessary to their jobs to be ill. The gov wants people working. They want things to remain the same in spite of what is happening to the economy. Civil disobedience is what started our first revolution.
I second that idea!!
On the subject of “Foreign Troops” here, InterPol is free to operate here and has complete immunity and there is no recourse to deal with them. None at all. If they decide they want to invade your home, it’s up to you to stop them. There is no authority in America with jurisdiction over them.
This is all…..the Handiwork of Obama.
And while they are not “Troops”, they’re the next best (worst) thing.
…martial law… Like courtmartial.
Sorry, but words mean things.
ECS
Most transparent….administration…. evah. Hip hip hooray!!!
/sarc off