Last Monday, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) at his side, President Obama attacked Wall Street, again, for essentially helping in what the federal government and businesses can no longer provide — a decent retirement.
Under the false pretense of calling for new and tougher so-called fiduciary standards for financial brokers, advisers and retirement plan representatives, the White House once again horned in on Wall Street’s compensation formulas.
However, what the president surely knows is that a vast majority of retirement plans — IRAs and 401(k)s — are in simple fee-based products like mutual funds. The commission-based accounts are for those who prefer to direct their brokers in certain purchases inside some of their retirement products.
The key to the White House’s interference is in its nuanced language.
Currently, a broker may make a recommendation that must be “suitable” for retirement account assets such as 401(k)s and IRAs.
However, the president wants to take it a step further and mandate that it be in an investor’s “fiduciary best interest.”
Jindal: Obama ‘Unfit to be Commander in Chief,’ More Intent on Warning About the Crusades
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said President Obama “seems more intent on telling us warnings about the Crusades, criticizing America” than fighting terrorism.
Jindal, the 2016 hopeful playing the most hardball lately, emerged from a governors’ meeting with Obama at the White House yesterday to declare the president “unfit to be commander in chief.”
“I take no joy in saying that,” said Jindal, in town for the National Governors Association meeting, to reporters. “I don’t say so for partisan or ideological reasons.”
Jindal elaborated on Fox this morning, saying Obama “disqualified” himself from being fit to lead the country and its military as he “refuses to identify one of the main military threats we face by name: radical Islamic fundamentalism.”
“You listen to those quotes from his own administration. Eric Holder says, ‘We’re not at a state of war.’ You’ve got the State Department saying, ‘We’re not going to kill our way to victory,’ at a time when these barbarians, they’re beheading Christians, they’re torturing, prosecuting Christians, Muslims, Jews, other religious minorities, they are — they killed over 100 schoolchildren, they’re actually killing editorials, because they don’t like their cartoons,” he said.
The governor also cited two “fundamental mistakes” Obama makes in his authorization of military force request to Congress.
“One, he puts an arbitrary timeline, a three-year deadline in there. We know we’ll be done when we’ve hunted down and killed these terrorists, not some political deadline. And then secondly, he bars the use of ground troops,” Jindal said.
“We need to enlist our military commanders. We need to go to them and say, ‘Give us a plan to hunt down, to kill, to eradicate these terrorists.’ We don’t need a president who’s trying to appease (inaudible), trying to be politically correct. He won’t even name the enemy we face, and now he’s refusing to give our military the tools — all the tools they need to go and win this war.”
17,000 Federal Employees Earned More Than $200K Last Year
See which agencies employ the federal workforce’s highest earners.
BY ERIC KATZ, GOVERNMENT EXECUTIVE
February 24, 2015 More than 16,900 federal employees took home in excess of $200,000 in base salary in 2014, according to a partial database of federal salary data.
The information, compiled by FedSmith.com using data from the Office of Personnel Management and other agencies, shows the annual compensation for every civilian federal worker, save those at the Defense Department. The number of workers earning more than $200,000 represented about 1.6 percent of employees on the list and is up from about 15,000 who cleared that salary in 2013. It also makes up a slightly higher percentage of the employees on this list.
Most of the high earners worked as medical officers at the Veterans Affairs Department. Other agencies that require a highly specialized workforce paid several employees at least $200,000; these included the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
More than 1,600 federal employees cleared $300,000 in base salary last year. Just two—VA doctors in Palo Alto, Calif., and Pittsburgh—took in more than $400,000.
All of these employees are paid on systems specific to their agency or occupation. Some of these systems have much higher pay caps than the General Schedule, which sets the salaries for the vast majority of federal employees and capped annual pay—before adjusting for locality—at just less than $130,000 last year.
Posted by Dan Cirucci On February 23, 2015 0 Comment
By Dan Cirucci | Dan Cirucci’s Blogspot
It’s no accident that George Washington was called “the father of our country.”
From the very beginning, American presidents have been somewhat patriarchal — not in the sense of a monarch, of course but more like a strong, caring, reliable dad who sees the best in us, inspires us, rallies us and above all, defends and protects our national family.
That’s what the best dads do. That’s what we’ve come to expect from them.
But what if we had a dad who always noticed our faults? What if he was repeatedly critical? What if he kept pointing it out to others whenever he thought we did something wrong?
Instead of challenging us to aspire to our highest goals, what if he constantly warned us and attempted to lower our aspirations? What if he pushed us to pull back instead of leaping forward?
What would it be like if we had a father who at times appeared to be arrogant and occasionally disdainful toward us?
Giuliani defends Obama criticism, says president doesn’t believe in American exceptionalism
Published February 20, 2015
FoxNews.com
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani adamantly defended Thursday his controversial criticism of President Obama, one day after saying he does “not believe that the president loves America.”
Giuliani made the remarks Wednesday at a private fundraiser for Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who is widely considered to be a prospective candidate for president in 2016. He added: “(Obama) doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was brought up through love of this country.”
The comments drew widespread criticism from Democrats and liberals.
But Thursday night on “The Kelly File,” when host Megyn Kelly asked Giuliani if he wished to apologize, the 2008 presidential candidate doubled down on his criticism.
“Not at all. I want to repeat it,” Giuliani said. “The reality is, from all that I can see of this president, all that I’ve heard of him, he apologizes for America, he criticizes America. … This is an American president I’ve never seen before.”
Giuliani said he doesn’t think Obama believes in American exceptionalism, citing the president’s remarks on police tactics in the wake of the Ferguson shooting, western atrocities in the name of religion and Obama’s longtime association with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a controversial Chicago pastor.
He’s a Raging Partisan : The big lie of Obama’s presidency
Febuary 18,2015
by Fred Barnes
President Obama’s claim to have disapproved of gay marriage until he changed his mind in 2012 has been exposed as a lie. It was a small, politically expedient lie, but it got a lot of attention last week. Meanwhile a bigger lie hovers over the Obama presidency like an avenging angel, unseen and unheard.
The bigger lie wasn’t a fleeting comment. It was the crux of Obama’s presidential campaign. He didn’t say he was more liberal and more experienced than his opponents. But he did say he knew how to cleanse Washington of political and ideological polarization, raging partisanship, the frequency of personal attacks, and general dysfunction. This made him unique—and very, very appealing.
He repeated the theme in campaign speeches. And in his Inaugural Address in January 2009, he said: “We have come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the petty recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics . . . the time has come to set aside childish things.”
As he left the inaugural ceremony, former House speaker Newt Gingrich told his wife, Calista, “If he’ll govern the way he just spoke, he’ll be Eisenhower. . . . He’ll split the Republican party. He’ll dominate the country.”
But Obama hasn’t governed like Ike, a unifying national leader. Almost instantly, he became a highly partisan president. He had promised to consult Republicans in Congress and listen to their ideas. Yet he’s done that rarely and then usually in a false show of bipartisanship. He insinuates Republicans have nothing worthwhile to tell him.
He has passed up two opportunities to join the country in moving to the political center, the first after the Republican landslide in the 2010 midterm elections, the second after the GOP captured both houses of Congress in November’s midterm vote.
The White House is facing mounting skepticism that its high-profile summit on violent extremism this week will help to counter a rising tide of radicalism, as world leaders search for a response to another wave of attacks, in Denmark and Libya.
The summit, to be held in Washington, will draw high-level officials from more than 60 countries and will focus on how to stave off the kind of political and socio-economic exclusion that drives marginalised groups into the hands of terror groups, senior administration officials said on Monday.
Plans for the three-day summit, which have been in the works for months, took on greater urgency after Islamist extremists killed 17 people in Paris last month, starting with an assault on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
Over the weekend, a gunman in Copenhagen opened fire at a free-speech event at a cultural centre and synagogue, killing two people, while on Sunday fighters affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or Isis, claimed they had killed up to 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians they were holding in the central Libyan city of Sirte.
North Dakota has ranked No. 1 for six years in a row. Gallup noted that Michigan experienced one of the “sharpest turnarounds of any state” in the seven years its has conducted the survey.
Nick Loris, an economist who focuses on energy, environmental and regulatory issues at The Heritage Foundation, said North Dakota’s No. 1 ranking came as no surprise.
“Energy development on private and state-owned lands in North Dakota and Texas is a critical reason why they rank at the top,” said Loris. “The regulatory environment has allowed companies in these states to create jobs, grow the economy, and increased energy supplies to save families money—all while effectively protecting the environment.”
Chart: Gallup
In his recent State of the State address, Gov. Jack Dalrymple, R-N.D., said energy jobs were a large factor in his state’s success.
“We should all be proud of the vital role our state is playing to help America strengthen its energy independence,” said Dalrymple.
“Over the past 10 years, North Dakota’s economy has averaged an annual growth rate of 10.3 percent, nearly three times that of the nation’s economy,” he added. “We also continue to have the nation’s lowest unemployment rate at just 2.4 percent, and our growing commercial activity has created more than 106,000 new jobs in the past 10 years.”
Dalrymple said North Dakota’s “economic progress has not been confined to oil country,” and pointed out that the state’s population and personal income rates are growing as well.
Chart: Gallup
James Sherk, senior policy analyst in labor economics at The Heritage Foundation, closely follows job growth. He noted that the labor market has slowly recovered since the recession ended. Last year represented a move in a positive direction.
“This recovery stands in marked contrast to the forecasts of Keynesian analysts who predicted that the sequester—a measure of spending restraint—and end of extended unemployment insurance benefits would harm the economy,” Sherk told The Daily Signal. “Instead, the economy has improved.”
Looking ahead, Sherk said government should remove barriers to job creation.
“The states with the fastest job growth have been those that have allowed hydraulic natural gas and oil extraction, with Texas and North Dakota enjoying some of the strongest labor markets in the country,” Sherk said. “New York decided to ban this new energy extraction technique—harming its workers and labor market.”
US budget deficit running 6.2 percent higher than last year
Feb 11, 4:49 PM (ET)
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government ran a bigger deficit in January, pushing the imbalance so far this budget year up 6.2 percent from the same period a year ago.
The Treasury Department said Wednesday the deficit for January stood at $17.5 billion compared to $10.3 billion a year ago. For the first four months of the budget year that began in October, the deficit widened to $194.2 billion from $182.8 billion during the same period last year.
The budget deficit has gradually narrowed since 2012, which was the fourth straight year in which it topped the $1 trillion mark. The improvement reflects the country’s economic recovery from recession. The government is seeing higher tax revenues as people go back to work and smaller payments for safety-net programs such as unemployment assistance. It also represents efforts by Congress to control deficits through higher taxes and across-the-board spending cuts.
Last year’s deficit benefited from a $24 billion special payment Freddie Mac made for the support it received during the financial crisis. The Congressional Budget Office forecasts a deficit of $468 billion for the full 2015 budget year, 3.1 percent lower than in 2014.
For the current budget year, government revenues total $1.05 trillion, an increase of 8.7 percent from the same period a year ago. Government spending totals $1.24 trillion, up 8.3 percent over last year.
The deficit in 2014 narrowed to $483.3 billion from $680.2 billion in 2013. Before that, the deficits soared to record heights as the government grappled with revenue losses from the Great Recession and increased spending in such areas as unemployment benefits and food stamps.
President Barack Obama unveiled last week his new budget proposal, which projects the 2015 deficit to rise to $583 billion, sharply higher than the CBO’s latest estimate. Obama’s new budget is asking Congress for authorization to spend $4 trillion next year and projects a 2016 deficit of $474 billion.
IRS to pay back-refunds to illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes
Lawmakers fear illegals could use Obama amnesty to find ways to vote
By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times – Wednesday, February 11, 2015
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress on Wednesday that even illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes will be able to claim back-refunds once they get Social Security numbers under President Obama’s temporary deportation amnesty.
The revelation — which contradicts what he told Congress last week — comes as lawmakers also raised concerns Mr. Obama’s amnesty could open a window to illegal immigrants finding ways to vote, despite it being against the law.
“While we may disagree about whether your deferred action programs were lawfully created and implemented, we are confident that we can all agree that these programs cannot be permitted to impair the integrity of our elections,” Republican members of Congress from Ohio wrote in a letter to Mr. Obama Wednesday, ahead of a hearing on the issue in the House on Thursday.
State legislators around the country have introduced more than 200 bills aiming to nullify regulations and laws coming out of Washington, D.C., as they look to rein in the federal government.
The legislative onslaught, which includes bills targeting federal restrictions on firearms, experimental treatments and hemp, reflects growing discord between the states and Washington, state officials say.
“You have a choice,” said Kentucky state Rep. Diane St. Onge (R). “To sit back and not do anything or say anything and let overregulation continue — or you have the alternative choice to speak up about it and say, ‘We know what you are doing or intend to do and we do not think that it is constitutional and we as a state are not going to stand for it.’ ”
Last month, St. Onge introduced H.B. 13 to nullify federal gun control laws within Kentucky state lines. Similar legislation has been introduced in seven other states.
“This law is saying the sheriff and those under him do not have to follow federal regulations,” she said.
Gallup CEO: Number of Full-Time Jobs as Percent of Population Is Lowest It’s Ever Been
Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, February 5, 2015, 11:48 AM
Gallup CEO and Chairman Jim Clifton doubled-down on his comments earlier in the week on the misleading Obama unemployment rate.
Clifton went on America’s Newsroom today to explain the misleading government numbers.
“The number of full-time jobs, and that’s what everybody wants, as a percent of the total population, is the lowest it’s ever been… The other thing that is very misleading about that number is the more people that drop out, the better the number gets. In the recession we lost 13 million jobs. Only 3 million have come back. You don’t see that in that number. “
The Legacy of Debt: Interest Costs Poised to Surpass Defense and Nondefense Discretionary Spending
By JOSH ZUMBRUN
The U.S. has come a long way since the days of trillion-dollar deficits, just a few years ago. The White House projects 2016 will have the smallest budget deficit in eight years. Yet the budgetary impact of the debt that’s been accumulated–$18 trillion in total, $13 trillion of that owed to the public–will reassert itself.
Currently, the government’s interest costs are around $200 billion a year, a sum that’s low due to the era of low interest rates. Forecasters at the White House and Congressional Budget Office believe interest rates will gradually rise, and when that happens, the interest costs of the U.S. government are set to soar, from just over $200 billion to nearly $800 billion a year by decade’s end.
White House: Deficit Will Increase 20% This Year (Despite Record Tax Revenue)
February 3, 2015 – 12:00 PM
(CNSNews.com) – The data that the White House published with President Obama’s fiscal 2016 budget proposal yesterday indicate that the federal deficit will increase by 20 percent during this fiscal year (2015) even though the administration predicts the Treasury will bring in record revenue during the year.
According to Table S-1 in the “Summary Tables” appendix to the Obama budget, the deficit was $485 billion in fiscal 2014 and will be $583 billion in fiscal 2015—an increase of $98 billion, or 20.2 percent.
The federal fiscal year begins on Oct. 1 and ends on Sept. 30.
In fiscal year 2015, according to the Obama budget tables, the federal government will take in $3.176 trillion in tax revenue and spend $3.759 trillion.
The $3.176 trillion in tax revenues the White House estimates the federal government will bring in this year is a record in both current and inflation-adjusted dollars.
According to the White House Office of Management and Budget’s historical table that shows federal tax receipts and outlays in constant 2009 dollars, fiscal 2015 federal receipts will equal $2.8952 trillion in constant 2009 dollars.
Here’s something that many Americans — including some of the smartest and most educated among us — don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading.
Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market.
None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up on finding a job — if you are so hopelessly out of work that you’ve stopped looking over the past four weeks — the Department of Labor doesn’t count you as unemployed. That’s right. While you are as unemployed as one can possibly be, and tragically may never find work again, you are not counted in the figure we see relentlessly in the news — currently 5.6%. Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast majority of them aren’t throwing parties to toast “falling” unemployment.
There’s another reason why the official rate is misleading. Say you’re an out-of-work engineer or healthcare worker or construction worker or retail manager: If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at least $20 — maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn — you’re not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%. Few Americans know this.
Yet another figure of importance that doesn’t get much press: those working part time but wanting full-time work. If you have a degree in chemistry or math and are working 10 hours part time because it is all you can find — in other words, you are severely underemployed — the government doesn’t count you in the 5.6%. Few Americans know this.
There’s no other way to say this. The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.
And it’s a lie that has consequences, because the great American dream is to have a good job, and in recent years, America has failed to deliver that dream more than it has at any time in recent memory. A good job is an individual’s primary identity, their very self-worth, their dignity — it establishes the relationship they have with their friends, community and country. When we fail to deliver a good job that fits a citizen’s talents, training and experience, we are failing the great American dream.
Gallup defines a good job as 30+ hours per week for an organization that provides a regular paycheck. Right now, the U.S. is delivering at a staggeringly low rate of 44%, which is the number of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18 years and older. We need that to be 50% and a bare minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America’s middle class.
I hear all the time that “unemployment is greatly reduced, but the people aren’t feeling it.” When the media, talking heads, the White House and Wall Street start reporting the truth — the percent of Americans in good jobs; jobs that are full time and real — then we will quit wondering why Americans aren’t “feeling” something that doesn’t remotely reflect the reality in their lives. And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the middle class.
