FatherGarage.com

(Harry Hamburg – AP)

“This is a very special month for us because one year ago we passed the historic Affordable Health Care Act, which has made a difference in the lives of the American people.”

— House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)

House Democrats held a birthday party last week for passage of the health-care law. Just as we looked at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s floor speech noting the milestone, we will now examine some of the claims made by Democrats.

McConnell framed his speech in negative terms, citing data to back up his language. Both Democrats and Republicans can pick and choose numbers and studies to make their case, but we found that generally McConnell did not exaggerate or use bogus figures. In fact, he correctly described a Congressional Budget Office analysis suggesting a potential reduction in employment of 800,000 jobs (technically, one-half of 1 percent of household employment in 2021) that other Republicans have misrepresented.

By contrast, House Democrats appear to show little hesitation about repeating claims that previously have found to be false or exaggerated. So let’s take a tour through the numbers.

“It’s about jobs. Does it create jobs? Health insurance reform creates 4 million jobs, and in the last 12 months the private sector has added 1.5 million new jobs, and of that a quarter of a million were in the health insurance industry.”

— Pelosi

Here, Pelosi is repeating a talking point from the health-care debate. The 4 million figure comes from a report by the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning group, which estimated that universal health care would add 250,000 to 400,000 jobs a year. Pelosi took the top end of the range and then multiplied it by 10, a numerical sleight-of-hand that Polifact last year labeled “half true.”

A Pelosi spokesman noted she has been using this statistic for 14 months now, but we frown on the reuse of statistics previously found to be suspect.

In this case, since the bill has passed, the Congressional Budget Office has done its own analysis (the one McConnell cited) that cast some doubt on the CAP analysis, written before the bill was passed into law. Presumably, members of Congress should pay more attention to estimates by their own budget agency than think tanks that promote their agenda. Repeating this dubious statistic is worth at least a Pinocchio or two. (About our rating scale)

The second half of her statement comes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but it doesn’t really mean anything. Health-care jobs have long been an important part of new private-sector jobs, so 260,000 being created in the last 12 months is not out of the ordinary. For example, BLS figures show that in 2007, there were 381,000 health care jobs created; in 2006, 324,000 jobs; and in 2005, 271,000 jobs. The CAP study was not making any prediction about health-care jobs, but all jobs, so it is unclear what point Pelosi is making with this statistic.

 “It’s about reducing the deficit. Again, it reduces the deficit more than $1 trillion over the life of the bill.”

— Pelosi

This is another bogus statistic for which we have previously awarded three Pinocchios.

The CBO estimated $143 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years in the health-care law, but about $19 billion of it came from unrelated items. As we have noted, the remaining $124 billion was based on a number of assumptions that called that estimate into question.

But Pelosi claims more than $1 trillion in deficit reduction by using a 20-year figure that is particularly absurd.

 As we wrote in January: “There are too many uncertainties to be precise, and the CBO itself merely offered a tentative guess of a “broad range of around one-half percent of GDP,” with significant caveats. Democrats simply took that percentage, multiplied it against the predicted size of the GDP 20 years from now (itself a pretty fuzzy figure) and, presto, they had a number. But it’s a fairly meaningless one.”

 “In fact, when you look at the percentage of employers with 10 employees or less that offer health care, it rose from 46 percent in 2009, and it went up to 59 percent in 2010, at the end of last year, an incredible increase that we have. That shows that it is working.”

— Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Tex.)

Another three-Pinocchio statistic! We also picked this apart in January so we are surprised this golden oldie is still in use by Democrats.

The statistic comes from a Kaiser Family Foundation survey that was largely conducted before the health care bill was passed, so it is pretty irrelevant. Moreover, the study said the main reason for the shift was not because more companies were offering health insurance but because more that did not were going out of business.

 Gary Claxton, the main author of the report, also told us that the data set for small firms — the one Cuellar cited — was too tiny to reach any conclusions.

So, rather than showing that the health care law is “working,” the survey that is the source of this statistic does not show that at all.

 Jose Borjon, a spokesman for Cuellar, said in an e-mail: “Thank you for bringing your January 19, 2011, Washington Post Fact Checker article to our attention.  Congressman Cuellar based his quote from a December 27, 2010, Los Angeles Times story by Noam Levey. Thank you for bringing to light the correct characterization of the Kaiser employer survey. Nevertheless, stories across the country, from North Carolina to Kansas, demonstrate that small businesses are increasingly taking advantage of the small business tax credit to provide health care to their employees.”

The Times article does provide anecdotal evidence that health insurance companies are aggressively marketing a small-business tax credit in the law to sign up new customers. Still, Democrats need to drop this ”fact” from their talking points.

Follow the Fact Checker on Twitter and friend us on Facebook

???initialComments:true! pubdate:03/21/2011 06:00 EDT! commentPeriod:3! commentEndDate:3/24/11 6:0 EDT! currentDate:3/22/11 1:30 EDT! allowComments:true! displayComments:false!

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

In a busy news week, with Japanese radiation, Libyan fighting and Gulf States’ protests dominating the headlines, new factual information delivered during hearings on Capitol Hill often gets lost in the mix.

Tweet

Here is a sampling from Senate and House hearings on elements of the Defense Department’s fiscal 2012 budget:

Eye on Afghanistan: Gen. David Petraeus, appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, said that persistent surveillance of Afghanistan has sharply increased and will continue growing. “We have increased the number of various types of persistent surveillance systems — essentially blimps and towers with optics — from 114 this past August to 184 at the present, with plans for continued increases throughout this year.”

The prime system is the Aerostat, a blimp-like vehicle that is held 1,000 feet in the air by a tether, which also supplies electric power to its cameras and sensors. They are not highly pressurized so bullets won’t immediately shoot them down. They, along with systems based on towers, provide day and night monitoring of a wide area over towns and military bases.

Battling Afghan corruption: Petraeus defended President Hamid Karzai on the subject of Afghan corruption. He said Karzai’s concern with private security contractors was based on ownership “in some cases of former warlords or members of what he — and we — have agreed to call criminal patronage networks. .?.?. Again, these are criminals. They’re breaking the law. They have political protection in some respects. And they’re not just acting as individuals; they are part of networks. ”

Petraeus told the story of the firing in December of former Afghan surgeon general Ahmad Zia Yaftali and three officials from the country’s top medical facility, Dawood National Military Hospital in Kabul. A U.S.-Afghan investigation discovered about $43-million worth of American-supplied drugs for military hospitals were missing, and expensive diagnostic equipment was found in private medical offices.

“When he heard the evidence on his surgeon general, for example, he fired him on the spot,” Petraeus told the senators about Karzai.

Recruiting facts: The Air Force, which has its newly established U.S. Cyber Command, is looking to recruit professionals in this discipline “who do this work on a daily basis but that are willing to serve and share their expertise with the service,” Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz told Congress. One approach: building Air Force Reserve units in Silicon Valley in California and the Northwest, where Microsoft and other Web giants are located.

Military construction excess: A $50-million Navy fitness center and two working dog facilities — at $4.9 million and $3.5 million each — drew the attention of Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services military construction subcommittee. “Those are expensive working dog facilities,” she volunteered, but never pursued them.

“I understand that fitness is a requirement of the job, and we will always need fitness centers for our military,” she said, “but at a time when our nation is facing fiscal cuts, I have trouble seeing how we can justify spending $50 million on a single fitness center and I want to examine that more fully.”

She said she thought “this must be in a very, very difficult part of the world. This must be a fitness center someplace where there is no other access to easy and affordable and accessible PT [physical training] activities.” But her interest increased when she found it was to be built at Naval Base Coronado near San Diego and is to include a $7.5?million swimming pool, a $4?million recreation center for single sailors and a close to $20?million gym facility.

“I’m anxious to hear what we’re replacing and certainly I want our men and women to have the best,” McCaskill said. “But this is the most beautiful place in the world and certainly the outdoors lends itself for exercise almost every day there.”

Jackalyne Pfannenstiel, assistant secretary of the Navy for Energy, Installations and Environment, diplomatically agreed that San Diego was most beautiful and the area lends itself to being outdoors. “But,” she added, “the reason that this facility is at the price that it is, is that it will have something like 80,000 patrons.” She explained San Diego is a major hub for the Navy and Marines, and the expectation is the $50?million building “will be the central facility for that entire area.”

Coronado Naval Base lists on its Web site 12 Navy fitness centers and gyms located throughout the San Diego region, including one, the Admiral J.G. Prout Field House, that has strength and cardiovacular machines, a trained staff and “includes a 50 meter outdoor pool, jacuzzi, an indoor basketball court and locker rooms complete with sauna.”

pincusw@washpost.com

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

House Republicans called an “emergency meeting” last week, suspending the usual procedures to rush an urgent piece of legislation to the floor.

Tweet

Had the new majority finally come up with a job-creation bill? A compromise with Democrats to rein in the deficit?

Not quite. This particular emergency involved the lower end of the FM-radio dial. Republicans, in an urgent budget-cutting maneuver, were voting to cut off funding for National Public Radio. All $5 million of it — or one ten-thousandth of 1 percent of the federal budget.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office ran the numbers and calculated the impact this emergency measure would have on government spending: “No effect.”

Five minutes after acting on this budgetary emergency, House Republicans voted to continue the war in Afghanistan — which costs about $10 billion. Per month. They then flew home for a vacation.

“I wish,” longtime Rep. David Dreier (R-Calif.) said in a moment of candor, “this could have been handled a little differently.”

President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner both say that they want an “adult conversation” about the nation’s problems. But so far the discussion resembles one that might be heard on a school bus.

Democrats would have been in a good position to point out the Republicans’ lack of seriousness, except they were engaged in their own trivial pursuit. On Thursday, the same day the Republicans were doing battle with Diane Rehm, the House was also debating a bill by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) ordering full withdrawal from Afghanistan by year’s end. Kucinich recently established his gravitas by suing the House cafeteria over an olive pit he found in his lunch.

Thanks to Obama’s veto pen, it was clear even before the debate that nothing would come of either proposal. Nor should it have: Neither a vindictive slap at public broadcasting nor a pell-mell pullout from Afghanistan would be good policy — particularly when Americans want action on the economy.

The lack of grown-up behavior is driving Americans to despair. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 26 percent said that they were optimistic about the future when “thinking about our system of government and how well it works.” That’s less than half the level of optimism felt in 1974, during Watergate.

Large majorities scold both parties for refusing to compromise, and two-thirds of Americans grasp what lawmakers on both sides won’t accept: We need both spending cuts and tax increases to solve the fiscal mess. Republicans in particular have seen a swift loss of trust in their ability to handle the deficit and the economy, and little wonder. They won the House majority pledging to deal with jobs and the budget and instead are tackling Planned Parenthood and NPR.

As if providing a soundtrack for the frivolity in the House chamber, Thursday’s proceedings were twice interrupted by the sound of bagpipers performing nearby for St. Patrick’s Day. When one Republican member’s phone played a calypso ring tone, he let it continue until the call went to voice mail.

In the end, the Democrats proved somewhat more adult in restraining impulses. Party leaders opposed Kucinich’s Afghanistan pullout plan as irresponsible, and most Democrats voted against it.

The Republicans, however, were not as easily dissuaded from folly. During the debate over Afghanistan, cost was no object. “War is expensive, and it should not be measured in the cost of money,” said Rep. Ted Poe (R-Tex.). But the 0.0001 percent of the budget going to NPR was a fiscal emergency.

“It’s about saving taxpayer money,” proclaimed Rep. Marsha Blackburn (Tenn.), the Republican floor leader.

But this was undercut by freshman Rep. Rich Nugent (R-Fla.), who argued that “to compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves in is sinful and tyrannical.” Tyrannical? “We are not trying to harm NPR,” he added. “We are actually trying to liberate them from federal tax dollars.”

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), in his speech, complained that NPR’s “programming often veers far from what most Americans would like.” He said NPR was being targeted because it advocates “one ideology.”

And everybody knows what ideology that is. It’s the ideology of Click and Clack, from Car Talk. Rep. Anthony Weiner (N.Y.), a Democratic troublemaker, came to the floor with a poster pleading “Save Click & Clack.”

“The American people are not concerned about jobs and the economy,” Weiner said sardonically. “They’re staring at their radio, saying, ‘Get rid of Click and Clack.’ Finally, my Republican friends are doing it. Kudos to you!”

danamilbank@washpost.com

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Republicans and Democrats don’t see eye-to-eye on most economic issues, but those with a keen ear on Monday may have heard an unusual instance of leaders of both parties echoing each other’s rhetoric.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), who was giving a speech at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution billed as an unveiling of House Republicans’ “pro-growth economic plan,” pushed for the need to encourage American innovation – a point frequently emphasized by congressional Democrats and the White House.

“Americans will out-work, out-hustle and, yes, out-innovate the rest of the world,” Cantor said. (Senate Democrats last month held a press conference in which they, too, called for America to “out-innovate” its competitors.)

But the similarities didn’t stop there. Cantor went on to talk about “winning the future” – employing a signature phrase from President Obama’s State of the Union address earlier this year.

“Winning the future will only be hard if we lose out to the bureaucrats, technocrats and would-be autocrats punishing our progress,” Cantor said. “Fifty years from now, people will look at 2011 as the year we began our comeback or the year that we continued our fallback. Let us resolve to work together to make sure that the future belongs to us.”

New York Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer, meanwhile, issued a pre-buttal of Cantor’s speech in which he slammed Republicans on jobs but interestingly touched on the matter of federal regulation – an issue House Republicans have focused on as part of their “cut-and-grow” agenda.

“Since taking over the House, Republicans have been too busy jamming a far-right social agenda onto the federal budget to bring up a single jobs bill for a vote in the House,” Schumer said in a statement. “They have voted to raise taxes on small businesses and end loan guarantees that provide important access to capital. Each day, House Republicans are proving that too much ideology in government is a burden for U.S. businesses just like too much regulation is.”

As he has previously, Cantor on Monday emphasized the need to promote the success of the private sector by cutting spending and regulation, particularly with regard to so-called “gazelles,” or innovation-based start-ups. He also announced that Republicans will bring to the floor a bill that would reduce the corporate tax rate to 25 percent from its current level of 35 percent, a plan House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) previewed last week in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

Democrats, meanwhile, have argued that government must invest in industry and education in order to promote innovation; they have also highlighted the benefits of regulation and noted that government rules are necessary to protect the public.

Those facts serve as a reminder that, when it comes to achieving the goal of innovation, just as on the issue of job-creation, both parties have markedly different ideas on how to progress – even if their rhetoric occasionally does overlap.

Asked Monday about the choice of “winning the future,” Cantor’s deputy chief of staff, John Murray responded, “Does Obama own that? I don’t think so.”

“Anyway, the president’s rhetoric doesn’t match up with his policies — period,” Murray continued. “Eric believes spending cuts combined with helping lower barriers for America’s innovation-based start-ups — those gazelles — is the central prescription for getting our economy back on track and grow it over the long-term. We’ve got tough choices to make if we’re going to preserve people’s fair shot at earned success.”

Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the idea that government over-regulation can be a burden on business is not an exclusively Republican idea, either; Obama himself called for a review of existing federal regulations earlier this year.

???initialComments:true! pubdate:03/21/2011 18:05 EDT! commentPeriod:3! commentEndDate:3/24/11 6:5 EDT! currentDate:3/22/11 1:49 EDT! allowComments:true! displayComments:false!

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

Jason Pepper, a former meth addict and drug dealer from the heartland, says he got lucky when he was finally arrested. A sympathetic judge gave him a fraction of the prison time he could have received and, more importantly, sent him to a place where he got extensive drug treatment.

Tweet

Then his luck ran out, when appeals courts said his sentence was too lenient. Even though all acknowledged that he had turned his life around, he was sent back to prison.

But perhaps his fortunes have turned again. The Supreme Court plucked his petition from the thousands that make their way to the court each year. This month, Pepper won his case in a victory that gives federal judges more leeway to provide second chances to the criminals who come before them.

The ruling will clarify the rules that guide judges as they try to set sentences that both comport with national norms and ensure justice is done in individual cases.

But Pepper v. United States also is a reminder of the real people behind the court’s cases. It comes with a story that might make even the most objective balls-and-strikes umpire on the mahogany bench feel a tinge of (can it be said?) empathy.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who wrote the court’s 8 to 1 decision, summed up the parameters of Pepper’s journey through the halls of justice pretty well.

“At the time of his initial sentencing in 2004, Pepper was a 25-year-old drug addict who was unemployed, estranged from his family and had recently sold drugs as part of a methamphetamine conspiracy,” Sotomayor wrote. “By the time of his second resentencing in 2009, Pepper had been drug-free for nearly five years, had attended college and achieved high grades, was a top employee at his job slated for a promotion, had re-established a relationship with his father, and was married and supporting his wife’s daughter.”

Nevertheless, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit said that his original sentence had been too light and that, under federal sentencing rules, the remarkable changes Pepper had made in his life could not be considered at his resentencing. A different judge gave him three more years and sent him back to prison.

“It was crushing,” Pepper said in a telephone interview last week. “Honestly, I felt like my life might be over. I know that might sound overly melodramatic, but at the time, just to know that I had been out for four years and all of a sudden I’m going to have to go back and leave my family, and for what?”

Pepper, who lives in Sioux City, Iowa, acknowledges that he caught a break at his original sentencing; the plea agreement he reached with the government made him eligible for 10 years in prison. But District Judge Mark W. Bennett took note of his cooperation with authorities and sentenced Pepper to two years in prison and five years of supervised release — a sentence that was 75 percent below the lightest the guidelines recommended.

Pepper said he understands why the government appealed. “Judge Bennett gave me a break. I understand that,” he said. “But I do think I took full advantage of that break. I tried to show him and the government that the judge didn’t make a mistake by giving me that light sentence.”

He had just been released from supervision when the appeals court said he would have to be resentenced. He’d been named associate of the year by Sam’s Club when another judge ordered a new sentence of 65 months and sent him back to prison.

Sotomayor acknowledged that federal sentencing guidelines did not allow judges at resentencing to consider factors not considered at the original sentencing. The guidelines obviously would make Pepper’s rehabilitation off-limits.

But she said that restriction did not survive the court’s 2004 decision that the sentencing guidelines be advisory rather than mandatory. More important, she said, was that judges consider all available evidence to determine what punishment is best.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg agreed with Sotomayor’s opinion. Justices Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr. agreed with the outcome, but both worried that Sotomayor’s broad ruling was a further watering-down of guidelines meant to make sure sentences are uniform. Justice Elena Kagan did not take part in the case.

Only Justice Clarence Thomas voted against Pepper, saying he was “bound” by the federal rules. But he added, “In light of Pepper’s success in escaping drug addiction and becoming a productive member of society, I do not see what purpose further incarceration would serve.”

So Pepper waits to be sentenced again. Life is not quite as serene as it once was. His marriage has fallen apart. He is about to start a new job.

But Pepper was “ecstatic” when he got the call from his lawyers about the decision. “It was like I’d been waiting for that phone call for years,” he said. “I can’t imagine you can win a Supreme Court case and not have it affect your resentencing.”

But in the worst case, he said, he had only eight months left on his term when the Supreme Court intervened. If he had to, he said, he could do that.

barnesr@washpost.com

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.

A new survey from Municipoll shows Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter in good shape heading into the May Democratic primary.

Nutter leads a generic opponent by a 47%-39% margin. In a variety of hypothetical matchups, Nutter leads the second-highest vote-getter by at least 15%.

“Michael Nutter appears increasingly well-positioned to win a Democratic Primary Election, especially a multi-candidate race,” said poll director Ed Haggerty.

Municipoll surveyed 871 likely Democratic primary voters from January 12 to 16. The data were weighted slightly by gender and age. The margin of error for this survey is +/- 3%.

“It suggests that Nutter would be tough to beat. But it also tells you that he’s not over 50%. I wouldn’t think that’s a great place for an incumbent to be. H’s been there, his name has been out there for four years,” said Sam Katz, who had been rumored as a potential challenger to Nutter before ruling it out in November.

Katz reiterated that he is not running for mayor, but said that this poll shouldn’t discourage others from taking a look.

“I don’t put much stock in a poll that’s taken in the absence of a campaign. Because as far as the public is concerned, there isn’t a campaign. There isnt a challenge, there isn’t a conversation about the direction of the city. There isn’t a comparison being made by other candidates.”

“If there is a campaign, if there is a conversation, I think it will produce a very close election,” Katz predicted.

There is another interesting caveat in the poll results. Nutter enjoys higher support from white Philadelphians than from African Americans (continuing a trend that is analyzed in a really excellent piece by Patrick Kerkstra in Philadelphia Magazine). 64% of whites have a favorable opinion of Nutter, compared to 52% of African Americans. Twice as many African Americans (16%) are not sure of their opinion of the Mayor as whites.

“Nutter’s strong support among white voters seems to turn Philadelphia’s usual racial politics on its head.  However, his lukewarm support among African-American voters raises questions as to why, after three years in office, Nutter still hasn’t consolidated support in this critical base constituency,” said Haggerty.

Hypothetical matchups

Nutter vs. generic Democratic primary opponent
Nutter: 47%
New Person: 39%
Undecided: 15%

3-way race featuring Anthony Williams, Bill Green and Nutter:
Nutter: 46%
Green: 21%
Williams: 18%
Undecided: 14%

3-way race featuring Anthony Williams, Sam Katz and Nutter:
Williams: 21%
Katz: 22%
Nutter: 44%
Undecided: 13%

In a free-for-all primary:
Nutter: 32%
Fattah: 17%
Brady: 11%
Evans: 10%
Katz: 8%
Undecided: 7%
Green: 6%
Williams: 5%
Knox 4%

Comments (0) | Permalink 

View the original article here

This post was made using the Auto Blogging Software from WebMagnates.org This line will not appear when posts are made after activating the software to full version.