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Showing posts with label sen chuck grassley r IA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sen chuck grassley r IA. Show all posts

16 August 2013

Sen. Ted Cruz says Obama 'just granted all of Congress an exception' to Obamacare 14AUG13

sen ted cruz r TX is one of those repiglican tea-baggers that just can't handle the truth. He is a liar and a deceiver. Standing before the family leadership summit (a gathering of people of faith), spewing his lies, one has to wonder if at any point during his speech he, or anyone in the audience, had any qualms about using lies, deception and manipulation for political gain? Since when does the Kingdom of God, the the teachings of Jesus Christ, endorse these tactics? I'd like to know, and a lot of non believers would like to know too. From PolitiFact...
The Truth-O-Meter Says:
Cruz

Says "President Obama just granted all of Congress an exception" to Obamacare.

Ted Cruz on Saturday, August 10th, 2013 in a speech to the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa

Sen. Ted Cruz says Obama 'just granted all of Congress an exception' to Obamacare

False

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Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, speaks during the Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 10, 2013.
Sen. Ted Cruz wants Congress to refuse to fund Obamacare. The law’s such a mess, says the Texas Republican, that the president let lawmakers themselves off the hook.
"Look, the wheels are coming off this," he told the audience at the conservative Family Leadership Summit in Ames, Iowa, on Aug. 10, 2013. "The Teamsters are abandoning it. President Obama just granted all of Congress an exception. And he did it because Harry Reid and the Senate Democrats who passed this thing came begging and said, ‘Please, please, please let us out of Obamacare.’ This thing ain't working."
The audience let out a long "Boooo" at the mention of President Barack Obama’s action on behalf of Congress.
But did he just grant lawmakers an exception to Obamacare?
‘Congress should get the same coverage’
For many years, Congress chose from a variety of insurance plans offered by the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, which serves more than 8 million federal and retired workers and their dependents.
That stops in January, when lawmakers and some staff will be required instead to pick from plans on the health care law’s new exchanges — now known as marketplaces.
That’s because Congress faces a specific Obamacare provision forcing lawmakers from their current plans into new marketplaces — something that doesn’t apply to other Americans.
(Most people with health care through large employers won’t see significant changes under the law. They’re not required to use the marketplaces, which were designed to offer more options for small businesses and the uninsured.)
Back in 2009, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley argued that "members of Congress should get the same coverage that we are coming up with for everyone else." He offered an amendmentthat required lawmakers to get their health care through the marketplaces created by the bill. It was accepted by the Senate Finance Committee without objection.
Members of Congress and their staff would have to use the hefty employer contribution they used for federal plans to buy marketplace plans, instead, his amendment said.
"My interest in having members of Congress participate in the exchange is consistent with my long-held view that Congress should live under the same laws it passes for the rest of the country," Grassley said. "The more that Congress experiences the laws it passes, the better."
A version of the amendment made it into the law passed by Democrats, but it lacked the clarity of Grassley’s language, raising a question: Would the government’s contribution to lawmakers’ health insurance premiums follow them?
(In fact, it lacked specifics on lots of issues, such as: When would the provision kick in? Which federal agency would implement it? Which lawmakers and staffers did it cover? Could lawmakers keep their existing coverage as "grandfathered plans"?)
Mass confusion ensued — along with fear that the law’s ambiguity meant lawmakers and their staffers would lose an employer contribution worth thousands toward their health care plans. They urged the administration for clarification.
On Aug. 7, 2013, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management did clear things up, proposing a rule that lawmakers’ purchase of health coverage from the exchanges — now called marketplaces — would indeed be eligible for an employer contribution. (It answered some of those other questions, too.)
When Obamacare’s health care marketplaces launch in January 2014, members of Congress will use them right alongside the uninsured.
‘An exception’
Did the administration's decision constitute an "exception" to Obamacare?
Here's what the law said: 
"Notwithstanding any other provision of law … the only health plans that the Federal Government may make available to Members of Congress and congressional staff with respect to their service as a Member of Congress or congressional staff shall be health plans that are — (I) created under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act); or (II) offered through an Exchange established under this Act (or an amendment made by this Act)."
All it did was require lawmakers to use new marketplaces. They're doing that. 
Beyond that, the wording of the law left lots of questions. Or, as the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service described it, several "legal and practical issues." To implement it, administrators had to make choices about what it meant.
As a New York Times report noted last year, "In writing the legislation, members of Congress apparently assumed that the federal contribution to their premiums would continue, but the law is silent on the question."
Grassley himself insisted last year that the provision made "no changes to the employer contribution to federal employee health care coverage."
A Congressional Research Service analysis found some room in the law for employer contributions. Timothy Jost, an expert in health care law who supports the Affordable Care Act, told PolitiFact the government clearly acted within its regulatory authority. A report from the conservative Heritage Foundation, which Cruz’s office pointed to, argues the opposite.
Heritage, whose lobbying arm Heritage Action has launched a "Defund Obamacare Town Hall Tour," says that the administration disregarded the law to give a "special Obamacare deal to Congress."
The special deal: letting lawmakers keep the employer contribution toward health plans on new Obamacare marketplaces that Grassley assumed they would keep.
Our ruling
Cruz, reeling off signs Obamacare’s "wheels are coming off," said the president "just granted all of Congress an exception."
That sounds like lawmakers get to opt out of health care under the law. Quite the opposite — they'll use new marketplaces alongside the uninsured and small businesses, just as it required. And it's not even accurate to say they were excepted from some provision of the law: the law itself wasn't clear.
Instead, they got a clarification about the law’s effect on contributions toward their health insurance — which they will purchase on Obamacare’s marketplaces. We rate Cruz’s claim False.
About this statement:
Published: Wednesday, August 14th, 2013 at 5:59 p.m.
Sources:
Caffeinated Thoughts, "Ted Cruz - The Family Leadership Summit," Aug. 10, 2013, via YouTube (Claim around 19:30)
U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Federal Benefits Fast Facts, accessed Aug. 14, 2013
U.S. Office of Personnel Management, FEHB Carrier Conference remarks, March 21, 2013
Wall Street Journal, "Review & Outlook: Congress’s ObamaCare Exemption," Aug. 5, 2013
Reason.com, "Hill Staffers Get an Obamacare Fix," Aug. 2, 2013
Politico, "Hill gets Obamacare fix," Aug. 2, 2013
New York Times, "Wrinkle in Health Law Vexes Lawmakers’ Aides," July 29, 2013
Washington Post’s Wonkblog, "No, Congress isn’t trying to exempt itself from Obamacare," April 25, 2013
New York Times, "Democrats Use Health Law to Assail Republicans," Oct. 18, 2012
New York Times, "Baffled by Health Plan? So Are Some Lawmakers," April 12, 2010
Heritage Foundation's The Foundry, "Administration Disregards the Law and Gives Special Obamacare Deal to Congress," Aug. 7, 2013
Heritage Foundation, "Congress in the Obamacare Trap: No Easy Escape," Aug. 2, 2013
PolitiFact Texas, "IRS chief’s words didn’t reject 'Obamacare,'" Aug. 9, 2013
Email interview with Catherine Frazier, press secretary for Sen. Ted Cruz, Aug. 13, 2013
Interview with Timothy Jost, professor, Washington and Lee University School of Law, Aug. 12, 2013
Written by: Becky Bowers
Researched by: Becky Bowers
Edited by: Angie Drobnic Holan
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02 August 2012

Iowa’s GOP Governor Blasts Romney Campaign On Wind Tax Credits: They Need To ‘Come Out Here To The Real World’ 2AUG12

ANOTHER example how romney's policies are going to hurt our economy, our environment and the people who have been duped into supporting him. I am sure if enough repiglican politicians and their corporate masters had more money invested in wind turbines there wouldn't even be a debate about extending the tax credits. But they have been bought by and are controlled by their big oil, big gas and big coal corporate masters who are reaping huge profits and tax credits. I would think a governor of a state that may loose 7000 jobs because of corporate ownership of his own political party would do more than condemn the party's corporate presidential candidate. If he has a spine he should threaten to withhold his political support and endorsement. Think Progress.....
By Stephen Lacey on Aug 2, 2012
Now that Mitt Romney’s campaign has officially declared the candidate’s desire to kill tax credits for wind while maintaining tax credits for the mature oil and gas industries, Midwestern Republicans are not happy.
Iowa Republican Representative Tom Latham said Romney’s decision “shows a lack of full understanding of how important the wind energy tax credit is for Iowa and our nation.”
And Iowa Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the man working behind the scenes to get an extension of the tax credit for wind, said he thinks “people that didn’t know what they were doing said it.”
In an interview with Radio Iowa today, Republican Governor Terry Branstad also had strong words for Romney’s campaign, saying they “need to get out here in the real world and find out what’s really going on” before abandoning support for the industry. The wind industry supports 7,000 jobs in Iowa and makes up 20 percent of the state’s electricity.
Branstad said he’d like to speak with Romney personally about the issue:
“I hope to have that opportunity….  The statement has been made by somebody involved in his campaign, not by Governor Romney. And I think there’s a confusion on their part.
“We think it needs to be continued, not forever, but it does need to be continued for a while and the result is it’s been a very good thing for Iowa in terms of 20% of our energy is now generated by wind. We now have a lot of farmers that receive rent from having wind turbines on their property and we have a lot of jobs associated with it so we think he needs to be educated as to how important this is and I’m hopeful that we can see.. they’re lumping the two together and they need to understand there is a differential… And Senator Grassley is working really hard to get this extended.”
Reporter: “But on his campaign website for months, he has called them wind mills, he doesn’t call them wind turbines and he says they are as economically unproductive as solar energy.”
Branstad: “They don’t understand. You’ve got a bunch of people that have put the website together that are a bunch of east Coast people that need to get out here in the real world and find out what’s really going on.”
The wind tax credit, which has helped the wind industry drop costs by 90 percent and compete with the heavily subsidized coal and gas sectors, is set to expire at the end of this year. Already, wind companies are laying off employees and cancelling factories. Navigant Consulting estimates that up to 37,000 jobs could be lost if the credit is allowed to expire.
Fellow Republicans aren’t just concerned about the economic impact. They’re also concerned about potential political fallout in a region where wind is such an important piece of the economy. Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Iowa Republican Representative Steve King implied he thinks the tax credit issue could have an impact:
“We need to win Iowa this time. President Obama thinks it’s a must-win state for him, and I think it’s a can-win state for Mitt Romney, but this wind piece.…”
He faded off without finishing the sentence — unsure what Romney’s stance on wind will do to the candidate’s political prospects.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/08/02/632931/iowas-gop-governor-blasts-romney-campaign-on-wind-tax-credits-they-need-to-come-out-here-to-the-real-world/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+climateprogress%2FlCrX+%28Climate+Progress%29&mobile=nc
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16 July 2010

The Small Business Dodge...THE TRUTH ON THE "DEATH TAX" from MOJO 16JUL10

ANOTHER example of the levels the gop will stoop to to deceive the American public and protect the wealthy. So many of these gop politicians are people of faith, so I have to wonder how they can justify deliberately lying about this?
 
Back in the day, one of the key Republican arguments against the estate tax was that it forced hardworking, salt-of-the-earth children of small farmers to sell the family plot in order to pay their taxes after dad died. It was a sad story, but with one problem: no one could find even a single small farmer who had been forced to liquidate in order to satisfy Uncle Sam's voracious maw. Even the American Farm Bureau Federation was eventually forced to admit that it couldn't come up with a single example, and a few years later the Congressional Budget Office estimated that under the now-current exemption level, only a tiny handful of small farms were likely to owe any estate tax to begin with — and of those, only about a dozen lacked the assets to pay their taxes. And even those dozen had 14 years to pay the bill as long the kids kept running the farm. In other words, the story was a fraud from beginning to end.
Good times. Today, though, we're getting a rerun. The subject at hand is the Bush tax cuts, and the question is who exactly will get hurt if we go ahead and keep the cuts intact for middle income earners but let them expire for the rich. The obvious answer is, "the rich," but it turns out that, just as there are small farmers begging for our sympathy, there are small rich too: namely an alleged army of hardworking, salt-of-the-earth small business owners who would also end up paying higher tax rates. "To those who are pushing the higher marginal rates," thundered Sen. Chuck Grassley (R–Iowa) earlier this week, "I say the burden is on you to show that you are not harming our primary job creators, small business."
OK then. Let's show it. Step 1: The Brookings Tax Policy Center estimates that only 1.9% of small businesses are in the two top brackets that would be affected. That's a little better than the dozen small farms affected by the estate tax, but not by much.
Step 2: About half of that 1.9% aren't really small business owners at all. They're high-income investors who get part of their income from investments in small businesses. So we're down to about 1% of small businesses that would be affected.
Step 3: The top brackets are just that: brackets. When the top rate goes up, it doesn't affect your entire income, just the portion in the top bracket. So if the top rate goes back up from 35% to 39.6%, it only affects the portion of income above approximately $400,000. A small business owner making $500,000 would see an increase of about $5,000. This is a fairly modest amount for someone making a half million dollars, and anything higher than that is hardly a "small" business to begin with. And the marginal effect is even smaller for the second highest bracket.
Step 4: The Office of Management and Budget estimates that the 10-year cost of these upper-income tax cuts is $678 billion, the vast majority of which hits wealthy individuals, not small businesses no matter how you define them. That's a fair chunk of change for anyone concerned about the deficit.
So that's the case. Letting Bush's tax cuts for the rich expire affects only a tiny number of small businesses; it doesn't affect them very much; and it generates revenues of $678 billion. If the only thing you care about is keeping taxes low for rich people, you won't be convinced. For the rest of us, it's a no-brainer.
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