Tag Archives: Democrat Party

News

Debt has increased 5 trillion since Pelosi became Speaker of the House

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Nancy Pelosi becomes House Speaker in Jan 2007
Nancy Pelosi becomes House Speaker in Jan 2007

Debt has increased 5 trillion since Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the House in January 2007.

Excerpt:

When Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) gave her inaugural address as speaker of the House in 2007, she vowed there would be “no new deficit spending.” Since that day, the national debt has increased by $5 trillion, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

“After years of historic deficits, this 110th Congress will commit itself to a higher standard: Pay as you go, no new deficit spending,” Pelosi said in her speech from the speaker’s podium. “Our new America will provide unlimited opportunity for future generations, not burden them with mountains of debt.”

Pelosi has served as speaker in the 110th and 111th Congresses.

At the close of business on Jan. 4, 2007, Pelosi’s first day as speaker, the national debt was $8,670,596,242,973.04 (8.67 trillion), according to the Bureau of the Public Debt, a division of the U.S. Treasury Department.  At the close of business on Oct. 22, it stood at $13,667,983,325,978.31 (13.67 trillion), an increase of 4,997,387,083,005.27 (or approximately $5 trillion).

Pelosi, the 60th speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has added more to the national debt than the first 57 House speakers combined.

The $4.997-trillion increase in the national debt since she took the gavel is more debt than the federal government amassed from the speakership of Rep. Frederick Muhlenberg of Pennsylvania, who became the first speaker of the House on April 1, 1789, to the start of the speakership of Rep. Newt Gingrich of Georgia, the 58th speaker, who took up the gavel on Jan. 4, 1995.

The national debt first topped $5 trillion on Feb. 23, 1996, more than a year into Gingrich’s speakership.

FIVE TRILLION since January 2007.

UPDATE: More from Hans Bader at the Competitive Enterprise Institute on the unemployment rate.

Excerpt:

As noted earlier, the stimulus package contained wasteful “green jobs” funding, 79 percent of which went to foreign firms, effectively sending American jobs overseas.  A recent biofuel program actually wiped out jobs rather than creating them as intended, while costing taxpayers a lot of money.  New EPA rules are expected to wipe out at least 800,000 jobs, and the EPA is considering new ozone rules that could wipe out 7.3 million jobs. The stimulus package contained provisions that wiped out thousands of jobs in America’s export sector.  New laws backed by Obama, and Obama Administration regulations governing employers, have discouraged employers from hiring new employees.

Businesses understand that more spending means inflation or taxes or both – so they stop hiring and stop expanding.

News

Democrats deliver ballots to inmates, but miss deadline to mail them to troops

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Hans Bader writes about how Democrats delivered ballots to prison inmates but delayed the mailing of ballots to troops. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Democratic officials in Illinois missed the deadline to mail ballots to our troops overseas, but they hand-delivered ballots to inmates, without even waiting for inmates to apply. Perhaps this discrimination can be explained by the fact that inmates vote mostly for Democrats, while soldiers vote predominantly for Republicans.

There are federal laws requiring states to send ballots in a timely fashion to troops overseas, but the Obama Administration is not enforcing them, as part of its ongoing politicization of the Justice Department (such as rubberstamping unconstitutional legislative proposals, and downplaying voter intimidation by liberal activists, while investigating Tea Party pollwatchers who uncovered rampant voter registration fraud in Houston).

Democrats are the part of criminals, and Republicans are the party of heroes.

News

New study finds that Obamacare subsidies cost 578% more than CBO estimates

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Verum Serum writes about a new Lewin Group study on the cost of Obamacare health care subsidies. (H/T Health Care BS via ECM)

Excerpt:

A new study by the Lewin Group estimates that 28.6 million Americans will be eligible for a federal subsidy to purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 at a projected cost to tax payers in excess of $110 billion. This estimate is dramatically higher (578%) than the cost of these subsidies forecast by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prior to the bill’s enactment into law. If the new estimate is correct, it would mean that instead of lowering the deficit by $143 billion over ten years—a claim widely touted by proponents of the law— the legislation would begin adding to the deficit as early as 2015, only one year after major provisions of the law go into effect.

A central component of the Patient Protection and Affordability Act is the establishment of health insurance exchanges starting in 2014, enabling individuals and families with incomes up to 400% of the federal poverty level who do not have insurance to purchase federally subsidized coverage. The CBO’s final analysis of the bill enacted into law projected that only 7 million Americans would begin receiving these subsidies in 2014 at a total budgetary cost of $19 billion. This figure is $91 billion lower than the amount estimated by the Lewin Group.

The Lewin Group study was commissioned by Families USA, a healthcare reform advocacy group based out of Washington D.C. which is closely allied with the White House and leading Democrats in Congress. Then Senator Obama was a keynote speaker at their annual Health Action conference in 2005 and 2007, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opened the 2008 event. Other leading Democrats who have participated at Families USA events in recent years include Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Ted Kennedy.

[…]The CBO’s projection that the healthcare reform bill would reduce the deficit by an estimated $143 billion over 10 years was a critical factor in the enactment of the bill. Democrats lost their super-majority in the Senate in January 2010 when Scott Brown was elected in Massachusetts, and ultimately passed the bill in March only through the use of procedural tactics, and without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate.

The claim that the bill will reduce the deficit continues to be a leading selling point for proponents of reform. Just last month Families USA repeated this claim in a press release criticizing opponents of the legislation. But if the latest Lewin Group estimate is correct the initial 10-year cost of the bill will be significantly higher than what was forecast by the CBO, and would begin adding to the federal deficit as early as 2015.

So, this is a study commissioned by a left-wing group that did not find what they set out to find. I’m sure you will be hearing more about this study this week, but this finding will probably not be featured.