Health bill may impose 'marriage penalty'

More ramifications than just health care?

Both the House and Senate plans have higher premium caps for a married couple than an unmarried pair making the same money.

By The Wall Street Journal
Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together if the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress is passed.

The built-in "marriage penalty" in both House and Senate versions of the health care bill has received scant attention. But for scores of low- and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say "I do."

The disparity could come about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from House Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. That would have the effect of limiting subsidies for married couples with a combined income, compared with if the individuals were single.

People who got their health insurance through an employer wouldn't be affected, but people who bought subsidized insurance through new exchanges set up by the legislation would. About 17 million people would receive such subsidies in 2016 under the House plan, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.

The legislation would cap the annual amount people making less than 400% of the federal poverty level must pay for health insurance premiums, ranging from 1.5% of income for the poorest to 11% at the top end, under the House plan.

Read more at http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Insurance/InsureYourHealth/health-bill-may-impose-marriage-penalty.aspx?GT1=33004

Supreme Court Drop-Kicks McCain/Feingold, Scores Victory for 1st Amendment. Obama preparing ‘Forceful Response’

http://bigjournalism.com/fross/2010/01/21/supreme-court-drop-kicks-mccainfeingold-scores-victory-for-1st-amendment/

Fans of the First Amendment can rejoice.  In a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court today struck down large portions of the abomination known as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law, especially those aspects of the law that imposed restrictions on corporate spending on political issues.

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Sweeping aside a century-old understanding and overruling two important precedents, a bitterly divided Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections.

The ruling was a vindication, the majority said, of the First Amendment's most basic free speech principle — that the government has no business regulating political speech. The dissenters said allowing corporate money to flood the political marketplace will corrupt democracy.

"If the First Amendment has any force," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority, which included the four members of its conservative wing, "it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech."

The case arose over the documentary, Hillary: The Movie, produced by David Bossie and directed by Alan Peterson, which a lower court had ruled violated provisions of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, better know as McCain-Feingold against corporate political involvement.  From the Citizens United website:

BREAKING NEWS: Supreme Court rules in part in our favor 5-4!

Ruling: Reversed in part, affirmed in part, and remanded. Austin v. Mich is overruled, as is part of McConnell v. FEC. Stevens, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Breyer dissent. The majority opinion by Justice Kennedy is 57 pages, and Justice Stevens' partial dissent is 90 pages long.

Supreme Court Reverses Limits on Campaign Spending

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703699204575016942930090152.html?mod=rss_Today%27s_Most_Popular

By JESS BRAVIN

Bloomberg

The U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.

WASHINGTON—A divided Supreme Court struck down limits on corporate political spending, overturning two precedents in a ruling likely to affect campaigning in the 2010 elections.

President Barack Obama called the decision a victory for big oil, Wall Street and other interests, and said he would work with lawmakers to craft a "forceful response."

The ruling underscored the impact of former President George W. Bush's two appointments to the court. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito joined the five-justice majority in ruling that a central provision of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign-finance act violated the First Amendment by restricting corporations from funding political messages in the run-up to elections.

"The government may regulate corporate political speech through disclaimer and disclosure requirements, but it may not suppress that speech altogether," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in a 57-page opinion.

More

• Full Text: Citizens United v. FEC
• Ruling Opens Door to More Political Groups
• Law Blog: Gauging Impact on 2010
• Law Blog: Reaction Roundup

The McCain-Feingold law aimed to rein in independent campaign spending by corporations and unions—that is, advertisements that the corporations or unions buy on their own to advocate for or against a candidate.

McCain-Feingold required that they channel their campaign spending by creating a special fund, known as a political action committee, which can accept donations from employees, shareholders and other affiliates. Advocates argued that the law was a valid way to prevent special-interest funds from distorting elections.

But Justice Kennedy wrote that the effort to divide corporate political spending into legal and illegal forms chilled political speech. "When government seeks to use its full power, including the criminal law, to command where a person may get his or her information or what distrusted source he or she may not hear, it uses censorship to control thought," he wrote. "This is unlawful."

Federal law has long barred corporations from contributing directly to federal political candidates, and Thursday's ruling keeps that restriction in place.

The decision voids a key provision of the signature legislative achievement of Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee who worked with Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to draft the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 that informally carries their names.

Justice John Paul Stevens—part of the majority in the two opinions that were overruled—led the court's four liberals in a dissent that stretched to 90 pages.

He called the majority opinion "a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have…fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt." Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent.

Mr. Obama, in a statement Thursday, said: "The Supreme Court has given a green light to a new stampede of special interest money in our politics. This ruling gives the special interests and their lobbyists even more power in Washington, while undermining the influence of average Americans who make small contributions to support their preferred candidates."

The case before the court, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, originated in a 2008 feature-length movie critical of then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group, wanted to promote the film, but the election commission called it an "electioneering communication" subject to McCain-Feingold restrictions.

While nonprofits can be exempt from campaign-finance regulations if they limit their fund-raising to donations from individuals, Citizens United fell under McCain-Feingold because it accepted business contributions. Many nonprofit advocacy groups that have corporate form are also affected by Thursday's ruling, as well as labor unions and for-profit corporations.

A lawyer for Citizens United, Theodore Olson, said, "The vast majority of corporations are either nonprofit advocacy groups--like Citizens United--or small businesses." The ruling, he said, "enables individuals of limited means to band together to counterbalance the political speech of the super-rich."

In 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the provision that was struck down Thursday, in a 5-4 decision that, in turn, relied on a 6-3 opinion written in 1990 by Justice Thurgood Marshall upholding a similar state campaign law.

Justice Kennedy dissented from the 1990 decision, and his opinion Thursday overruling it vindicated the position he took then. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who also dissented in 1990, had changed her view by 2003 and joined the majority to uphold the McCain-Feingold provision. Her successor was Justice Alito, who provided the fifth conservative vote to make Thursday's majority.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats called for legislation to reinstate the ban on direct campaign spending by corporations, or at least to modify it in a way that would better withstand a constitutional challenge.

"This will allow the biggest corporations in the United States to engage in the buying and selling of elections," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.), who is in charge of the party's efforts to get Democrats elected in the House.

"This is poisonous to our democracy," said Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.). Mr. Schumer said the Senate Rules Committee, of which he is chairman, will hold hearings in the next several weeks aimed at crafting legislation to respond to the ruling. He said he hoped to have a law in place in time for congressional elections this November.

Although the Supreme Court broke along familiar philosophical lines, the case itself scrambled the ideological deck. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO both urged the court to strike down the provision, as did the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Rifle Association. Sen. McCain and the Democratic National Committee both argued for the law's constitutionality.

The ruling not only strikes down the federal requirement, it also calls into question similar provisions enacted by nearly half the states. Montana, which adopted restrictions on corporate electioneering a century ago, filed a brief on behalf of more than two dozen states seeking to protect their own power to regulate campaign finance.

The court reached broad agreement on one lesser point, finding that the McCain-Feingold provision requiring political messages to disclose their funder was constitutional. Only Justice Clarence Thomas dissented from that holding. He cited reports that backers of a 2008 California measure abolishing same-sex marriage, Proposition 8, were harassed by their opponents.

—Martin Vaughan and Henry J. Pulizzi contributed to this article.

Write to Jess Bravin at jess.bravin@wsj.com

Hong Kong remains world's freest economy: report

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.819c032ec56dfea2daa7f7b7b1448fb8.671&show_article=1

Hong Kong remains the world's freest place to do business while the United States has lost its claim to an unrestricted economy, according to an annual report published Wednesday.

Hong Kong, a former British colony which was returned to China in 1997, edged out rival Singapore to claim top spot for the sixteenth consecutive year in the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom.

Australia and New Zealand grabbed third and fourth spot respectively.

The report is compiled by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative Washington-based think tank, and The Wall Street Journal.

Ireland, Switzerland, Canada, the United States, Denmark and Chile rounded out the top ten list, which is based on criteria including economic openness, trade, the efficiency of domestic regulators, and the rule of law.

But Canada pushed the US from the top seven economies deemed to have an entirely free economy due to "notable decreases in financial freedom, monetary freedom, and property rights," the report said.

"The US government?s interventionist responses to the financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 have significantly undermined economic freedom and long-term prospects for economic growth," the report said.

Mainland China was ranked 140 in the list of 183 countries with Cuba, Zimbabwe and North Korea rounding out the bottom of the list.

Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium

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Obama to Nationalize Student Lending with Pending Budget Bill

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/60074

Obama to Nationalize Student Lending with Pending Budget Bill
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
By Matt Cover, Staff Writer

President Barack Obama speaks at the 'Let Freedom Ring' concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Monday, Jan. 18, 2010. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

(CNSNews.com) – A bill currently before the Senate would empower the Obama administration to nationalize the student lending industry, eliminating the federally subsidized private loans millions of university students rely on to finance their educations.
 
The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act – currently being considered by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee – would eliminate the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program. FFEL loans are federally subsidized and make up approximately 80 percent of the student lending industry.
 
According to the Department of Education, 14.3 million of the 17.5 million student loans were federally subsidized for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. Under Obama's plan, the government would consume the entirety of this industry – a total of $103 billion in 2009-2010.
 
Under the current system, the federal government subsidizes private financial institutions in order to entice those institutions to provide low-interest loans to students.
 
Under this arrangement the government sets the interest rates lenders may charge students. In return, the government reimburses lenders if market interest rates rise above the interest rates on the loans – in essence, the government reimburses private lenders if they begin losing money on the loans.
 
In return, the lenders agree to return any windfall profits made from the loans to the government. In other words, if market interest rates fall below the interest rates of the loans, the lenders pay the government the difference.
 
The government also agrees to reimburse the lenders should a student default.
 
Under the system proposed by Obama, the government would cut private lenders out of the picture entirely, setting the interest rates and collecting payments directly for all student lending.
 
Whether or not the government saw a profit or a loss from the new, federal loans would depend on the rate at which the government borrows money. For instance, the law currently sets the interest rate for direct loans at a maximum of 6.8 percent.
 
Under Obama's proposal, if the government can borrow money at a rate lower than 6.8 percent, it would realize the difference as profit. If the government's borrowing rate were to fall in the future, its profit on student loans would grow.
 
The idea to nationalize student lending was first put forth in President Obama's fiscal-year 2010 budget and marketed as a way to save the government billions of dollars. According to a CBO estimate, the proposal would save the government $87 billion over 10 years.
 
The savings estimate results from the fact that the government believes it will collect more in interest payments from students than it would otherwise have to pay in fees to lenders.
 
The plan has met Republican opposition, passing the House on a party-line vote in September – 253-171 – and has stalled in the Senate, where HELP Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) has said he plans to pass the measure using budget reconciliation.
 
"We've already been instructed by the Budget Committee to do this, so we're going to do it," Harkin told The Hill Oct. 19 when asked about using the controversial budget maneuver. Reconciliation allows budget-related items to be passed with a 51-vote majority, eliminating the threat of a filibuster.
 
The government's savings estimates have also come into question. In a July 27 letter to Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the Congressional Budget Office admitted that its original figure of $87 billion in savings over 10 years did not include an estimate of losses the government would incur from defaults. When that risk was added in, the estimated savings dropped to $47 billion.
 
The original estimate "does not include the cost to the government stemming from the risk that cash flows may be less than the amount projected (that is, that defaults could be higher than projected).
 
CBO found that after accounting for the cost of such risk, as discussed below, the proposal to replace new guaranteed [subsidized] loans with direct loans would lead to estimated savings of about $47 billion over the 2010-2019 period," CBO reported.
 
The plan's fate, however, is determined largely by Obama's other major initiative – health care reform. Because reconciliation may only be used on one bill per year, Democrats must wait to see if it is needed to pass health care reform. If it is, they will have to combine both the student loan and health care proposals into one bill before using reconciliation to bypass an inevitable Republican filibuster.

VIDEO: Barney Frank calls for changing rules of senate...

http://www.breitbart.tv/barney-frank-god-didnt-create-the-filibuster/ Barney Frank: 'God Didn't Create the Filibuster'
"We have a serious constitutional problem."

Uniform opposition to health care bill

http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2010/01/uniform-opposition-to-health-care-bill.html

1/18/2010

Uniform opposition to health care bill

It is astounding how essentially all the states oppose the health care takeover.

In a poll of 1,231 likely Massachusetts voters conducted this weekend, Public Policy Polling found that voters' stance on the health overhaul strongly lined up with which candidate they back. Among those who support the legislation, Ms. Coakley led 92% to 5%. Among those who oppose the legislation, Mr. Brown led 95% to 4%.

Mr. Jensen, the Democratic pollster, said that his outlet has polled voters in about 25 states on the health overhaul since July. While a small plurality of voters in Maine and Connecticut backed the health overhaul at times, no state poll has ever shown that a majority of voters support the effort. Independents in particular have turned against the idea. . . .