FCC Commish: Obama Taking Unprecedented Direct Control Over Internet Changes
Friday on Newsmax TV’s “The Steve Malzberg Show,” FCC commissioner Ajit Pai said President Barack Obama is about to succeed in his attempt to take “alarmingly unprecedented direct involvement” into the FCC’s plan to regulate the internet, which he explained will mean “billions of dollars in new taxes,” slower broadband speeds and “less competition.”
Discussing the plan that the FCC has refused to let the public see Pai said, “Unfortunately it looks like the cake has been baked. President Obama gave his direction to the FCC in back in early November and lo and behold, the FCC majority has put together President Obama’s plan for Internet regulation. And it looks to be posed pass it on a 3-to-2 vote.”
Internet groups in tricky position over US net neutrality
Richard Waters in San Francisco
Be careful what you wish for. That is the message for companies such as Google and Facebook as US regulators move ahead with a plan to enshrine the idea of an open internet in regulation.
On the face of it, the big internet companies will have scored a significant victory if the Federal Communication Commission votes, as expected, for its new “net neutrality” rules this month. The regime is intended to make sure broadband and other network providers cannot block or otherwise hold internet services to ransom.
Who could take issue with such a noble purpose? Telecoms regulation is not usually the kind of thing to excite much public interest, but this is a cause that has reverberated widely. Populist campaigns like the one waged over net neutrality, however, do not allow for much in the way of nuance.
The problem comes with the form the rules will take. With heavy nudging from the White House, the FCC has opted to re purpose an authority it was given under an old telecoms law, known as Title II, to make it apply to the internet era.
By DAVID E. SANGER and NICOLE PERLROTHFEB. 12, 2015
PALO ALTO, Calif. — President Obama will meet here on Friday with the nation’s top technologists on a host of cybersecurity issues and the threats posed by increasingly sophisticated hackers. But nowhere on the agenda is the real issue for the chief executives and tech company officials who will gather on the Stanford campus: the deepening estrangement between Silicon Valley and the government.
The long history of quiet cooperation between Washington and America’s top technology companies — first to win the Cold War, then to combat terrorism — was founded on the assumption of mutual interest. Edward J. Snowden’s revelations shattered that. Now, the Obama administration’s efforts to prevent companies from greatly strengthening encryption in commercial products like Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android phones has set off a new battle, as the companies resist government efforts to make sure police and intelligence agencies can crack the systems.
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.
Congress, Don’t Be Fooled; Obama Still Believes in Unlimited War
By BRUCE ACKERMANFEB. 11, 2015
PRESIDENT OBAMA is going before Congress to request authorization for the limited use of military force in a battle of up to three years against the Islamic State. On the surface, this looks like a welcome recognition of Congress’s ultimate authority in matters of war and peace. But unless the resolution put forward by the White House is amended, it will have the opposite effect. Congressional support will amount to the ringing endorsement of unlimited presidential war making.
Whatever else they decide, the House and Senate should revise the White House initiative to guarantee that it won’t have this tragic result. First do no harm; before proceeding with a debate over the limits of our continuing military engagement, Congress should make it impossible for future presidents to evade its final decision.
The problem is the double-barreled position advanced by Mr. Obama. He asserts that he already has sufficient congressional authority for an open-ended war with the Islamic State, also known as ISIL or ISIS. He bases this claim on an expansive reading of Congress’s 2001 resolution authorizing President George W. Bush to make war on Al Qaeda after the 9/11 attacks. As long as this resolution remains on the books, Mr. Obama claims, he can continue fighting, even if Congress never agrees to a new resolution.
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.
President Obama’s Budget Cuts $50 Million From Vaccine Program For Underinsured
“Health insurance expansion will further increase access to immunizations and decrease the number of uninsured and underinsured individuals in need of Section 317 vaccine for routine immunizations,” a White House official told BuzzFeed News.
President Obama’s fiscal year budget for 2016 cuts $50 million from Health and Human Service’s 317 immunization program, which provides provides vaccines at no cost to those eligible, typically the uninsured and underinsured.
The cut from the program comes during a measles outbreak in California and other western states, which has reignited the debate over mandatory childhood vaccinations.
In a statement the White House defended the proposed cut, saying the Affordable Care Act’s coverage makes the program less necessary.
“Health insurance expansion will further increase access to immunizations and decrease the number of uninsured and underinsured individuals in need of Section 317 vaccine for routine immunizations,” a White House official told BuzzFeed News.
It is fitting that President Obama released his 2016 budget on Groundhog’s Day. Like Bill Murray’s character Phil Connors in the famous movie Obama is stuck in an endless loop where he keeps pushing economically destructive tax hikes that have little chance of becoming law.
This is the seventh budget he has released, and each of them had trillions of dollars of tax hikes that would needlessly increase the tax burden on American families and increase the already bloated size of the federal government.
This year’s headline-grabbing and nonsensical tax hike targets U.S. multinational businesses. Obama wants to apply a 19 percent minimum tax on their foreign income going forward and a 14 percent tax on the foreign income they previously earned but have not yet returned to the U.S. (and therefore have not paid their U.S. tax on yet).
Businesses would have to pay the minimum tax each year. Thus, it would end the long practice of deferral, which applies extra U.S. tax to foreign earnings only when businesses return those profits home. It is unclear from the text of the budget if businesses could continue to use their foreign tax credits, or if the minimum tax would apply on top of the foreign tax businesses already pay. Either way, ending deferral and raising taxes on foreign income will reduce investment by U.S. business both abroad and here at home. The result will be fewer jobs and lower wages for U.S. workers.
This tax hike is so perplexing because the U.S. already has the worst corporate tax system in the developed world. We have the highest rate, 15 percentage points above the average of our competitors, and we are effectively the only nation in that group that taxes the foreign income of our businesses.
We should be lowering the corporate tax rate and moving to a territorial system that would not tax overseas earnings to put our businesses back on competitive footing. However, by raising rates on the foreign income of our businesses, Obama’s proposal goes in the exact opposite direction.
This is an especially alarming development because corporate tax reform was supposed to be one area of potential compromise between Obama and the new Congress. Obama has said he is interested in doing it and even has a framework of a plan. These new proposals reduce the already slim chances of advancing much-needed reform.
This tax hike is so perplexing because the U.S. already has the worst corporate tax system in the developed world. We have the highest rate, 15 percentage points above the average of our competitors, and we are effectively the only nation in that group that taxes the foreign income of our businesses.
We should be lowering the corporate tax rate and moving to a territorial system that would not tax overseas earnings to put our businesses back on competitive footing. However, by raising rates on the foreign income of our businesses, Obama’s proposal goes in the exact opposite direction.
This is an especially alarming development because corporate tax reform was supposed to be one area of potential compromise between Obama and the new Congress. Obama has said he is interested in doing it and even has a framework of a plan. These new proposals reduce the already slim chances of advancing much-needed reform.
Obama is sure to argue that the policies he is proposing are similar to ones proposed by Republicans, such as in former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp’s tax reform proposal last year. However, like in many of the president’s policies, the context matters immensely.
Camp’s proposal was part of a tax reform plan that established a territorial tax system. As part of that system, anti-base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) policies are necessary to stop U.S. businesses from shifting too much U.S. income abroad. Obama proposing BEPS policies without simultaneously moving to a territorial regime is like trying to install a security system on a house that has not been built yet.
The president is also likely to argue that his tax on unrepatriated earning is a tax cut, since he would apply a lower rate to them than under current law. This is nonsense. By deeming the money repatriated and forcing businesses to pay tax on it, he is forcing businesses to pay tax on money they never intended to bring back to the U.S. and therefore would never have paid tax on.
The tax hike on multinationals is supposed to pay for half of a six-year, $478 billion highway and transit program reauthorization proposal. Obama wants to dramatically increase spending on underutilized mass transit rail systems and federal grants to local rail, road and port projects. Concentrating transportation decision-making in Washington is the wrong way to go; states, localities and the private sector know the mobility needs and consumer preferences on the ground. Obama’s proposal would give them less control over their transportation funding and spending when they need more.
Garrett: Obama’s Budget is a Lousy Groundhog Day Repeat
“It’s fitting that President Obama released his budget on Groundhog Day because it’s a painful repeat of the same failed policies that he has presented to Congress for the past six years. This budget increases taxes, expands failed government programs that do nothing to create jobs, and never balances.” Rep Scott Garrett
Garrett: Obama’s Budget is a Lousy Groundhog Day Repeat
Feb 2, 2015
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05), a senior member of the House Budget Committee, released the following statement after President Obama unveiled his Fiscal Year 2016 budget proposal to Congress today:
“It’s fitting that President Obama released his budget on Groundhog Day because it’s a painful repeat of the same failed policies that he has presented to Congress for the past six years. This budget increases taxes, expands failed government programs that do nothing to create jobs, and never balances.
“When I talk to hardworking taxpayers in New Jersey, I always hear the same thing—American families are learning to do more with less, so it’s time for Washington to do the same. Mr. President, please join us to work on solutions that make the government more efficient, accountable, and effective.”
Key Facts: The President’s FY 2016 Budget
Tax Increases
• Despite $2.1 trillion in new tax increases, President Obama’s budget never balances—ever.
• Major proposed tax increases include higher levies on savings and investment, small businesses, and increases in the costs of hiring workers.
• These tax hikes would stunt the economic growth needed to get Americans back to work, and come on top of $1.7 trillion in tax hikes already imposed by this Administration.
Spending Increases
• The President’s budget increases annually-appropriated spending for next year by $74 billion relative to current law. Over 5 years, he would increase such spending by $322 billion.
• Next year alone, the President’s budget would grow total federal spending by $259 billion, or 7 percent.
• Total spending will increase by 65 percent ($2.4 trillion) in 10 years under the President’s plan.
Interest Costs Skyrocket
• President Obama’s plan more than triples interest costs, which remain the fastest growing item in the budget.
• Interest on the debt this year would be $229 billion, but would rise to $785 billion in 2025 under his plan.
• At the end of President’s plan, annual interest costs would be larger than his proposed spending for national defense, Medicaid or the combined total of all non-defense agency spending.
Debt Climbs
• Since 2009, we’ve added $7.5 trillion to the debt and spent $21.1 trillion.
• The President’s budget plan would add $8.5 trillion to the debt.
• Cumulative deficits would amount to $5.7 trillion, and gross debt would climb to $26.3 trillion in 2025.
The Typical Millennial Is $2,000 Poorer Than His Parents at This Age
More young people are living in poverty and fewer have jobs compared their parents’ generation, the Baby Boomers, in 1980.
Derek Thompson Jan 31 2015, 8:00 AM ET
The past is another country. In 1980, the typical young worker in Detroit or Flint, Michigan, earned more than his counterpart in San Francisco or San Jose. The states with the highest median income were Michigan, Wyoming, and Alaska. Nearly 80 percent of the Boomer generation, which at the time was between 18 and 35, was white, compared to 57 percent today.
Three decades later, in 2013, the picture of young people—yes, Millennials—is a violently shaken kaleidoscope, and not all the pieces are falling into a better place. Michigan’s median income for under-35 workers has fallen by 26 percent, more than any state. In fact, beyond the east coast, earnings for young workers fell in every state but Hawaii and South Dakota.
The median income of young adults today is $2,000 less today than their parents in 1980, adjusted for inflation. The earnings drop has been particularly steep in the rust belt and across the northwest.
As you can see in the next interactive graph, the three states with the highest median income for young people in 1980 were also the three states with the steepest 33-year decline in median income: Michigan, Wyoming, and Alaska. The winners of this continental shake-up are all on the coasts, particularly Virginia, Maryland, and just about all of New England.
The income gap between the rich and poor — the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, the 1% — has increased four times faster under Obama than under Bush. That’s according to the New York Times.
Middle Class Shrinks Further as More Fall Out Instead of Climbing Up
By DIONNE SEARCEY and ROBERT GEBELOFFJAN. 25, 2015
The middle class that President Obama identified in his State of the Union speech last week as the foundation of the American economy has been shrinking for almost half a century.
In the late 1960s, more than half of the households in the United States were squarely in the middle, earning, in today’s dollars, $35,000 to $100,000 a year. Few people noticed or cared as the size of that group began to fall, because the shift was primarily caused by more Americans climbing the economic ladder into upper-income brackets.
But since 2000, the middle-class share of households has continued to narrow, the main reason being that more people have fallen to the bottom. At the same time, fewer of those in this group fit the traditional image of a married couple with children at home, a gap increasingly filled by the elderly.
This social upheaval helps explain why the president focused on reviving the middle class, offering a raft of proposals squarely aimed at concerns like paying for a college education, taking parental leave, affording child care and buying a home.
