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You may or may not know why this blog is titled the Greeneyeshade Blog.   I am a CPA by training, a self-professed bean-counter.  I also sit on 3 of Committees available to Members of the House that hold jurisdiction over areas of federal economic policy, budgeting, and economic analysis.  I feel it is particularly instructive that we take a look at some history…because after all, the numbers don’t lie.

- In February 2009, Democrats enacted a debt increase, with the premise and promise that by borrowing another trillion dollars would create jobs for more Americans and that it would happen immediately, thereby thwarting the unemployment rate from rising above 8%...we are now at 10.2%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this is a 26 year high.

- Since taking control of Congress in January of 2007, Democrats have presided over a 39% increase in the nation’s debt from $8.670 trillion to $12.039 trillion.

- According to the President’s budget, the national debt will soar from $9.961 trillion at the start of 2009 to more than $24.4 trillion in 2019…that’s an increase of 144%.

“It is important though to recognize if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the U.S. economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.”

—President Barack Obama, November 18, 2009

Recently, the White House indicated that it has plans to raise the national debt limit as part of a larger upcoming piece of legislation.  What this means is that the United States Government has run out of its statutory borrowing authority…just like the credit card you have in your wallet or purse…there is a limit on what one can spend.

This is the second time in 2009 that the debt limit has been increased. 

Here is a brief situation report of our economy right now:

• - The national debt has increased to $12.039 trillion or 85 % of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
• - The debt limit was raised from $11.315 trillion to $12.104 when Speaker Pelosi and President Obama passed their ‘non-stimulating’ stimulus bill, nine months ago.
• - The government is now roughly $70 billion away from reaching the current limit.
• - The White House is now seeking a debt limit increase of at least $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion—increasing the limit to anywhere from $13.1 trillion to $13.6 trillion.

I will have more on this and a historical glimpse in the past tomorrow.

There are some extra congressional districts in California receiving stimulus dollars…the trouble is, they don’t exist.

Recovery.gov, the web portal designed by the administration to provide transparency and information on where and how the President’s stimulus dollars were being spent lists 9 congressional districts in California that don’t exist, yet they apparently have received $5,740,757 in stimulus dollars, creating 24.2 jobs, which equates to about $237,221 per job.  This odd reporting isn’t limited to California either; ABC News has reported that instances of the same problems are popping up all over the country.

When asked about the problem, Ed Pound, director of communications for recovery.gov said "We're not certifying the accuracy of the information.”  Asked why recipients would pluck random numbers - 26, 45, 14 - to fill in for their congressional district, Pound replied, "who knows, man, who really knows. There are 130,000 reports out there.''

I don’t know about you, but I don’t see how the White House can allocate over $1 million in stimulus dollars to California’s 00 District, nor how you can claim to create jobs in a district that doesn’t exist…but if the White House can’t keep track of $787 billion, how are they going to track the $1.6 trillion for health care?!

Two weeks ago, the Department of Labor released their latest unemployment numbers which put the current unemployment level at 10.2%.  You may remember, in a recent blog, I mentioned that there was more behind the 10.2% figure than one would hope and that the actual number is closer to 17.5% because the calculation does not account those individuals who have given up on finding work or those who are underemployed, such as individuals working part time but looking for full-time work.

According to a review by the Wall Street Journal there are a number of inconsistencies in the way the number of jobs ‘saved or created’ are calculated by the White House in regards to its Stimulus package. 

Take these examples for instance:

“A Kentucky shoe-store owner claimed to have created or saved nine jobs with an $889.60 contract to supply work boots to the Army Corps of Engineers. The owner said he supplied nine pairs of boots and that the mistake arose from confusion over the government form.”

“As many as 86% of the jobs estimated by recipients of Head Start grants could have been inaccurately reported, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The department said 277 of the 1,601 reports it had received were being reviewed after being contacted by the Journal. Those reports claimed 7,753 jobs created or saved out of a total of 8,997 reported.

"Holy moly, that's not right," Teresa Cox, executive director of the Mid-Willamette Valley Community Action Agency in Salem, Ore., said of her organization's report. It indicated that 205 jobs were created or saved with the agency's $397,761 federal grant. The money, she said, was used for pay raises.”

“Stetson University in DeLand, Fla., counted every part-time work-study position funded by the stimulus, and, in some cases, more than one work-study position held by the same student. That led to the university reporting that it had created or saved 483 jobs with a $193,469 grant for its work-study program. University spokeswoman Cindi Brownfield said the campus has since realized that the actual jobs number should have been written as the full-time equivalent of the jobs -- probably between 18 and 30.”

Last week I highlighted a story from Politico that indicated a shift in strategy by the Obama administration in 2010, to focus on the economy and jobs.

I along with many of my colleagues have been arguing since January that you absolutely cannot tackle any other domestic issues without the benefit of a strong economy and a pervasive jobs market.  Right now, we have neither.  Yet the Obama Administration has insisted on pursuing initiatives that are detrimental to jobs and job growth.

The main domestic focus for any President at a time like this should be…jobs, jobs, jobs.

Don’t take my word for it, here is a comparison chart produced by the Heritage Foundation based on White House estimates and reality…

Today, the D.C. based political newspaper, Politico, featured a story outlining reports of a shift in spending strategy by the Obama Administration, who, according to the story, will shift focus exclusively to cutting the federal deficit in 2010. 

This shift is undoubtedly a result of the political calculus going on over at the White House these days.  Remember, President Obama has spent more money in 9 months than President Clinton spent in eight years, pushing the deficit to $1.4 trillion. 

Meanwhile, the President and his D.C. collectivists are poised to make a final push for an additional $1.6 trillion in spending for its government takeover of healthcare and that’s not even accounting for the costly ‘Cap and tax’ legislation that he and Speaker Pelosi forced through the House earlier this year.

The President says he wants to focus on cutting the deficit, but his actions say another thing, and we all know that actions speak louder than words.

First, it is important to make a distinction between the number released earlier today and what is happening in reality.  Don’t let the 10.2% figure fool you.  Out in the real world, unemployment is 17.5%.  The figure released by the Department of Labor does not include those individuals who have given up on finding work or those who are underemployed, such as individuals working part time but looking for full-time work. 

Meanwhile, back in D.C., Nancy Pelosi and President Obama are intent on passing legislation on global warming and health care which analysis has shown will kill jobs and only exacerbate our current economic woes.

When roughly 1/5^th of the American population is unemployed or unable to find full-time work, why is the President and Speaker intent of making work harder to find for even more Americans?

You will remember that President Obama’s economic advisors indicated that with the passage of the so-called ‘stimulus package,’ unemployment levels would not exceed 7.8%. Now, as we stare down the face of unemployment levels of 10.2%, it begs the question, Mr. President, where are the jobs?

Factoid of the Day: The Pelosi government run health care plan creates a new 2.5% tax on all medical devices not sold through a retail establishment. That means a new 2.5% tax on everything from wheelchairs and hospital gowns, to artificial organs. And that lowers health care costs how?

Tea Party: Yesterday on Capitol Hill, we Republicans held a press conference on the west front of the Capitol to oppose the Pelosi Health Plan.  The “Tea Party” people seized on this as an opportunity to express the grass roots opposition to what the Wall Street Journal has called the worst bill since World War II. They started sending their e-mails just a few days ago.

And boy did they deliver.   I would estimate that there were 25,000 people in the crowd all chanting “kill the bill; kill the bill.” There are those on the left who would dismiss this movement as a bunch of kooks and fringe players. They do so at their peril.  I talked to corporate CEOs, Doctors, an investment banker with an MBA, and many other educated people of accomplishment. I would not they say they are angry, but rather, they are filled with resolve. No one paid them to be here, and it should be noted that this event was at 12:00 noon on a Thursday. They just do not want this country to follow the path of collectivism that Pelosi and Obama espouse.  They know it doesn’t work,  and I agree with them.

Another interesting thing to note, is that there is no office for the 'Tea Party.'  In fact, there is no centralization at all. It is completely organic, spontaneous, and organized only through the Internet.  It is just individuals making an individual decision to fight for freedom without any central direction or control, which I might add, is exactly the opposite of how Obama and Pelosi think health care (and many other things) should work.  This movement really is emblematic of the power and dignity of the individual over the power and control of the collective.

And it is that individual choice and right that we are fighting for.  Here is a picture I took of the crowd from my vantage point on the steps of the Capitol.  If you would like to see more photos, log onto my facebook page by clicking here .  The crowd was stretched out over such a wide area that I could not even begin to capture it all without a fish-eye lens, which I don’t have. But hopefully you will get the flavor.

As of this moment, the Democratic leadership still does not have enough votes to pass the bill. Tomorrow, the President will travel to Capitol Hill to meet with Democrats and try to talk enough of them into voting for it. They have scheduled a vote for Saturday, after the President works it some more.

Factoid of the day: President Barack Obama's economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.

– Quote from an Associated Press Report on overstating of stimulus job creation by the White House. 

Pelosi Health Care Update: Last night at 10:07 PM Eastern time, Speaker Pelosi released the latest version of her health care plan. This version added 42 pages to make the total bill now a whopping 2,032 pages. Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) had pledged to have the final bill in print for 72 hours before it is voted upon. That means that the soonest the bill could be brought to a vote on the House floor is 10:07 PM on Friday night.

But by all accounts, they have not yet cajoled the necessary 218 votes to ensure the bill’s passage. It also appears clear that they may make more changes to the bill in order to secure more votes before Friday night or Saturday. But they have also been clear that they will not wait until 72 hours after any further changes.

Yesterday, I spent some time in a “bill reading room” set up by Republicans to read the bill. In between floor speeches and committee votes, I randomly picked 3 sections of the bill to read. Each one was instructive. Here’s what I learned that I had not before known about the bill in just a short reading:

1. The bill contains a section called “Individual responsibility.” It is less than 20 words long. It merely refers to a section in the Internal Revenue Code of 1986. But immediately following, is a section called “employer responsibility.” It goes on for many sections and pages. We will never control health care costs as long as people are disconnected from the choice, cost, and quality of the services they receive. This bill moves people farther away.

2. In another section of the bill, I only went a few pages before encountering an entirely new “private right of action.” A “private right of action” is an opportunity to file a lawsuit on the basis of federal law. This particular new lawsuit opportunity would be for employees to sue employers if they don’t like their health care choices. There are many more such new litigation opportunities in this bill. It is universally (except of course for Pelosi and her minions) acknowledged that lawsuit abuse is driving up health care costs through direct costs as well as “defensive medicine”  by tens of billions of dollars annually. However this bill not only contains no lawsuit reform, it actually will make the problem far, far worse.  The trial lawyer lobby, however, must be very happy.

3. There is a 5.4% surtax on incomes over $500,000. This is just a “soak the rich” tax to partially pay for socialized medicine. But interestingly, the tax applies to adjusted gross income, not to taxable income. That means if you make $500,000 and give it all to charity, you will still pay a surtax of $27,000 even though you have no net income. I am not aware of any other provision of the tax code that applies the tax on gross income, rather than taxable income.

It just gets worse and worse and worse.  We will keep up the fight. I hope you will too.

Yesterday in response to my post on the Greeneyeshade Blog, a reader made a very observant and pithy comment that I wanted to share with the rest of you:

“So, let me make sure I get this correct…We're going to pass a health care plan written by a committee, whose head says he doesn't understand it, passed by a Congress that hasn't read it but exempts themselves from it, signed by a president that also hasn't read it, and who smokes, with funding administered by a treasury chief who didn't pay his taxes, overseen by a surgeon general who is obese, and financed by a country that's nearly broke.

What possibly could go wrong?”

I also want to draw your attention to a new tool that House Republicans are using in the debate on Speaker Pelosi’s government takeover of healthcare.  This website allows you to scrutinize the 1,990 pages of Pelosi’s bill right along with Members of Congress.  I think you will find it particularly useful. See the link below.

http://healthcaretruth.amplify.com/

Lest there be any doubt about whether the new Pelosi Health Care Bill is more costly, more controlling, and closer to socialism than the previous iteration, here is your fact of the day:

You may remember that the ‘original’ health care bill introduced before the August recess, H.R. 3200, would have created 53 separate bureaucracies, commissions, boards etc... The new Pelosi Bill, which the House may vote on as early as this week creates a whopping 111 new boards, bureaucracies, commissions, and programs….wow….if this isn’t a massive government intervention into our health care system, I don’t know what is.

Today’s edition of the Wall Street Journal has a scathing editorial of the legislation introduced by Speaker Pelosi. It notes the creation of a new ‘Health Choices Commissioner’ that will decide “essential benefits” which all insurers will have to offer. This sounds like something straight out of Aldous Huxley’s, A Brave New World or George Orwell’s, 1984.

Thanks to the House Republican Conference, I have included a list of names of these proposed new bureaucratic entities along with the corresponding page numbers.

Click Here to Read all 1,990 pages.
Read More...

Speaker Pelosi and President Obama are determined to socialize medicine and to permanently put 1/6th of the American economy in complete control of the government. But the American people don't want that, not a single elected Republican in Congress wants that, and a significant number of elected Democrats don't want that.

Pelosi needs to get 218 Democrats to vote for her bill. That means she can lose 39 Democrats, but no more. She is keeping Democrats in town "working" because she wants to keep trying to convince them to vote for her bill. She also knows that if they go home, most of them will hear the opposite message from their constituents. So, she keeps us all in town with busy work so that she can keep using carrots and sticks to get the votes for her awful bill. Don't underestimate the power of the Presidency and the Speakership to convince Members of Congress to vote their way.

And just what is in this bill? Well, having had it for only a short time, I can't tell you everything. But here are a few facts you may find interesting:

- It is 1990 pages long.
- It has about 400,000 words. That is 5 times the length in words of the Torah.
- It contains a government-run "option,” which will effectively not be optional over the next 5-8 years.
- It spends over $1 trillion. That amounts to over $2.2 million per word.
- It uses the word "shall" 3,429 times. So, 3,429 times it compels someone to do or not do something.
- But one place where it uses the word "may" is in reference to whether Members of Congress "may" join the government run system. So, much of the public will be forced onto the government-run system but we in Congress will not. (Do what I say, not what I do)
- It increases taxes on small business, wealthy individuals, all medical devices (including wheelchairs, bandages, and such), people who save for their own health care costs through health savings accounts, payroll taxes and anyone who does not buy health insurance.
- It authorizes government funding of abortions, which is not allowed under current federal law.
- Any state that has a limit on attorney's fees or punitive damage awards in malpractice cases (like California) must change that law to remove all limits or the state loses federal money under the bill. (blatant trial lawyer provision)
- And that's just the beginning.

This week is D-day week for this bill. You will receive updates from me during the week as news progresses.

I sincerely hope that all of us together can persuade at least 40 reasonable Democrats that there are much better ways to reform health care than this monstrosity.

Those of you who read this blog, know that I enjoy posting the occasional political cartoon, and I stumbled across this one this week by Walt Handelsman that is particularly appropriate. The scariest goblins this Halloween are government run health care, the national energy tax, and taxes to pay for more bureaucracies that spend more of your money.