Pay-go, no-go
You knew this was going to happen. Just like President Obama’s fantasy-land budget freeze, the new congressional pay-as-you-go law is more loophole-ridden than an Olympic volleyball net.
Via The Hill (h/t Steve Bartin):
The ink is barely dry on the pay-as-you-go law, and Democrats are seeking to bypass it to enact parts of their job-creation agenda.
Democratic leaders said extensions of unemployment insurance and COBRA healthcare benefits should be emergency spending that isn’t subject to the pay-as-you-go statute, which requires new non-discretionary spending to be offset with spending cuts or tax increases.
Remember: They never let a manufactured “emergency” go to waste. The age of Obama is an age of routine circumvention in the name of perpetual crisis.
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Pay-go sounds like a typical democrat vote buying plan.
The Democrats don’t obey laws, especially not their own. Laws are for the peasants.
Pay-go — Just another Democrat crack house.
Vote buying plan? Is that not their only purpose?
What was the point in the first place? These geniuses told us Obamacare would be “deficit neutral”. Whatever crap they want to pass will just be accompanied by fantasy land funding figures, and the reality wont hit the fan until after the fall elections.
Pay-go means the Democrats pay people to go vote for them. It’s also one of the reasons Democrats like dead voters so much. They work cheap.
Ooops-I heard Pay-go and broke out the bell bottoms and puffy sleeved shirt
But Pay-go is just more of the same: lies. All the laws in the world mean nothing if the enforcement agencies are corrupt-Congress and the Administration and ALL their agencies. Our Constitution IS the Supreme Law of the Land and they worry little about violating it.
Budget freeze? Budget ax and a major house cleaning perhaps.
It’s the “make it up as you go” pay go, no go plan. Typical democrat shell game.
Kickbacks and pork are always an emergency.
Pay-go sounds like a cheesy (mmmm) board game, but without the neat popamatic rolling of the dice.
Oh, you mean it’s trouble!
The COBRA subsidy that has been in place for a year now has dramatically affected my business.
MORE IMPORTANTLY, it has INCREASED THE COST OF HEALTH CARE SINGLE HANDEDLY.
Let me explain why in simple terms.
COBRA rates for individuals are determined by the TAX FREE health insurance plans from the employer that they left. Since they are tax free, insurance companies charge MORE for these benefit packages.
When someone gets COBRA, they keep the same plan they had but they pay for it. The SUBSIDY from the government pays 65% of their insurance plan -FROM THE IRS TO PRIVATE INSURANCE COMPANIES.
MANY people do not need the amount of insurance their employer was providing for them. In fact, many of them could get a plan that is 25% of the cost of COBRA that would cover them as much as they needed.
So this subsidy is coming from TAX DOLLARS and going to INSURANCE COMPANIES. What incentive does an insurance company have to lower rates when they know that the government will continue to pay 65% of it. (many insurance companies see that subsidy as a reason to raise rates by 65%).
This subsidy shows a LACK OF UNDERSTANDING of the health care market and the insurance market. It also shows the inability of the federal government to make a sound fiscal decision.
I still do VERY VERY WELL because I help people save money on health care (not commissions or committees or studies, I actually help people one-by-one determine how to save money. . . without giving them other peoples’ money like the government does.
Insurance is tedious and boring. But it is also a financial instrument and math. This COBRA subsidy has done more to increase the cost of health care than anything any insurance company has done in 30 years.
Nobody will report it because they don’t understand it. I’m certain I haven’t explained it well. But understand that the only thing the subsidy does is enrich insurance companies, spend tax dollars and increase the cost of health care for everyone.
Amen. The recession doesn’t exist.
There’s absolutely no problem at all paying as you go – when you can pay with someone else’s money.
There should be no extensions of unemployment. All am extension does is let people live off of unemployment longer before they are forced to go out and get a job.
In all economic climates, the vast majority of people on unemployment find a job within 2 weeks of their unemployment benefit end. It doesn’t matter whether it’s 8 weeks, 26 weeks 52 weeks or 104 weeks. They go looking for a job when they know they have to.
Want people back at work? End their unemployment benefits after 13 or 26 weeks. No extensions.
Thanks, I couldn’t remember the name, and yes, Pay-go = Trouble!
On February 17th, 2010 at 10:17 am, ThackerAgency said:
…….In fact, many of them could get a plan that is 25% of the cost of COBRA that would cover them as much as they needed……….
I have five friends/family members who have lost their jobs within the last 18 months and have gone on COBRA. Each and every one has seen their insurance premiums go up from 100 to 300% with COBRA. So, how can you get people insurance for 1/4 of COBRA’s costs?
And what do you say to my mid 50′s friend who had a stroke a few years ago and has been trying to find insurance and can’t. Or my mid 50′s friend who is a breast cancer survivor who’s terrified of when her COBRA runs out and she can’t get insurance. Care to offer them tips on how to find insurance?
The goal is to bankrupt the country.
Any lie they have to tell to achieve the goal is acceptable to the Democrats.
Unfortunately, the GOP is still stuck on stupid.
Unless we can clean out the RNC and dump the McCain, Grahamnesty, Snowe, Collins, Lugar, etc, progressives from the GOP, we may have to make the GOP go the way of the Whigs.
les,
I do this every day, all day long.
This is what they do to justify the expense. They trot out someone who has had a stroke or cancer in a state without a high risk pool (about 35 states have a high risk pool from the state government).
But the subsidy is for everyone, even the most healthy. It is a shotgun approach that increases the cost for everyone.
People don’t need cadillac plans to be healthy. All you really need is catastrophic coverage for the major hospitalizations and surgeries.
Again, people are shocked when they get the COBRA bill after they are fired. They call me, I tell them a quote and they ask me ‘how come you can get me insurance so cheaply at $400/mo’. I say, 400 dollars ain’t cheap where I’m from and it’s all the insurance you need. But 400 for my plan is cheap because COBRA was asking 1200 dollars a month.
The subsidy is a shotgun approach because it uses other people’s money. It does help people who are sick (for 18 months) and are in a state that doesn’t have a high risk pool. . . they should petition their state insurance commissioner to get on the ball (they elect him/her).
The amount of people that need it doesn’t justify the amount of money wasted on people who don’t. But they don’t care because it isn’t their money.
Their solution is to spend as much money as possible. I assure you that the insurance companies like it.
Wouldn’t you like to sell a product that the government pays 65% of it? Would you raise or lower your rates knowing the government guarantees payment?
ThackerAgency, so are you saying you can get a 50′s aged person who had a stroke and a 50′s age person who had breast cancer insurance coverage for a fraction of their COBRA costs that will not exclude anything tied to their prior illinesses?
les, I’m saying that the people who are sick do benefit from COBRA if they live in a state that doesn’t have a high risk pool. You yourself said your friend was worried about what would happen to her when COBRA ended in 18 months. . . the subsidy won’t help her then either (but there are likely other programs to help these people at the state level).
But COBRA rates are based on the most expensive insurance plans because company plans are NOT taxed and they don’t turn anyone down due to health history.
Les, I’m saying that the subsidy is important for some sick people, but it is available to EVERYONE regardless of whether or not they need it. The federal government is incapable of targeting the people who need it.
EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT. That’s why I work with people one-on-one. You tell me the state, I’ll give you a link to help the sick people.
This is a one size fits all solution from DC. But anyone who is healthy gets this subsidy too that you pay for in taxes. . . AND increased premium because of the windfall for insurance companies.
Wow. This is a Statist Administration and Congress that is simultaneously out of control and grossly incompetent. No thinking civic-minded American can have any confidence whatsoever in the Federal government now. This is misfeasance on a colossal scale. When does it end?
the stimulus money hasn’t been spent yet, that’s for this election year vote buying, but might be better used to pay down this years borrowing to give gubmint workers pension funds a boost. Did you hear Christies figures on gubmint employee pension costs versus what they put in. NJ transit worker, lifetime contribution was 1/20th of their expected revenues. And people wonder why cities and states and indeed our federal gubmint are broke.
OT – Big news in the works. From Mediaite
Exclusive: Hot Air Acquired By Salem Communications
Confirmed at HA this a.m.
There is supposed to be an announcement from MM forthcoming. I hope this means congrats. I think it does. Always thought HA was kind of her baby.
I saw that HA will no longer be owned by Michelle also. MM and HA are my two favorite blogs and I hope HA will not change too much. We should get all the information we need tomorrow by Michelle, Ed, and AP.
L
So far, so good. Recognizing the Domestic Enemy for who they are and what they want to do is heartening.
And this is where the wheels fall off. “The donks are trying to bankrupt the country, so let’s grab the torches and pitch-forks and head on over to the RNC headquarters!”
If I were a donk, I’d laugh at a post like that. As it is, I can only shake my head.
Regulus:
Do you think the aforementioned Senators can be counted on to do the right thing for America?
I know I don’t.
I can count on one hand the Senators that I have any confidence in, the number in the House is somewhat more, but still a minority of the minority.
The recession exists, but it was neither as deep or as serious as it was painted by both the Bush nor the Obama Administrations as justification for their raids on the public purse. It’s a lot more serious now, but that’s more due to their policies than anything else. Worked the same way for Hoover and FDR.
Spending cuts or taxes to offset new non-discretionary spending. What part of that don’t you understand? Oh, all of it, ok…
This issue should have been settled more than a decade ago, but all-time RINO Sen. Mark Hatfield just HAD to cast the deciding vote against a balanced-budget amendment. The damage he did with that one vote is immeasurable.
Yep, the loop-hole provision is ridiculous. Somebody should have stood up at the time to take the loop-hole out of the bill.
Who is going to say ‘no’, and mean it?
The democrats will obey any law/rule that benefits them (“It’s the Law!“) and disregard it if it does not (“A high morality dictates . . . ). So it has been and so it shall always be. Red ink is the life blood of the democrat vampires (dempires?) and in the twilight of the republic it will flow as long as there remains a taxpayer living.
Smoke and mirrors, bait and switch, all sold as hope and change. Bho has no solutions.
***
HI LES–#18. Yes–it’s tough as hell on those in the loss of insurance / refusal to cover pre-existing conditions, high costs, etc. binds. Some states have high risk insurance pools for these cases. And Federal Law requires that anyone showing up at an ER or Hospital with life threatening problems must be treated–regardless of ability to pay.
***
This isn’t great–but it still does most of the job at a lot lower cost than ObamaCare would. They refuse to turn off the Lawyer money spigot, do not change laws preventing policy sale across state lines, etc.
***
John Bibb
***
After spending and wasting tons of tax dollars on political pay backs and the funding of their socialist programs over the past year, now the dems are ready for pay-go. Isn’t that charitable of them?
The trouble is, their version of pay-go means raising taxes to pay for their pork. Never cut the spending unless it’s on defense.
Of course it exists, but it didn’t just come into existence yesterday. There’s been plenty of time to properly design a bill that plays by the rules. But the Democrats don’t do that. Instead, they wait till the last second to introduce a bill that came from who-knows-where and then insist that it be passed yesterday, with no time for debate or even reading it. And usually, it doesn’t even go into effect right away (Porkulus I still hasn’t been fully spent).
Of course the Democrats are ignoring their own law. They have no intention of paying as they go. The law is only meant as cover for them to have it both ways.
Democrats will point to the pay-go law as proof that they are fiscally responsible while exempting everything they do from the law so they can continue with business as usual.
It’s the same pattern Obama uses. With great fanfare he decreed that no lobbyists would work in his administration. Then he quietly exempted 17 former lobbyists from his new rule so they could all work in his administration. This Orwellian doublespeak allows him to provide political favors to his supporters and to continue politics as usual while at the same time taking credit for “changing the culture in Washington.”
As long as the public and the media allow Democrats to speak out of both sides of their mouths, they will continue to get away with having it both ways. I just hope the tea party movement is a sign that Americans are finally waking up.
Yes, they’re “taking responsibility” while at the same time blaming it all on Bush.
To illustrate the doublespeak and hypocrisy of today’s democratic leaders, let’s look at what they have said and what they have done recently on earmarks:
Now for what actually happened:
According to CAGW (Citizens Against Government Waste), pork barel spending amounted to 17.2 billion in 2008. In 2009, during Obama’s first year in office, the cost of pork increased 14 percent to $19.6 billion.
Democrats did not “get rid” of earmarks. They did not “slash earmarks by more than half”. And they did not “slash earmarks to no greater than 1994 levels.” Instead, they increased spending on earmarks by 14%! Yet few in the mainstream media bother to mention that fact, nor do they seem to care about broken promises. So why should Democrats even try to keep their promises?