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Shutdowns and debt limits: Making sense of the fiscal deadlines ahead
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/09/19/20581426-shutdowns-and-debt-limits-making-sense-of-the-fiscal-deadlines-ahead?lite
"The stock market may be posting record gains, but Washington could be mere days away from a government shutdown – and a few weeks out from a catastrophic default on the national debt.
But the reality of this looming fiscal crisis has many Americans wondering how we ever got ourselves into this mess. And, more importantly, what Congress can do over the coming days to avoid it.
We take a look at some of the questions that lawmakers dealing with – and the possible answers.
What do Congress and the president need to do to meet these deadlines?
First, Congress must pass a spending bill, called a continuing resolution or “CR,” which would continue spending after Sept. 30, the end of the 2013 fiscal year.
If, as expected, the Senate rejects a House-passed CR that defunds Obamacare, then Speaker John Boehner might be forced to consider a “clean” CR with no provisions attached.
If he and Majority Leader Eric Cantor can’t find enough votes among their own members to pass a clean CR, they may seek Democratic votes to pass a measure which doesn’t include a “defund Obamacare” provision.
Obama and his spokesmen have repeatedly said he would not accept any resolution that would delay or defund Obamacare.
What happens if Congress doesn’t pass a spending bill?
There would be a funding shortfall and the executive branch would begin a partial shutdown of federal operations.
Some workers would be furloughed and some agencies would suspend their functions.
The most recent partial shutdown lasted 21 days in late 1995 and early 1996 when President Bill Clinton and GOP congressional leaders couldn’t agree on the terms of a spending bill.
In the aftermath of that showdown, the consensus among both Democratic and Republican strategists was that Clinton emerged stronger, while House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole were damaged.
Dole, a reluctant partner in the Gingrich shutdown strategy, said to his chief of staff at the time, “There’s a lot of people (federal employees) not being paid, through no fault of their own. I’ve had enough of explaining away a strategy that makes absolutely no sense.”
What operations would continue even if there was a partial shutdown?
The law allows operations necessary to the safety of human life or protection of property to continue even in the event of a partial shutdown.
In past shutdowns, workers with national security and foreign relations responsibilities – such as CIA and State Department employees – have been exempted from furloughs, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Other exemptions have included programs and employees related to:
•Inpatient and emergency medical care
•Air traffic control
•Border and coastal patrol
•Care and guarding of federal prisoners
•Emergency disaster assistance
If there was a partial shutdown, what operations would likely be stopped?
Most of the decisions about this would be left to the executive branch. But the Congressional Research Service detailed the closures and suspensions related to the most recent shutdowns. Some of the fallout:
•New patients weren’t accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health; phone calls to NIH about illness went unanswered.
•The Centers for Disease Control stopped monitoring diseases.
•Testing and recruitment of federal law enforcement officials ceased, including border patrol agents.
•National parks, museums and monuments closed.
•Most U.S. applications for passports went unprocessed.
•Services for U.S. veterans were curtailed.
What’s the debt limit and when is the deadline for that?
Separate from the spending bill impasse is the fight over the debt limit. As it stands now, the government’s legal authority to borrow more money runs out in mid-October.
The congressionally mandated limit on federal borrowing is currently set at $16.7 trillion. The debt limit has been raised 13 times since 2001 and has grown from about 55 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2001 to 102 percent of GDP last year.
What would happen if the debt limit were reached?
At that point, the Treasury “would be left to fund the government with only the cash we have on hand on any given day,” Lew said.
Money from tax payments would still be coming in to the Treasury, but it would not be enough to pay each day’s bills. While some bills to vendors and others could be paid, they’d be paid late.
Investors holding Treasury securities might not get prompt re-payment of their principal when their bonds matured.
That in turn could cause a downgrading of U.S. Treasury securities by bonds rating agencies.
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, if that date arrived on October 18, the Treasury “would be about $106 billion short of paying all bills owed between October 18 and November 15 … .” It estimated that about a third of the funds owed for the period would go unpaid.
Could the Treasury juggle bill payments, paying some vendors and beneficiaries but not others?
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Treasury “might attempt to prioritize some types of payments over others,” but “this option may not be possible to implement using Treasury’s current financial systems. It would involve sorting and choosing from nearly 100 million monthly payments.”
What stands in the way of Congress increasing the debt limit?
There are two big roadblocks. First, Boehner wants additional spending cuts in return for increasing the borrowing limit. “You can't talk about increasing the debt limit unless you're willing to make changes and reforms that begin to solve the spending problem that Washington has,” Boehner recently said.
Obama opposes additional spending cuts, if not paired with tax increases.
Second, Boehner will try to attach a provision to the debt ceiling increase that would delay Obamacare provisions such as the requirement that uninsured individuals buy health insurance. Obama is not likely to accept this.
How does the current spending and debt impasse differ from the one that occurred in the summer of 2011?
Then there was serious bargaining between Obama and Boehner on a deal that might have included both tax increases and curbs in the growth of entitlement spending. Those talks failed.
Obama did a sign a $3.9 trillion tax increase into law at the end of 2012, which is one reason Republicans won’t agree to any further tax increases.
No sweeping bargain on entitlements and taxes is in sight at this point.
What effect might a partial shutdown and a failure to raise the borrowing limit have on the economy?
A shutdown and even more a failure to raise the debt limit could frighten investors and further destabilize financial markets.
At his press conference Wednesday, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said, “A government shutdown and, perhaps even more so, a failure to be raise the debt limit could have very serious consequences for the financial markets and for the economy.”
He said the Federal Reserve would “do whatever we can to keep the economy on course. And so if these actions led the economy to slow, then we would have to take that into account, surely.” But he cautioned that “our ability to offset these shocks is very limited, particularly a debt limit shock.”
He urged Congress and the Obama administration to “avoid any kind of event like 2011, which had, at least for a time, a noticeable adverse affect on confidence and on the economy.”
"The stock market may be posting record gains, but Washington could be mere days away from a government shutdown – and a few weeks out from a catastrophic default on the national debt.
But the reality of this looming fiscal crisis has many Americans wondering how we ever got ourselves into this mess. And, more importantly, what Congress can do over the coming days to avoid it.
We take a look at some of the questions that lawmakers dealing with – and the possible answers.
What do Congress and the president need to do to meet these deadlines?
First, Congress must pass a spending bill, called a continuing resolution or “CR,” which would continue spending after Sept. 30, the end of the 2013 fiscal year.
If, as expected, the Senate rejects a House-passed CR that defunds Obamacare, then Speaker John Boehner might be forced to consider a “clean” CR with no provisions attached.
If he and Majority Leader Eric Cantor can’t find enough votes among their own members to pass a clean CR, they may seek Democratic votes to pass a measure which doesn’t include a “defund Obamacare” provision.
Obama and his spokesmen have repeatedly said he would not accept any resolution that would delay or defund Obamacare.
What happens if Congress doesn’t pass a spending bill?
There would be a funding shortfall and the executive branch would begin a partial shutdown of federal operations.
Some workers would be furloughed and some agencies would suspend their functions.
The most recent partial shutdown lasted 21 days in late 1995 and early 1996 when President Bill Clinton and GOP congressional leaders couldn’t agree on the terms of a spending bill.
In the aftermath of that showdown, the consensus among both Democratic and Republican strategists was that Clinton emerged stronger, while House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole were damaged.
Dole, a reluctant partner in the Gingrich shutdown strategy, said to his chief of staff at the time, “There’s a lot of people (federal employees) not being paid, through no fault of their own. I’ve had enough of explaining away a strategy that makes absolutely no sense.”
What operations would continue even if there was a partial shutdown?
The law allows operations necessary to the safety of human life or protection of property to continue even in the event of a partial shutdown.
In past shutdowns, workers with national security and foreign relations responsibilities – such as CIA and State Department employees – have been exempted from furloughs, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Other exemptions have included programs and employees related to:
•Inpatient and emergency medical care
•Air traffic control
•Border and coastal patrol
•Care and guarding of federal prisoners
•Emergency disaster assistance
If there was a partial shutdown, what operations would likely be stopped?
Most of the decisions about this would be left to the executive branch. But the Congressional Research Service detailed the closures and suspensions related to the most recent shutdowns. Some of the fallout:
•New patients weren’t accepted into clinical research at the National Institutes of Health; phone calls to NIH about illness went unanswered.
•The Centers for Disease Control stopped monitoring diseases.
•Testing and recruitment of federal law enforcement officials ceased, including border patrol agents.
•National parks, museums and monuments closed.
•Most U.S. applications for passports went unprocessed.
•Services for U.S. veterans were curtailed.
What’s the debt limit and when is the deadline for that?
Separate from the spending bill impasse is the fight over the debt limit. As it stands now, the government’s legal authority to borrow more money runs out in mid-October.
The congressionally mandated limit on federal borrowing is currently set at $16.7 trillion. The debt limit has been raised 13 times since 2001 and has grown from about 55 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2001 to 102 percent of GDP last year.
What would happen if the debt limit were reached?
At that point, the Treasury “would be left to fund the government with only the cash we have on hand on any given day,” Lew said.
Money from tax payments would still be coming in to the Treasury, but it would not be enough to pay each day’s bills. While some bills to vendors and others could be paid, they’d be paid late.
Investors holding Treasury securities might not get prompt re-payment of their principal when their bonds matured.
That in turn could cause a downgrading of U.S. Treasury securities by bonds rating agencies.
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, if that date arrived on October 18, the Treasury “would be about $106 billion short of paying all bills owed between October 18 and November 15 … .” It estimated that about a third of the funds owed for the period would go unpaid.
Could the Treasury juggle bill payments, paying some vendors and beneficiaries but not others?
According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, the Treasury “might attempt to prioritize some types of payments over others,” but “this option may not be possible to implement using Treasury’s current financial systems. It would involve sorting and choosing from nearly 100 million monthly payments.”
What stands in the way of Congress increasing the debt limit?
There are two big roadblocks. First, Boehner wants additional spending cuts in return for increasing the borrowing limit. “You can't talk about increasing the debt limit unless you're willing to make changes and reforms that begin to solve the spending problem that Washington has,” Boehner recently said.
Obama opposes additional spending cuts, if not paired with tax increases.
Second, Boehner will try to attach a provision to the debt ceiling increase that would delay Obamacare provisions such as the requirement that uninsured individuals buy health insurance. Obama is not likely to accept this.
How does the current spending and debt impasse differ from the one that occurred in the summer of 2011?
Then there was serious bargaining between Obama and Boehner on a deal that might have included both tax increases and curbs in the growth of entitlement spending. Those talks failed.
Obama did a sign a $3.9 trillion tax increase into law at the end of 2012, which is one reason Republicans won’t agree to any further tax increases.
No sweeping bargain on entitlements and taxes is in sight at this point.
What effect might a partial shutdown and a failure to raise the borrowing limit have on the economy?
A shutdown and even more a failure to raise the debt limit could frighten investors and further destabilize financial markets.
At his press conference Wednesday, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said, “A government shutdown and, perhaps even more so, a failure to be raise the debt limit could have very serious consequences for the financial markets and for the economy.”
He said the Federal Reserve would “do whatever we can to keep the economy on course. And so if these actions led the economy to slow, then we would have to take that into account, surely.” But he cautioned that “our ability to offset these shocks is very limited, particularly a debt limit shock.”
He urged Congress and the Obama administration to “avoid any kind of event like 2011, which had, at least for a time, a noticeable adverse affect on confidence and on the economy.”
"Thanks for reminding us to look at the bigger picture."
Ditto!
Ditto!
Thanks for reminding us to look at the bigger picture.
I wasn't around to debate the fella in 1770 :)
Very uplifting. :>O
Yes, it sure does.
Alexander Fraser Tyler, Cycle Of Democracy (1770)
Found 1 result for Alexander Fraser Tyler, Cycle Of Democracy (1770)
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world�s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.
Found 1 result for Alexander Fraser Tyler, Cycle Of Democracy (1770)
A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over lousy fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average of the world�s great civilizations before they decline has been 200 years. These nations have progressed in this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to Complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage.
I've come to believe that the true test of intelligence is realizing you don't have all the answers. Remember that old cliché about the 'more you know, the more you realize you don't know". . . you know?
Insults are like cussing--- a sign of someone with little substance to add to a conversation. So, I think greater effort should be made to just post minus all that 'stuff'.
I also don't think my liberal counterparts live in the land of unicorns or I'd be joining them. LOVE unicorns!
Insults are like cussing--- a sign of someone with little substance to add to a conversation. So, I think greater effort should be made to just post minus all that 'stuff'.
I also don't think my liberal counterparts live in the land of unicorns or I'd be joining them. LOVE unicorns!
You are such an idiot, as I wrote when you hit me I am going to hit you back. Selective reading I see.
What I don't need is the garbage you spew as you did above.
I have looked at myself and my posts and time and time again I will write something and what do I get back...the liberal playbook.
So go back to the land of unicorns and government mind control.
What I don't need is the garbage you spew as you did above.
I have looked at myself and my posts and time and time again I will write something and what do I get back...the liberal playbook.
So go back to the land of unicorns and government mind control.
You're almost funny you are so clueless.
You just called a bunch of us on this forum 'moonbats' yet you deny calling names.
If you think so many of us are ganging up on you, well maybe you should took a look at yourself.
And you called me paranoid ! ( That is name calling too)
Now enough childishness.
I only responded to you because you caught me on a emotionally vulnerable day.
I'll return to consciously choosing to ignore you until you show some attempt at respecting everyone on this forum regardless of their viewpoints.
You just called a bunch of us on this forum 'moonbats' yet you deny calling names.
If you think so many of us are ganging up on you, well maybe you should took a look at yourself.
And you called me paranoid ! ( That is name calling too)
Now enough childishness.
I only responded to you because you caught me on a emotionally vulnerable day.
I'll return to consciously choosing to ignore you until you show some attempt at respecting everyone on this forum regardless of their viewpoints.
Just because someone doesn't have the same viewpoint, doesn't mean they are paranoid or see only fiction. We all see things as they fit, or don't fit, as the case may be. In today's political world, who is to determine what's real and what's fiction; it's all a matter of how we see things. We're all entitled to beliefs; just because we say something or believe it, doesn't make it true.
Where did I call you names? Go back and read what I wrote and point out where i did it. Guess what you can't.
You jumped into this discussion and attacked me. You hit me I am going to hit back. So find me a spot where I just start calling people names for no reason what so every. Find me a thread where I am not attacked by one of you moonbats and I will give you a trophy. Because you can't, I respond to those who attack me. Yet others on this forum are so ignorant they believe they have free reign to attack me and not be hit back.
Yes we do see the world different, I see the truth and you see fiction.
You jumped into this discussion and attacked me. You hit me I am going to hit back. So find me a spot where I just start calling people names for no reason what so every. Find me a thread where I am not attacked by one of you moonbats and I will give you a trophy. Because you can't, I respond to those who attack me. Yet others on this forum are so ignorant they believe they have free reign to attack me and not be hit back.
Yes we do see the world different, I see the truth and you see fiction.
BTW: The 9-11 conspiracy had nothing to do with the topic of this thread.
Nor does the state of my mind.
This is why I accuse you of digression and hijacking threads away from the content.
It's like, if you don't know what to do or say, you throw mud.
Nor does the state of my mind.
This is why I accuse you of digression and hijacking threads away from the content.
It's like, if you don't know what to do or say, you throw mud.
Vance:
It is obvious that we do not see reality in the same way.
I believe that what one believes is true~is indeed true~ for the person who believes it to be.
In accepting this, I have have been able to live harmoniously amongst diverse people in various situations.
You seem to think there is only one truth, one way that is real.
We see the world differently and I accept that.
Please, do not tell me to shut up ( words not allowed in my childhood home), or call me names because you do not like what I say or that I tell others what I think.
Attacking me personally, rather than proving your own ideas, is the sign of a lazy immature mind.
There are others here on this forum that often disagree with me yet we do so respectfully.
Yesterday I turned on my local radio station to hear yet more proof about the 9-11 conspiracy. You don't have to believe it but many people I know, and people where I live, do.
We can agree to disagree without calling names.
Several years ago, I almost died. I faced my mortality, accepting death freed me immensely of fear ( not to say I never feel fear, I am human).
While in the ICU recovering from a complicated 13 hour surgery, I experienced true paranoia, from either surgical psychosis or the huge amounts of morphine they administered to me.
Paranoia is being convinced the nurses are trying to kill the patients, not disagreeing with Vance or others on some Internet forum.
In my opinion, you come across on this forum as aggressively argumentative, fanatically right wing and ignorant. You attack divergent views, their source, and the posters, not necessarily in that order.
Perhaps it is that you confuse debate with calling people names.
This is my view. I am entitled to it as you are to yours.
It is obvious that we do not see reality in the same way.
I believe that what one believes is true~is indeed true~ for the person who believes it to be.
In accepting this, I have have been able to live harmoniously amongst diverse people in various situations.
You seem to think there is only one truth, one way that is real.
We see the world differently and I accept that.
Please, do not tell me to shut up ( words not allowed in my childhood home), or call me names because you do not like what I say or that I tell others what I think.
Attacking me personally, rather than proving your own ideas, is the sign of a lazy immature mind.
There are others here on this forum that often disagree with me yet we do so respectfully.
Yesterday I turned on my local radio station to hear yet more proof about the 9-11 conspiracy. You don't have to believe it but many people I know, and people where I live, do.
We can agree to disagree without calling names.
Several years ago, I almost died. I faced my mortality, accepting death freed me immensely of fear ( not to say I never feel fear, I am human).
While in the ICU recovering from a complicated 13 hour surgery, I experienced true paranoia, from either surgical psychosis or the huge amounts of morphine they administered to me.
Paranoia is being convinced the nurses are trying to kill the patients, not disagreeing with Vance or others on some Internet forum.
In my opinion, you come across on this forum as aggressively argumentative, fanatically right wing and ignorant. You attack divergent views, their source, and the posters, not necessarily in that order.
Perhaps it is that you confuse debate with calling people names.
This is my view. I am entitled to it as you are to yours.
"The congressionally mandated limit on federal borrowing is currently set at $16.7 trillion. The debt limit has been raised 13 times since 2001 and has grown from about 55 percent of Gross Domestic Product in 2001 to 102 percent of GDP last year."
This is my impression of the state of affairs. ACA or any form of health care reform is one issue and the debt ceiling is another. Regarding the debt ceiling..... Something that American politicians and bankers seem to think is reasonable is, doing the same thing over and over and getting constant negative results is acceptable. More and more Americans are getting fed up, but finger pointing prevails. Politicians, bankers, and the American populace continue to point fingers rather than demand that things change.
If health care were the sole reason that the economy *****, that the budget *****, and everything else that ***** *****.... then you do something about the ACA bill. You don't sit and point fingers! You come up with other plans!
Quit holding everything for ransom over the ACA and get something accomplished. Quit stalling, quit making excuses and quit constantly blaming the other side. Quit waiting for the other side to come around to "your way of thinking" and do what all of you said you'd do in that oath you took, and keep the American peoples best interest in mind... all of you!
This is my impression of the state of affairs. ACA or any form of health care reform is one issue and the debt ceiling is another. Regarding the debt ceiling..... Something that American politicians and bankers seem to think is reasonable is, doing the same thing over and over and getting constant negative results is acceptable. More and more Americans are getting fed up, but finger pointing prevails. Politicians, bankers, and the American populace continue to point fingers rather than demand that things change.
If health care were the sole reason that the economy *****, that the budget *****, and everything else that ***** *****.... then you do something about the ACA bill. You don't sit and point fingers! You come up with other plans!
Quit holding everything for ransom over the ACA and get something accomplished. Quit stalling, quit making excuses and quit constantly blaming the other side. Quit waiting for the other side to come around to "your way of thinking" and do what all of you said you'd do in that oath you took, and keep the American peoples best interest in mind... all of you!
When you believe the government was behind 9/11 you wear a tinfoil hat.
Okay Vance, I try to ignore you but you got me there.
Paranoid dream world ???????
WTF are you talking about??
My reality is far from paranoid.
I live a peaceful life, with a man who adores me, in a beautiful place. I ride my bike by the lake, paint pictures, grow an organic garden and try to be as kind as possible to all I meet.
I don't believe that fits the definition of paranoia.
desrt~
"Congressional Republicans have gone directly from conservatism to fanaticism without any intervening period of sanity."
How true, sad but true.
Paranoid dream world ???????
WTF are you talking about??
My reality is far from paranoid.
I live a peaceful life, with a man who adores me, in a beautiful place. I ride my bike by the lake, paint pictures, grow an organic garden and try to be as kind as possible to all I meet.
I don't believe that fits the definition of paranoia.
desrt~
"Congressional Republicans have gone directly from conservatism to fanaticism without any intervening period of sanity."
How true, sad but true.
http://robertreich.org/
"Congressional Republicans have gone directly from conservatism to fanaticism without any intervening period of sanity.
First, John Boehner, bowing to Republican extremists, ushers a bill through the House that continues to fund the government after September 30 but doesn’t fund the Affordable Care Act. Anyone with half a brain knows Senate Democrats and the President won’t accept this — which means, if House Republicans stick to their guns, a government shut-down.
A shutdown would be crippling. Soldiers would get IOUs instead of paychecks. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be furloughed without pay. National parks would close. Millions of Americans would feel the effects.
And who will get blamed?
House Republicans think the public hates the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) so much they’ll support their tactics. But the fact is, regardless of Americans’ attitudes toward that Act — which, not incidentally, passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by the President, who was re-elected with over 50 percent of the vote, and constitutionality was upheld by the Supreme Court — Americans hate even more one party using the United States government as a pawn in their power games.
According to a recent CNN poll, 51 percent of Americans say they’d blame the Republicans for a shutdown; 33 percent would blame the President. They blamed Republicans for the last shutdown at the end of 1995 and start of 1996 — contributing to Republican losses of seven out of 11 gubernatorial races in 1996, 53 state legislative seats, 3 House seats, and the presidency.
So what are Senate Republicans doing about this impending train wreck for the country and the GOP?
Senator Ted Cruz is now trying to round up 40 Senate Republicans to vote against — not for, but against — the House bill when it comes to the Senate floor next week. Why? Because
Cruz and company don’t want the Senate to enact any funding bill at all. That’s because once any bill is enacted, Senate Democrats can then amend it with only 51 votes — striking out the measure that de-funds Obamacare, and even possibly increasing funds in the continuing resolution to keep the government running.
So if Ted Cruz gets his way and the Senate doesn’t vote out any funding bill at all, what happens? The government runs out of money September 30. That spells shutdown.
The only difference between the Cruz and Boehner scenarios is that under Boehner we get a government shutdown and the public blames the GOP. Under Cruz, we get a shutdown and the
public blames the GOP even more, because Republicans wouldn’t even allow a spending bill to come to the Senate floor.
In truth, the fanatics now calling the shots in the Republican Party don’t really care what the public thinks because they’re too busy worrying about even more extremist right-wing challengers in their next primary — courtesy of gerrymandering by Republican state legislators, and big-spending right-wing gonzo groups like the Club for Growth.
The Republican Party is no longer capable of governing the nation. It’s now a fanatical group run out of right-wing states by a cadre of nihilists, Know-nothings, and a handful of billionaires.
But America needs two parties both capable of governing the nation. We cannot do with just one. The upcoming shutdowns and possible defaults are just symptoms of this deeper malady."
"Congressional Republicans have gone directly from conservatism to fanaticism without any intervening period of sanity.
First, John Boehner, bowing to Republican extremists, ushers a bill through the House that continues to fund the government after September 30 but doesn’t fund the Affordable Care Act. Anyone with half a brain knows Senate Democrats and the President won’t accept this — which means, if House Republicans stick to their guns, a government shut-down.
A shutdown would be crippling. Soldiers would get IOUs instead of paychecks. Hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be furloughed without pay. National parks would close. Millions of Americans would feel the effects.
And who will get blamed?
House Republicans think the public hates the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) so much they’ll support their tactics. But the fact is, regardless of Americans’ attitudes toward that Act — which, not incidentally, passed both houses of Congress and was signed into law by the President, who was re-elected with over 50 percent of the vote, and constitutionality was upheld by the Supreme Court — Americans hate even more one party using the United States government as a pawn in their power games.
According to a recent CNN poll, 51 percent of Americans say they’d blame the Republicans for a shutdown; 33 percent would blame the President. They blamed Republicans for the last shutdown at the end of 1995 and start of 1996 — contributing to Republican losses of seven out of 11 gubernatorial races in 1996, 53 state legislative seats, 3 House seats, and the presidency.
So what are Senate Republicans doing about this impending train wreck for the country and the GOP?
Senator Ted Cruz is now trying to round up 40 Senate Republicans to vote against — not for, but against — the House bill when it comes to the Senate floor next week. Why? Because
Cruz and company don’t want the Senate to enact any funding bill at all. That’s because once any bill is enacted, Senate Democrats can then amend it with only 51 votes — striking out the measure that de-funds Obamacare, and even possibly increasing funds in the continuing resolution to keep the government running.
So if Ted Cruz gets his way and the Senate doesn’t vote out any funding bill at all, what happens? The government runs out of money September 30. That spells shutdown.
The only difference between the Cruz and Boehner scenarios is that under Boehner we get a government shutdown and the public blames the GOP. Under Cruz, we get a shutdown and the
public blames the GOP even more, because Republicans wouldn’t even allow a spending bill to come to the Senate floor.
In truth, the fanatics now calling the shots in the Republican Party don’t really care what the public thinks because they’re too busy worrying about even more extremist right-wing challengers in their next primary — courtesy of gerrymandering by Republican state legislators, and big-spending right-wing gonzo groups like the Club for Growth.
The Republican Party is no longer capable of governing the nation. It’s now a fanatical group run out of right-wing states by a cadre of nihilists, Know-nothings, and a handful of billionaires.
But America needs two parties both capable of governing the nation. We cannot do with just one. The upcoming shutdowns and possible defaults are just symptoms of this deeper malady."
OH keep living in your paranoid liberal dream world.
How terrible. Home Depot (HD) and Trader Joe’s have decided to stop offering health insurance for part-time employees, moving them over to Obamacare instead. More companies seem sure to follow. And more wailing about greedy, heartless corporations is sure to follow that. Some workers may start to drop dead from sheer anxiety before Obamacare even goes into effect on January 1.
Once the new health law has been in place for a few months, however, Part-Time America may issue a collective sigh of relief. Nobody ever held up today’s part-time "mini-med" plans as model coverage. The majority of part-time workers don’t even get health insurance, and those who do typically get diluted plans with limited benefits they still have to pay something for. “You have to question whether that’s really insurance,” says Paul Fronstin, director of the health research program at the Employee Benefits Research institute. “They may not cover prescription drugs, and if you get cancer or end up in the hospital, they probably won’t help you a whole lot.”
Insurance offered under the Affordable Care Act, by contrast, could end up being a much better deal. Obamacare is complicated, and it will require many people to do detailed research on their insurance options instead of having an employer do it for them. There have also been elaborate efforts by foes of the program to depict it as The Ruination of Everything. So it’s not surprising that part-timers being told their employer is cutting them loose and sending them over to Obamacare are a little jumpy.
Actually enrolling could calm them down, however. Obamacare was designed to make decent health insurance affordable for people who otherwise can’t afford it, and whether you love or hate the program, it seems likely to succeed at that basic mission. That’s because the program subsidizes the cost of insurance based on your income, with the largest subsidies going to those with the lowest incomes.
Lots of confusion
There are many insurance choices under Obamacare that vary by state and apply to different income levels, which adds to the confusion. But the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation has built a helpful calculator that lets you enter your income and a few other basic details to get an idea of how much insurance would cost you under the program.
A single parent with three kids and an annual income of $25,000, for instance, could get an $8,800 insurance plan for a total out-of-pocket cost of $500 per year. Subsidies, in other words, cover 94% of the cost. Try to beat that on part-time pay.
A two-parent family with two kids and a $50,000 income could get a $10,000 plan for $3,365, with subsidies covering 66% of the cost. There’s one catch: You only qualify for such deals if you’re not able to get coverage through your employer. So if you’re a part-timer whose company canceled your watered-down insurance coverage, it may have actually done you a favor.
Trader Joe’s is one employer known for offering generous health care benefits, even for part-timers (until now). But even those workers could end up better off under Obamacare. In an internal email published by the Washington Post, a Trader Joe’s exec provided some calculations for a part-time employee who earns about $24,000 per year and has been paying about $167 per month as her share of a Trader Joe’s policy similar to a “silver” plan under the ACA. If she enrolls in Obamacare, the subsidized cost would fall to about $70 per month for nearly identical coverage. And that’s before a $500 annual stipend Trader Joe’s plan to offer part-timers to help them pay for insurance.
Some will pay more
Without a doubt, there will be some people who end up paying more for insurance as their employers offer less. Mostly, they will be higher-income workers who lose employer-provided coverage and have to buy it through Obamacare. Subsidies are phased out at 400% of the poverty line, which this year is $45,960 for an individual and $94,200 for a family of 4. Above that, people have to pay the full cost of coverage.
Other companies have been changing their health care coverage in ways that sound like they’re related to Obamacare but aren’t. Walgreens (WAG), for instance, will begin requiring employees to choose an insurance plan from a private “exchange” that offers at least 25 choices, instead of the three or four Walgreen’s has been offering. The concept is similar to the public exchanges that will be up and running under Obamacare, beginning October 1, with coverage beginning January 1. But the government plays no role and offers no subsidies in the exchange Walgreen’s is joining.
Walgreen’s will still bear much of the cost of its employees’ coverage, through fixed stipends it grants employees to help pay for care. But workers will now have to educate themselves more, choose coverage from a wide range of options, and pay the difference if they choose Cadillac coverage that costs more than the subsidy covers. The idea is to give employees a stronger incentive to control health care spending, by requiring them to pay more of their own money as costs rise.
IBM (IBM), Time-Warner (TWX) and General Electric (GE) have enacted similar plans for retirees, and companies in general are getting more aggressive about finding new ways to control health care spending as it become more and more of a burden. Obamacare may be part of the solution, but many companies would be doing this even without the health reform law. If the scaremongering over Obamacare ever stops, weathering changes in health care benefits may no longer require hypertension medication.
Rick Newman’s latest book is Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback To Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/part-timers-losing-healthcare-insurance-may-want-thank-210354500.html
The more people that are on the exchange, the higher the cost savings per patient should be (economy of scale). I see this this trend of higher participation increasing exponentially, as corporations, as well as municipalities, local/state/federal amke the shift.
Once the new health law has been in place for a few months, however, Part-Time America may issue a collective sigh of relief. Nobody ever held up today’s part-time "mini-med" plans as model coverage. The majority of part-time workers don’t even get health insurance, and those who do typically get diluted plans with limited benefits they still have to pay something for. “You have to question whether that’s really insurance,” says Paul Fronstin, director of the health research program at the Employee Benefits Research institute. “They may not cover prescription drugs, and if you get cancer or end up in the hospital, they probably won’t help you a whole lot.”
Insurance offered under the Affordable Care Act, by contrast, could end up being a much better deal. Obamacare is complicated, and it will require many people to do detailed research on their insurance options instead of having an employer do it for them. There have also been elaborate efforts by foes of the program to depict it as The Ruination of Everything. So it’s not surprising that part-timers being told their employer is cutting them loose and sending them over to Obamacare are a little jumpy.
Actually enrolling could calm them down, however. Obamacare was designed to make decent health insurance affordable for people who otherwise can’t afford it, and whether you love or hate the program, it seems likely to succeed at that basic mission. That’s because the program subsidizes the cost of insurance based on your income, with the largest subsidies going to those with the lowest incomes.
Lots of confusion
There are many insurance choices under Obamacare that vary by state and apply to different income levels, which adds to the confusion. But the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation has built a helpful calculator that lets you enter your income and a few other basic details to get an idea of how much insurance would cost you under the program.
A single parent with three kids and an annual income of $25,000, for instance, could get an $8,800 insurance plan for a total out-of-pocket cost of $500 per year. Subsidies, in other words, cover 94% of the cost. Try to beat that on part-time pay.
A two-parent family with two kids and a $50,000 income could get a $10,000 plan for $3,365, with subsidies covering 66% of the cost. There’s one catch: You only qualify for such deals if you’re not able to get coverage through your employer. So if you’re a part-timer whose company canceled your watered-down insurance coverage, it may have actually done you a favor.
Trader Joe’s is one employer known for offering generous health care benefits, even for part-timers (until now). But even those workers could end up better off under Obamacare. In an internal email published by the Washington Post, a Trader Joe’s exec provided some calculations for a part-time employee who earns about $24,000 per year and has been paying about $167 per month as her share of a Trader Joe’s policy similar to a “silver” plan under the ACA. If she enrolls in Obamacare, the subsidized cost would fall to about $70 per month for nearly identical coverage. And that’s before a $500 annual stipend Trader Joe’s plan to offer part-timers to help them pay for insurance.
Some will pay more
Without a doubt, there will be some people who end up paying more for insurance as their employers offer less. Mostly, they will be higher-income workers who lose employer-provided coverage and have to buy it through Obamacare. Subsidies are phased out at 400% of the poverty line, which this year is $45,960 for an individual and $94,200 for a family of 4. Above that, people have to pay the full cost of coverage.
Other companies have been changing their health care coverage in ways that sound like they’re related to Obamacare but aren’t. Walgreens (WAG), for instance, will begin requiring employees to choose an insurance plan from a private “exchange” that offers at least 25 choices, instead of the three or four Walgreen’s has been offering. The concept is similar to the public exchanges that will be up and running under Obamacare, beginning October 1, with coverage beginning January 1. But the government plays no role and offers no subsidies in the exchange Walgreen’s is joining.
Walgreen’s will still bear much of the cost of its employees’ coverage, through fixed stipends it grants employees to help pay for care. But workers will now have to educate themselves more, choose coverage from a wide range of options, and pay the difference if they choose Cadillac coverage that costs more than the subsidy covers. The idea is to give employees a stronger incentive to control health care spending, by requiring them to pay more of their own money as costs rise.
IBM (IBM), Time-Warner (TWX) and General Electric (GE) have enacted similar plans for retirees, and companies in general are getting more aggressive about finding new ways to control health care spending as it become more and more of a burden. Obamacare may be part of the solution, but many companies would be doing this even without the health reform law. If the scaremongering over Obamacare ever stops, weathering changes in health care benefits may no longer require hypertension medication.
Rick Newman’s latest book is Rebounders: How Winners Pivot From Setback To Success. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.
http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/the-exchange/part-timers-losing-healthcare-insurance-may-want-thank-210354500.html
The more people that are on the exchange, the higher the cost savings per patient should be (economy of scale). I see this this trend of higher participation increasing exponentially, as corporations, as well as municipalities, local/state/federal amke the shift.
"This particular bill just happened in such a way that it left a bad taste in the mouth's of many. so yes, I agree that had they worked on this together over time, something that more people agreed with would possibly be coming to fruition."
Totally agree, but even if that had happened, I'm not convinced that some of the tea party brats wouldn't still be trying to get their way on other issues. It's all a bunch of posturing and dramatization, to the detriment of the American people.
Totally agree, but even if that had happened, I'm not convinced that some of the tea party brats wouldn't still be trying to get their way on other issues. It's all a bunch of posturing and dramatization, to the detriment of the American people.
I can't say that I disagree that holding the country's economy ' hostage over the ACA is wrong. I get tired of threats and posturing to get one's way.
I am not a fan of the ACA but at this point, fighting it will do more harm than good. yes, I wish that both sides could have worked together and figured out a plan for healthcare reform. Doubt anyone would have been happy completely but maybe there would have been more buy in.
I listened to NPR today and they were discussing the unpopularity of the bill. About half that have no insurance and will benefit greatly from the plan do not like it. I found that surprising. Then there are people like me that never liked it. It's a pretty unpopular bill all around. Which is different than saying we don't need changes to our healthcare or even that we need more options for our indigent population. This particular bill just happened in such a way that it left a bad taste in the mouth's of many. so yes, I agree that had they worked on this together over time, something that more people agreed with would possibly be coming to fruition.
Well, that was off track. Sorry. But anyway, I expect our elected officials to work things out without doing more damage from their tantrums.
OH, first grade teachers making these Washington kids work together better along with the current school systems anti bullying policy might help Washington a great deal!
I am not a fan of the ACA but at this point, fighting it will do more harm than good. yes, I wish that both sides could have worked together and figured out a plan for healthcare reform. Doubt anyone would have been happy completely but maybe there would have been more buy in.
I listened to NPR today and they were discussing the unpopularity of the bill. About half that have no insurance and will benefit greatly from the plan do not like it. I found that surprising. Then there are people like me that never liked it. It's a pretty unpopular bill all around. Which is different than saying we don't need changes to our healthcare or even that we need more options for our indigent population. This particular bill just happened in such a way that it left a bad taste in the mouth's of many. so yes, I agree that had they worked on this together over time, something that more people agreed with would possibly be coming to fruition.
Well, that was off track. Sorry. But anyway, I expect our elected officials to work things out without doing more damage from their tantrums.
OH, first grade teachers making these Washington kids work together better along with the current school systems anti bullying policy might help Washington a great deal!
I keep saying it to anyone who will listen: We need a first grade teacher to run the country and tell those dolts in Congress to work together nicely or go sit in the corner.
Having said that, holding the country's economy hostage over Obama's health care plan is just plain wrong.
RGlass, " If they had worked on Health Care slowly, piece-by-piece,"
so true
Teko~ I know he's annoying but if you don't feed him, he might just wither up and go away. At least he isn't as vocal~ so to speak, or type or whatever it is we do here.
Having said that, holding the country's economy hostage over Obama's health care plan is just plain wrong.
RGlass, " If they had worked on Health Care slowly, piece-by-piece,"
so true
Teko~ I know he's annoying but if you don't feed him, he might just wither up and go away. At least he isn't as vocal~ so to speak, or type or whatever it is we do here.
I agree with most of what you said.
With our fragile economy, I personally wish ACA would be put on the back burner. But the fact is, Congress voting for Defunding the ACA is just a waste of time. It will never pass the Senate and if by some miracle it did, Obama will Veto it. There is no possible way the Senate can come up with enough Votes to over ride the Veto.
I blame our Government for this. If they had worked on Health Care slowly, piece-by-piece, since the failure of “Hillary Care”, we would have the best Affordable Health Care in World by now.
I’m sorry that I have nothing else to offer but I have been on another one of my “Fasts” from the News.
I blame our Government for this. If they had worked on Health Care slowly, piece-by-piece, since the failure of “Hillary Care”, we would have the best Affordable Health Care in World by now.
I’m sorry that I have nothing else to offer but I have been on another one of my “Fasts” from the News.
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