Tag Archives: regulation

A Tax YGTBSM

Posted on by
Reply

Senator Orrin Hatch (R, UT), in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last Friday, had this tidbit while writing more generally about the IRS.

Look at the Earned Income Tax Credit.  Whether you like this refundable credit or not, the Treasury Department’s inspector general for tax administration reported in April that improper payments account for 21% to 25% of total EITC payments in 2012.  Take the percentage of improper EITC payments and apply it to the approximate $1 trillion we’ll spend on ObamaCare premium credits in the decade beginning 2014.

And on funding for a program the IRS is supposed to administer, he added this:

already soaring budget for the [Obamacare] premium subsidies….

I’ve asked Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to explain the massive jump in costs for premium subsidies.  The projected figure for subsidy expenditures has gone from nearly $16 billion in the president’s 2012 budget up to nearly $22 billion in his 2014 budget.

The IRS is not capable of handling its own business.  How is going to be able to handle any other business?

It Doesn’t Get Much More Naked Than This

Posted on by
Reply

Recall Connecticut’s recently passed extensive gun ban law, a bill passed in the emotional aftermath of the Newtown shootings.  Essentially, it banned firearms the State’s government has defined as “assault” weapons.

Last Monday, the legislature “tweaked” that bill to “clear up confusion;” Governor Dannel Malloy (D) is expected to sign it.  One of the tweaks cleared up confusion surrounding the legal possession of these weapons that had been on order before the original legislation was signed into law but not received until after enactment.  Such firearms can now be legally possessed.

It’s another tweak that’s of interest here, though: this one expanded the list of those who can legally acquire these “assault” weapons, now that the gun ban law has been enacted:

  • sworn and certified officers at the department of motor vehicles
  • the chief state’s attorney office
  • the department of energy and environmental protection
  • some constables with police certification

Additionally, the tweak

  • exempts [the above] officers from the certificate requirement for long gun ownership
  • allows them to [retain their “assault”] weapons and large capacity magazines after their service ends by registering them.

Notice that: the citizenry are being denied the ability to possess weapons adequate for their own purposes (an inalienable right and a right acknowledged by the 2nd Amendment), but a broadened list of government officials is granted the ability to possess “assault” weapons.

State Senator Joe Markley (R) is on the right track, but he was a lone voice in the Connecticut wilderness:

I think if we acknowledge that we are putting law enforcement officers at risk by limiting their ability to defend themselves [thus, the allowed expansion of weapons possessions], I think we have to acknowledge that we’re putting homeowners at risk by limiting their ability to defend themselves.

Now why would a government seek to disarm the citizenry while expanding its own arsenal?

Hmm….

Some Just Can’t Be Helped

Posted on by
Reply

California is on the verge of a new gold rush. Expanded hydraulic fracturing—or “fracking”—at the Monterey Shale formation is sparking estimates that 15 billion barrels of oil could be accessed, along with millions of jobs and huge contributions to the domestic energy supply.

Even the state’s green-friendly Democratic governor, Jerry Brown, says “the potential is extraordinary.”

But standing in the way is a flurry of anti-fracking bills.  At last count, 10 were on the table, all introduced by Democrats seeking tighter controls over the controversial technology.

Never mind that there’s nothing controversial about fracking, except in the minds of “journalists” looking to peddle their stories and in the minds of “environmentalists” who would rather trash our economy—and so our environment—than do anything serious vis-à-vis our environment, or our economy.

Indeed, as Tupper Hull, Vice President of Strategic Communications with the Western States Petroleum Association notes,

Why would you want to curtail energy production, with a technology that has proved to be safe, and (deny) the folks in the regions of the state where those benefits are going to accrue?  That just doesn’t make any sense[.]

Aside from the general stupidity of this, my concern is that when California goes bust, they’ll come a-runnin’, demanding help, trying to con the Federal government into bailing them out.  With the tax dollars paid by the citizens of functionally bankrupt Illinois, paid by the citizens of nearly bankrupt New York, paid by the citizens of fiscally responsible Texas, paid by the citizens of….

Obamacare Fail

Posted on by
Reply

…again.

Employers are increasingly recognizing they may be able to avoid certain penalties under the federal health law by offering very limited plans that can lack key benefits such as hospital coverage.

Benefits advisers and insurance brokers—bucking a commonly held expectation that the law would broadly enrich benefits—are pitching these low-benefit plans around the country.

This, of course, is backwards.  The coverages here should be paid out of pocket.  The better policy would cover only catastrophic events—like hospitalization.

Then there’s this:

[E]mployers and benefits experts have understood the rules to require robust insurance, covering a list of “essential” benefits such as mental-health services and a high percentage of workers’ overall costs….

But a close reading of the rules makes it clear that those mandates affect only plans sponsored by insurers that are sold to small businesses and individuals, federal officials confirm.

The money-saving bare bones policies are only available to large companies.  The jobs producers remain stuck with the expensive, overwrought mandated policies that they cannot afford.  Nor can they afford the penalties Obamacare exacts for not affording them.

And this from Kansas Insurance Department Special Counsel Linda Sheppard:

The whole idea is to get healthy people in and not-so-healthy people in.

Never mind that healthy people don’t need to be in, since they don’t need the coverage, and so they shouldn’t be being forced in.

Progress

Posted on by
Reply

Recall that the DC Circuit had struck down President Barack Obama’s “appointment” of three of his folks to the NLRB, ruling in blunt terms that these appointments were unconstitutional since they had been made while the Senate was in session.

Now the 3rd Appellate Circuit, centering its opinion on the “appointment” of Craig Becker in March 2010, has expanded on that for its area of jurisdiction (Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania), ruling that rulings made by this unconstitutionally constituted board were without effect since the NLRB, lacking a quorum, had no capacity for issuing its rulings.  The 3rd Circuit’s ruling says in part

We hold that the “the Recess of the Senate,” in the Recess Appointments Clause refers to only intersession breaks.  As a consequence, we conclude that the National Labor Relations Board panel below lacked the requisite number of members [three] to exercise the Board’s authority.

The narrow outcome of the ruling is this:

…a disputed union election that occurred at a New Jersey nursing home.  The NLRB denied the nursing home’s motion that the board illegitimately forced the company to recognize unionized managers.  The Appeals Court ruled that the board did not have the authority to dismiss the motion because of the recess appointments.

The broader outcome of the ruling is to invalidate over 900 rulings issued by the NLRB while it had no quorum with which to do so, including more than 200 since the board’s current makeup was ruled unconstitutional by the DC Circuit, which has national jurisdiction in such matters.

This can have only salutary effects for our country.