Budget Office Says Health Law Repeal Would Add $230B to Deficit, Boehner Disputes Findings
FoxNews.com | AP
Published January 06, 2011
AP – House Speaker John Boehner, right, accompanied by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, speaks to the media on Capitol Hill Jan. 6.
The principal budget scorekeeper on Capitol Hill estimated Thursday that repealing the health care overhaul could add about $230 billion to the federal deficit over the next 10 years, while acknowledging the figure is a rough estimate.
The Congressional Budget Office released the projection as the new Republican House majority prepared to take up a repeal as one of its first orders of business in the 112th Congress. House Republican leaders announced their own report Thursday morning, claiming the health care law as it stands will destroy jobs, and arguing that the repeal would cut spending and grow the economy.
House Speaker John Boehner rejected the CBO’s findings outright.
“CBO is entitled to their opinion,” he said, adding that the agency responsible for pricing out the price of legislation based the health care law’s cost on flawed data.
“I do not believe that repealing the job-killing health care law will increase the deficit,” he said. “CBO can only provide a score based on the assumptions that are given to them.”
Gas’n’Go Under
PersonalLiberty.com
January 6, 2011 by Ben Crystal
While driving my hideously fuel-inefficient SUV earlier this week, I noticed the warning light on my instrument cluster alerting me that my gas tank was perilously close to “MSNBC’s primetime ratings.” Since I have access to neither the private jet nor the chauffer-driven limousine Al Gore uses when he leaves one of his multimillion dollar mansions, I pulled into the next gas station.
That’s when I noted the price of a gallon of gasoline starts with a “3.” The last time gas prices were this high, Democrats assured us it was a direct result of George W. Bush’s cozy relationship with “Big and/or Foreign Oil.”
“Since George Bush and Dick Cheney took over as president and vice president, gas prices have doubled… (because) They are too cozy with the oil industry”
California’s senior Senator Barbara Boxer offered that clever canard back in April of 2006. At the time, gas prices at the Exxon station from which she staged her shriekfest were $3.10/gallon, just over 8 cents above where they are right now. And Boxer wasn’t the only Democrat assailing Bush over the plight of the people who pay her fuel bills. According to then-junior Senator from New York Hillary Clinton:
“We are one accident or one terrorist attack away from oil at $100 a barrel!”
Actually, if the terrorists are planning this sort of petroleum-based ploy, it may already be too late. As of Tuesday, the price of a barrel of crude is just under $90, nearly $25 higher than it was while Senators Boxer and Clinton were blaming rising gas prices on the former president. Industry experts predict the price will eclipse $100 within a year.
New edition of ‘Huckleberry Finn’ to lose the ‘n’ word
EW.com
Author: Keith Staskiewicz (1-10 of 167)
What is a word worth? According to Publishers Weekly, NewSouth Books’ upcoming edition of Mark Twain’s seminal novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn will remove all instances of the “n” word—I’ll give you a hint, it’s not nonesuch—present in the text and replace it with slave. The new book will also remove usage of the word Injun. The effort is spearheaded by Twain expert Alan Gribben, who says his PC-ified version is not an attempt to neuter the classic but rather to update it. “Race matters in these books,” Gribben told PW. “It’s a matter of how you express that in the 21st century.”
Unsurprisingly, there are already those who are yelling “Censorship!” as well as others with thesauruses yelling “Bowdlerization!” and “Comstockery!” Their position is understandable: Twain’s book has been one of the most often misunderstood novels of all time, continuously being accused of perpetuating the prejudiced attitudes it is criticizing, and it’s a little disheartening to see a cave-in to those who would ban a book simply because it requires context. On the other hand, if this puts the book into the hands of kids who would not otherwise be allowed to read it due to forces beyond their control (overprotective parents and the school boards they frighten), then maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to judge. It’s unfortunate, but is it really any more catastrophic than a TBS-friendly re-edit of The Godfather, you down-and-dirty melon farmer? The original product is changed for the benefit of those who, for one reason or another, are not mature enough to handle it, but as long as it doesn’t affect the original, is there a problem?
What do you think, Shelf-Lifers? Unnecessary censorship or necessary evil?
Will the 112th Congress Finally Get It Right?
Newsbusters.org
By Chuck Norris | January 04, 2011 | 00:01
Incoming House Speaker John Boehner and his Republican colleagues are intensely aware of public fury over how Congress operates. But following a lame-duck Congress that continued with business as usual, will this new Congress finally get it right?As the 112th Congress officially convenes this week, the questions most of us have on our minds are: Will it finally…
—Reduce government spending?
—Reduce the national deficit?
—Reduce the national debt?
—Reduce earmarks and pork?
—Reduce briberies by lobbyists and special interests?
—Reduce Americans’ taxes?
—Reduce illegal immigration?
—Reduce our foreign entanglements?
—Reduce government overreach into our lives?
—Reduce government lying, cheating and corruption?
—Reduce constitutional disobedience?
…And so stabilize the nation and economy?
Brian Williams to Boehner: Do you feel responsible somehow for the Birthers? (No, Brian, No! He’s not!)
HotAir.com
posted at 9:23 pm on January 6, 2011 by Allahpundit
printer-friendly
The oddest part of this question is that Boehner’s nothing like the stereotypical tea partier, which of course is whom Williams has in mind in asking this. He’s a consummate Beltway insider, less known for passionate ideological rhetoric than for his golf game (and for crying, natch). He’s probably bewildered by the whole Birther phenomenon. And in fact, he’s been answering this question the same way for upwards of two years. But if you land an exclusive with the Speaker of the House, why not take the opportunity to kook-ify him, right?
Actually, Rand Paul had a decent answer to the “kook question” when it came up in the course of Diane Sawyer’s chat with tea party legislators a few days ago:
RAND PAUL: I was just gonna interject that– that’s– I had one chance to speak with the President. And I told him that from one who is seen as being associated with the Tea Party, I want to make sure he knows that I want a civil discourse. Because sometimes in the media, they’ve portrayed 100,000 people at a crowd and one guy with a mean sign towards the President. That’s not me holding that sign or any of these people. We want a polite discussion. And we disagree. And it can be very strong disagreement. And his response was, “Yeah, we can disagree and not be disagreeable.” And I agree completely.
ACLU Sues to Protect Immigrant’s Gun Rights From Change in South Dakota Law
FoxNews.com
By Diane Macedo
Published January 06, 2011
AP – Gun right’s advocates and the ACLU are finding themselves on the same side of a South Dakota legal battle.
In what might appear to be a shotgun wedding of opposites, the ACLU has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a non-U.S. citizen alleging that South Dakota’s concealed weapons law violates his constitutional right to bear arms.
But gun rights advocates surprisingly are not all cheering the case, and at least one group questions whether the ACLU is just trying to open the door to secure gun rights for illegal immigrants.
The ACLU of South Dakota filed the lawsuit this week on behalf of U.K. citizen Wayne Smith alleging the state’s concealed weapons law is unconstitutional. Smith — who legally immigrated 30 years ago — was able to get a concealed license for years, but in 2002 South Dakota amended the law, making U.S. citizenship a requirement to carry a concealed weapon. When Smith went to renew his long-held permit last July, he was denied because he is permanent legal resident, not a citizen.
The ACLU says that’s a blatant violation of the 14th Amendment which it says prevents states from being able to make such “arbitrary designations.”
But supporters of the law say the state has every right to keep guns away from non-citizens. South Dakota Secretary of State Jason Gant says the legislature added the citizenship requirement with the intent of protecting the people of South Dakota.
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