What are The Federal Budget Giants?

What are the giant programs in the US Federal Budget? As promised in my last Blog, I break down OMB’s budget Functions within the Human Resources Superfunction in this Blog. The largest Function is clearly Social Security, exceeding $1T/year starting in 2017. By Comparison, the National Defense Superfunction is only $578B in 2017.

US Federal Budget - Social Security dwarfs the rest of the Functions including National Defense!

US Federal Budget – Social Security dwarfs the rest of the Functions including National Defense!

Note the distinct drop in spending in some of the Functions in (Income Security, Health, Education, Training, Employment and Social Services) after 2010. These Functions are within the Discretionary portions of the Federal Budget and were curtailed as a result of the GOP taking the House in the 2010 midterms. Social Security is within the Non-Discretionary part of the budget and was untouched.

Also note that the Health Function rapidly grew again despite initial reductions. This was due to paying for Obamacare, which was wrongly named the “Affordable Care Act”.

One Promise That President Obama Did Keep

President Obama made, and broke many promises to the American People. Most notably that “If you like your plan you can keep your plan”, but there is one promise that he did keep. Obama and the Democrat Party campaigned in 2007 on the promise of fundamentally transforming America.

A recent Bureau of Labor and Statistics (BLS) paper shows measurable evidence of one tragic impact that promise is taking. Vernon Brundage produced several charts in his paper titled “Trends in unemployment and other labor market difficulties”.

Two of those charts, below, clearly show the fundamental damage being caused by Democrat policies. Both charts show US economic statistics dating back to 1994. They also both show how historic trends changed after President Obama was sworn in back in January 2009. More precisely, both charts clearly prove that part time unemployment began to grow as a percentage of U6* in early 2010. Something else also happened in early 2010.

Unemployed 15 Weeks or Longer (U1) now equals Job Losers and people who completed temporary jobs (U2). This "Fundamental Change" corresponds with the passage of Obamacare.

Unemployed 15 Weeks or Longer (U1) now equals Job Losers and people who completed temporary jobs (U2). This “Fundamental Change” corresponds with the passage of Obamacare.

The “Affordable” Care Act, a.k.a. “Obamacare” was signed into law on 23 March, 2010. Many of us argued that one of the law’s expected impacts would be to increase part time employment, as it encouraged employers to avoid the Obamacareby reducing their worker’s hours below 30 hours per week. The second chart, below, clearly proves that part time employment, light blue, did not decrease with improving unemployment rates, which violates historic trends. The fundamentals of the economy were changed, and widening part time employment is here to stay.

Components of U-6 Unemployment Measure Prove Part Time Work Is Growing As Democrat Party "Fundamental Change" Takes Root

Components of U-6 Unemployment Measure Prove Part Time Work Is Growing As Democrat Party “Fundamental Change” Takes Root

This third chart adds another dimension to the second chart. It also plots Part Time For Economic Workers, in yellow, as a % of total Unemployment. The part time component of our economy is growing as Obama care gets implemented.

% Part Time Workers (Involuntary) for Economic Reasons Greatly Increased After Obama care's Passage

% Part Time Workers (Involuntary) for Economic Reasons Greatly Increased After Obama care’s Passage

Thanks to the BLS for the proof of President Obama and Progressive Democrat’s Fundamental Transformation in action, no surprise that it’s bad for Americans and bad for America.

*U-6: Total number of people who are unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.

Obamacare – Exploding Costs, Crashing Results

The Changing Face of Obamacare Costs, and Failing Promise of #s Insured

The Changing Face of Obamacare Costs, and Failing Promise of #s Insured

A recent weekly standard blogpointed out Obamacare’s exploding cost estimates, see blue bars in the chart, contrasted with the crashing estimate of numbers of Americans who will get insured, shown by the dropping red line. From CBO’s March 2010 estimate, Obamacare costs to taxpayers have more than doubled, to over $2 Trillion over the first decade.

Those cost estimates would surely keep climbing, but the CBO announced after its last assessment in Feb 14, that President Obama made so many unilateral changes to the law that it can no longer score the ACA’s costs. This certainly helps the Administration, since it keeps the severely troubled law out of the news, but stymies the American people, who deserve to know the truth about what their taxes are paying for.

So many problems have been reported on, but the end result, if we don’t repeal Obamacare entirely, is declining health care for all of us, along the path of the chart’s red line and the appalling treatment veterans receive through the VA. What’s the solution once we pull the plug on Obamacare, and it flat lines? Many solid solutions exist, but Dr. Ben Carson endorsed a program that looks very promising. Obamacare didn’t have any brain surgeons involved in it’s creation, but thankfully, Dr. Carson’s plan does. It consists of 5 parts, as explained here.

Latest Obama Care Bad News:

Do No Harm!

America's Obamacare Future

America’s Obamacare Future

I’ve written blogs that discuss Obamacare, and recently talked about the Republican need to change the discussion away from the ridiculous metric of how many people are signed up to one of “how many have been or will be harmed”.

Another element of this refocused message involves a very simple principle premise: “do no harm”.  No legislation should have harming a certain portion of the American population in order to “benefit” another as its founding principle.  (My previous blog showed that any “benefit” is short lived at best).  Obamacare, by its very design, is meant to harm a significant portion of the country before it ever begins to “help” anybody else.

President Obama is now telling Republicans to get over it and accept the ACA scheme, and it should be called a scheme.  The GOP must up the ante and continue the attack on Obamacare by changing the debate away from a rigged enrollment discussion to one of harm.  The law should “do no harm”.  The trade-off between harming some Americans to provide minimal short-term support to another is morally bankrupt.  In the end, this law will harm all Americans if it is not repealed.

“Do no harm” should be the rallying call of Republicans, and doing harm is precisely what Obama care is and will continue to doing until the democrats replace it with socialized medicine.

315 Million Americans Hurt Or Will Be Hurt

rp_01311102558_earnincomefromhome.jpgIn my last blog I went through a progressive’s assessment of Obama care and laid out the logic that they would use to attack the credibility of 7 million enrollees had Republicans been the ones so foolishly passed Obamacare.  In this blog want to take another angle and argue that perhaps the number should be even larger and in fact include the entire population of the United States.  The number should really be 315 million Americans hurt or who will be hurt by Obamacare.  Let’s walk down the path of how we get there.

First off are Americans who lost their insurance (some while they were receiving chemotherapy) or who will lose their insurance or have it dramatically altered as a result of the “Affordable” Care Act, or have their rates increased.  Next we have Americans who were promised by the president and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid and the rest of the Democrats who passed this bill that if they liked their doctor they could keep their doctor.  Others will be impacted because they can no longer go to the hospital of their choice.  A much larger number will be Americans who don’t get the quality treatment that they would have received had Obama care not been passed.

I encourage you to watch this attached video of noted author Trevor Loudon speaking on the implications of government run healthcare in his country of New Zealand.  All Americans should heed his warning.  Click Here!

In many cases this quality treatment will result in, as Pres. Obama said, telling someone who otherwise could’ve been helped that it’s too expensive and they should just take a pain pill.  This is the dreaded “death panel” aspect of Obama care were government bureaucrats will decide what’s best for you, your spouse, your children, and your grandchildren.  Every American will be hurt by the loss of liberty, and freedom of choice to make their own health decisions.

If the law somehow managed to avoid hurting every American by now, we need to account for the American taxpayer.  This monstrosity of a law consumes 1/5 of the US economy and drains $200 billion per year out of our pockets.  It’s likely that the costs will be far more. Sooner, rather than later, America’s enormous debt burden roosters, amplified by this unaffordable program, will come home to roost.

Yes, the real number is 315 Million.  Stop talking about 7 Million, it’s a sham, and plays into the progressive strategy.  Change the debate and talk about those hurt or who are going to be hurt by Obamacare.  Force the discussion beyond the superficial to the real measures of failure.

Update:

– Watch out for electronic medical record theft

Obamacare A Success? Alas, Not Even Close!

medicine_and_StethoscopeThe mainstream media is abuzz with the latest Obama care enrollment numbers as the last “official” enrollment day comes to a close. The administration touts that over 6 million people have now enrolled in Obama care and as a result the program is a success and should be claimed such by everyone involved, especially Democrats running for reelection. An interesting thought occurred to me as I listened to these numbers.

If the ACA shoe were on the other foot, what would the Democrats be saying was the real result of the healthcare law? We’ve been treated to so much deception regarding the number of “jobs saved or created” by Obama’s stimulus, unemployment figures, annual deficits and the national debt for instance that democrats would surely use more creative math to counter the 6 million figure. I suspect that they would argue the following.

The number of enrollees is only a very superficial measure to grade its success. Sadly this law was doomed from the beginning and its disastrous implementation has only been kerosene thrown onto a fire.

Note: Many people actually predicted that this would happen, but none of them were democrats.

Here’s the reality of that 6 million number and what’s missing in all the discussion, Democrats would say. Nearly 6 million people lost their insurance policies immediately after Obamacare was implemented. By those figures if we were to use Democrat math we have a net zero sign-up they would argue. The cost to sign up ZERO net people is $2 trillion across 10 years, or $200 billion each year. Democrats would say that some of those people who signed up are likely illegal aliens who are not eligible to sign up. In fact the administration has actively recruited the illegal alien population to sign up in order to bolster the numbers. They should be subtracted, and dis-enrolled we would be told! They’d also say that of the 6 million enrollees at least 20% have not paid. Subtracting that number out and we have a net of 1.2 million people who’ve lost their insurance.

Now here’s where the Democrats would focus the fight. They’d say “All of the experts report that there’s an eventual 100 million people who have yet to be impacted by this law because of the delays enacted by the President.”

Note: These delays were of course made by President Obama to protect democrats up for reelection. Many argue that he had no constitutional authority to do so.

Sorry for stating the obvious; now back to what the democrats would argue. Of those 100 million people who get their insurance through their employers, impacts will range from changes to their plans and providers to outright insurance cancellation. We must account for them and using democratic math, the real impact is a net loss of over 101 million people signed up for insurance or able to keep their policies. This is not quite the success story that the White House is touting, nor does it solve the problem of the 30 million uninsured that we were told was the reason to pass Obamacare in the first place.

Yes, they would say, the number that matters is 100 million Americans hurt by the ACA. Repeal the law and do the fair thing for the American people. If the situation was reversed, the Democrats would be right, just as Republicans are right to make, and keep making these points. Obamacare needs to be repealed, before it’s too late.

The Needs of the Progressive

Inside the Flame Nebula - NASA Image, May 7, 2014

Inside the Flame Nebula – NASA Image, May 7, 2014

An iconic line from Star Trek is the philosophy of the Vulcan People:

“The Needs of the Many, Outweigh the Needs of the Few, or the One”.

Most famously spoken by Spock as the reason that he gave up his life to save the Enterprise and her crew in “The Wrath of Khan”.

The Progressive philosophy in America turns this philosophy on its head:

“The needs of the Progressive Agenda outweigh the needs of the many, few or one”.

Recent American history is full of examples where a few progressives enact their agenda over the objections of the American People.

  • We were all told that 30 Million Americans didn’t have health insurance, so we “needed” Obamacare so that they could get it. But the law is causing between 80 and 120 Million Americans to either lose their health insurance or have it greatly changed. Considering the VA as an example of “Single Payer” a.k.a. socialized medicine, our health care system is being compromised to provide a piece of paper, insurance policy. When that happens, we all lose.
  • Immigration reform, as stated by all of its proponents, is intended to bring approximately 15 million illegal aliens out of the shadows, despite the fact that the majority of Americans don’t want them given amnesty.
  • The holy union of “Marriage”, the foundation of the family, has been redefined to suit the less than 3% of Americans who are gay, despite the 97% of Americans who aren’t. Equal treatment under the law is one discussion, redefinition of marriage is another.
  • Obamacare forces religious organizations to pay for employee contraception and abortions despite them both going against organizational religious beliefs.
  • One person complained about the United States Air Force Academy’s honor code, which included the words “So Help Me God”. Those words were made optional as a result.
  • Secularization of America, despite the deep Christian heritage of America.

The above list is far from complete. From the Progressive’s perspective, only their agenda matters, all else appears expendable.

Update:

NY Senator Chuck Schumer proved the progressive philosophy: “The third-ranking Senate Democrat noted that just about 5 percent of registered voters in the United States lacked health insurance before the implementation of the law, arguing that to focus on a problem affecting such “a small percentage of the electoral made no political sense.”