Once Upon A Time In America

Once Upon a Time  ……  immigrants came to American as we were a young and rapidly expanding nation offering opportunity to anyone willing to work hard and take a chance on themselves.  We stood with open arms, asking for the help from others that was needed to make our nation grow and prosper.   But that was long ago and while America is still looked upon as the land of opportunity, it is not necessarily opportunity that so many who wish to cross the border into our country are now looking for.

Over the past 50 years a profane transformation of our nation’s immigration policies has taken place.  A desire to welcome those who enter the United States illegally has been perpetuated by the liberal faction in this country with absolute disregard to the burden that doing so places on the resources created, paid for and consumed by the hard working and law abiding men, women and children of this nation.  No longer drawn in by the vast opportunities that were once available and offered by a fledgling county, the transformation of our immigration policies now incents illegal’s to cross our borders so that they can take advantage of the free offerings our government is now legally bound to provide them. 

While there are some immigrants, illegal or otherwise, that do come to this country still willing to take the risk and work hard for the opportunity to prosper in the greatest nation in the world, there are far too many that cross our boarders seeking no more than the handouts that our government has promised them.  It is a promise that should never have been made.

Nowhere in the constitution is it written that the United States is a land without closed border nor does the constitution stipulate that all who try and enter this great nation will be met with open arms and that the government has an obligation to ensure the health and well-being of those who cross our borders.  These are merely the profane transformations of our nation’s immigrations policies that have become a huge burden on our country.

ObamaCare Open Enrollment Starts Tomorrow

It is hard to fathom that more than seven months have passed since the first ObamaCare open enrollment period ended.  It is also difficult to understand why the Obama Administration remains tight lipped on enrollment numbers.

Certainly the folks over at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have by now tallied up the figures.  They must know the exact number of formerly uninsured nonelderly people that signed up for healthcare insurance on one of the state and federal healthcare exchanges as well the number who did so whom were insured prior to the ObamaCare rollout.  Let’s not forget about the number of young and healthy that have signed up for ObamaCare, that oh so critical demographic that is needed to cover the high cost of insuring the sick and the elderly.

Show Me The Numbers

HHS has been less than forthcoming in providing enrollment figures making it seem as though the self-proclaimed most transparent administration in history might just be hiding something, and they are. 

The whole idea behind the ObamaCare method of healthcare reform is to stop people from using the emergency room as their healthcare plan by providing them access to affordable healthcare. 

For the poor, access to affordable healthcare was accomplished through the expansion of the Medicaid system, a taxpayer funded payment mechanism that provides free or near free access to healthcare to those that qualify.  Medicaid by no means provides individuals with healthcare insurance, it merely gives those whose lesser income qualifies them for the program the peace of mind in knowing that someone will be there to pick up the tab when they are in need of healthcare.

Early on in the first enrollment period, the number that HHS claimed to have signed up for the Medicaid expansion was called into question.  The enrollment numbers being claimed were staggering and as it turns out, HHS was reporting all Medicaid enrollments, both reoccurring and those due to the expansion. 

HHS excused allegations that they were purposely propping up the Medicaid enrollment number in an attempt to boost the laws popularity.  HHS stated that there was no way to differentiate if an enrollment was reoccurring or new as there was no mechanism in place for enrollees to make this distinction.  Ironically, the number of people that have signed up for Medicaid, as a direct result of the expansion, is one of the very few numbers that HHS is currently able to provide and reports this figure to be 7.2 million.

The number of formerly uninsured nonelderly individuals who have actually purchased, paid for and retained a qualified healthcare plan from one of the healthcare exchanges remains as elusive as Big Foot and the Loch Ness Monster.  HHS has provided a total number of qualified healthcare plans that were purchased from the healthcare exchanges during the initial open enrollment period but has refused to make the distinction as to how many of these plans were purchased by the formerly insure and the formerly uninsured.

HHS has also adopted an enrolment figure drawn from a Gallup study of the uninsured.  The Gallup study revealed a sharp drop in the number of uninsured during the last quarter of 2013 and the first quarter of 2014, the period of which the ObamaCare open enrollment covered.  The drop ended abruptly at the start of second quarter 2014.  Gallup quantified the reduction in the number of uninsured as 10.3 million and attributed the reduction to the Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare.  It must be noted that the Gallup study includes those who have access to healthcare through Medicaid.

If one were so inclined, they could remove the 7.2 million, whom HHS states have benefited from the Medicaid expansion, from the 10.3 million reduction in the nations uninsured, as reported in the Gallup study, to arrive at the number of formerly uninsured that gained healthcare coverage during the first open enrollment period.  HHS has not been so inclined to make this simple analysis however, at least not out loud.

It is unclear as to why HHS adopted the Gallup survey over similar studies conducted or even over their own data.  The likely answer to this question is that other enrolment conclusions drawn using the Gallup’s figures, as unattractive as they are, looked the best.

They Moved the Bar

There was a valuable lesson learned during the first open enrollment period.

Two thirds the way through the first open enrollment period the popularity of ObamaCare looked to be facing numbers as low as 50% of the 7 million forecast.  Looking to lessen the embarrassment, the enrollment bar was lowered to 6 million.  But a last minute surge in enrollment, likely caused by those whose policy cancelations where kicking in, pushed enrollment over the 8 million mark.  Not only did the administration overt what looked to be an enrollment disaster, by lowering the bar they were now able to claim that enrollment exceeded expectations by 35%.

It appears that they are taking heed to the lesson learned in the first round as HHS has recently released that the goal for 2015 is to reduce the number of the nation’s uninsured by 9.1 million at the close of the second enrollment period, down 30% from the original projection 13 million.

Already claiming that 7.1 million have obtained a qualified healthcare plan, as a direct result of ObamaCare, HHS needs to add only 2 million to the count to achieve their 2015 goal.  Anything beyond 2 million will be used by the Obama Administration to boast what they want people to believe is the growing popularity of the healthcare law.   

Sadly, both enrollment claims and projections provided by HHS have been highly deceptive.  Enrollment projections stated by HHS have always come from forecasts provided by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) which reflect the annual reduction in the number of uninsured nonelderly, as a result of ObamaCare.  At no time has the CBO analysis ever included a component that takes into account the number of formerly insured that have transfer over to one of the healthcare exchanges.

Yet, HHS and the president himself repeatedly compare ObamaCare enrollment to the CBO forecast when measuring the success of the controversial healthcare law.  This apples to oranges comparison is highly deceptive and most certainly intentional.  If an apples to apples comparison were made, i.e. the number of formerly uninsured nonelderly that have gained insurance through ObamaCare vs. the CBO forecast, proponents of the law would have a difficult time fending off the opposition’s calls for repeal.

2nd Wave of Cancelations

A second round of individual insurance plan cancelations are already underway and most definitely will be the tool to which drives up enrollment on the state and federal healthcare exchanges as was the case in 2014.

The ObamaCare driven cancelation of individual insurance plans made up for 56% of the 2014 enrollment.  It will be some time before we know the effect that the second round of cancelations will have on the number who enroll on one of the state and federal healthcare exchanges during the 2015 open enrollment period but you can be assured that HHS will count those towards the enrollment goal of 9.1 million, just as they have in the past.

Many small-group insurance plans are also expected to receive cancelation notices this year and the number could run up into the millions.

Insures Cannot Be Too Happy

The insurance companies are watching closely and they cannot be all too happy with how ObamaCare is shaping up. 

In the negotiations to secure their participation on the healthcare exchanges, insurers were promised that 25 million new participants would be added to the insurance marketplace by 2016.  With roughly 3 million having been added in 2014 and another 2 million forecasted to be added in 2015, the Obama Administration has set itself a pretty lofty goal for 2016.

Maybe the president has a plan B, which is what those who oppose ObamaCare are most afraid of.

More Fiscal Irresponsibility From Our President

In a less than amenable position forced upon House Republicans, on Tuesday the House voted in favor of New Years Day Senate legislation that put a stop to tax increases imposed on the middle class and the automatic tax cuts that took effect at midnight on January 1.  However, this piece of legislation did not include cuts necessary to reduce deficit spending and the national debt but instead, once again, kicked the can down the road of fiscal irresponsibility.

In a statement following the House vote, Speaker of the House, John Boehner stated "Now the focus turns to spending," but the harsh reality is that no real spending reform is likely to transpire.  The Speaker has to be, at best, guardedly optimistic in thinking that President Obama has any intention of working towards spending reforms that could pass muster with Conservative Republicans.  Most of the House Conservative Republicans balked at the January 1 Senate legislation, giving the thumbs down to a deal which included tax increases on the wealthy and ignored spending cuts.

President Obama has been on a spending spree since the day he took his Presidential Oath.  Posting an annual deficit in excess of $1 trillion each year he has been in office, the President fails to accept culpability for his hand in the deficit, instead placing blame on two wars and a recession he inherited.  However, what the President fails to acknowledge is his infamous campaign pledge of cutting the deficit in half by the end of his first term, which incidentally, he made while the two wars were in play and the economy was already in downturn.  The real contributor to the deficit is Obama himself, having increased domestic government agencies spending by over ten percent and non-defense discretionary spending nearly 25%.  Additionally the President has wasted billions of dollars on failed stimulus packages and auto industry bailouts, all of this in his first two years in office alone!  What might be the most telling tale of President Obama’s fiscal irresponsibility is his own administration’s failure to have passed a single budget since entering office.

The latest act of fiscal irresponsibility, on the part of President Obama, has been playing out for over a year now, starting with his failure to lead lawmakers down a path of fiscal reform during the 2011 debt-ceiling crises.  As a result of this failure, the nation’s debt-ceiling was raised by $400 billion which resulted in our nation’s credit rating being lowered for the first time in history.  To prevent the need to raise the debt-ceiling again, in the near future, a deal was made that deferred the task of deficit reduction to a newly appointed Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction which, in August of 2011, also failed to produce deficit reduction legislation, as mandated by law.  Since that time, complete inaction, on the part of the Obama administration, led the nation right up to and over the fiscal cliff this past Monday. 

In what the main stream media describes as ‘an extreme difference in political ideology’ that is preventing the two parties from coming together on fiscal matters, the fact still remains that President Obama has an obligation to Americans to reduce the nation’s debt, regardless of ideology.  To date, the President has reneged on virtually every promise he has made to the American people in regards to the reduction of the national debt and deficit spending, simply refusing to take any realistic actions towards spending reform while continuing to add new government spending and demanding new revenue in support of his socialist ideals.

The President continues to play a very dangerous game with our nation’s financial well being.  With a mannerism that many critics have described as ‘dictator like’, President Obama has adopted the ‘my way or the highway’ approach to negotiations, an approach where the word compromise simply does not exist.  Stemming from his own arrogance, the President has made modern history with the fiscal failures he has achieved during his first term in office and judging from the mandates he recently placed on those Democratic Party leaders responsible for trying to hammer out a fiscal cliff deal, his second term as President will be equally filled with failure and fiscal irresponsibility. 

Pushing His Agenda - Obama Shows No Sign of Leadership

It should come as no surprise to Americans that we have found ourselves standing on the edge of the fiscal cliff just waiting for our President to give us all the OK to jump off.

Since early in his term as president, Obama has been chastised by Republican leaders for his spendthrift attitude in support of his social agenda.  The undisputed ‘King of Debt’ President Obama has raised the bar on uncontrolled government spending to new heights.  Party arguments, from either side of the fence, as to how and why are inconsequential, the fact of the matter is the president’s personal mandate, to achieve the goals of his social agenda, is void of fiscal control.

Immediately following the horrific fall in the nation’s economy in late 2007, the then new president responded by making ObamaCare his top priority, an egregious act of fiscal irresponsibility in the wake of the worst recession that this nation has faced since the Great Depression.  Sadly, ObamaCare was only the first on a long list if fiscally irresponsible acts undertaken by the president, most in pursuit of achieving socioeconomic equality through the re-distribution of wealth and the growth of government.

And so, here we find ourselves once again, with our president holding American hostage to his agenda by threatening to raise taxes on all Americans if Republicans do not concede to his proposal of raising taxes on the wealthy and spending cuts that do not even offset his new spending plan much less put a penny towards reducing the nations rapidly growing debt.  This has clearly been the president’s plan all along, one packed full of campaigning and void of compromise and leadership.

There does not exist a president in modern history that has been as flamboyant and overstepping with his presidential powers as has President Obama.  But let’s not be so quick to blame the President himself as public polls constantly show a pretty even division in the president’s popularity but then again, being the president is not a job of popularity but one of leadership and in that regard, Obama has earned himself a big F-.

Another Lesson Not Yet Learned By Republicans

It is astonishing that the latest ‘fiscal cliff crisis’ even exists but then again this stemming from the failure of the ‘Super Committee’ to reach a bi-partisan agreement back in August of 2011, I guess it is to be expected.
In what was really no more than a stopgap agreement between the White House and Republican lawmaker, The Budget Control Act of 2011 (BCA) was enacted to end the 2011 debt-ceiling crises.  In exchange for a commitment from the White House to work towards real deficit reduction, House Republicans agree to raise the nation’s debt-ceiling by $400 billion thus putting an end to the 2011 debt-crises and forgoing the possibility of sovereign default by our nation.  And so, as stipulated in the BCA, the Congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, better known as the ‘Super-Committee’ was created, its purpose, to produce a bi-partisan piece of legislation by no later than November 23, 2011.

The BCA was highly controversial and widely unpopular amongst Republican lawmakers and also had Speaker of the House John Boehner coming under significant criticism from his party.  Although expressly implied that Democratic lawmakers would provide real spending cuts, there was no language in the BCA to hold them to it and so, it should come as no surprise that the November 23^rd deadline came and went with no agreement being reach.  By virtue of Republicans negotiating in good faith and Democrats reneging on their side of the bargain, Democrats managed to walk away with the debt-ceiling increased while not having to produce a single spending cut in return.

The failure of the White House to follow through with its commitments, legally bound or otherwise, has become the norm for the Obama administration, from budgets that have yet to transpire to President Obama’s more recent pledge to America that he would reduce spending.  These failures once again have the Federal Government just days away from reaching its debt-limit and the nation going over the fiscal cliff. 

This past Friday, shortly after emerging from a last minute ‘fiscal cliff’ meeting with Senate and House leaders, President Obama expressed that he was “mildly optimistic” that an agreement could be achieved to avert the fiscal cliff.  The President also went on to indirectly chastise Republicans for failing to do their job.   It’s the same old rhetoric from the same old President who has also been campaigning for his real desire, a short term agreement that would get us past the January 2, 2013 deadline and provide lawmakers ‘more time’ to reach a bi-partisan agreement.

Republicans allowed the can to be kicked down the road over a year ago with the The Budget Control Act of 2011 and look where it got them.  The Obama administration has demonstrated its complete inability to pass a budget, has shown inaction on dozens of fiscal and economic issues and now, after having over year to address the fiscal cliff issue, has once again come up short on standing by their word to produce real fiscal reform.

So, the big question is, “have Republicans learned their lesson yet” or are they going to allow the White House to be kick the can down the road once again?

Union Greed - A Roadblock to Progress

It looks as though those pesky labor unions are at it again! 

Possibly becoming the third labor union walkout on US shipping ports this month, the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) is threatening to strike if an agreement can not be reached by the end of the week.  Currently working on a 90 day contract extension, the ILA and employers are at a stalemate over ‘royalty fees’.  In an effort to gain back some control over their business, employers wish to place a ‘cap’ on these fees to aid in the company’s ability to remain competitive.  A strike by the ILA would affect more than 14,000 workers and some 14 ports along the Eastern Seaboard creating a major disruption in the nation’s retail market and agricultural exports, a disruption the ILA will certainly exploit.

What are these ‘royalty fees’?  They are nothing more than a ‘bonus’ paid to ILA dockworkers on top of their negotiated contract union wage.  The amount of these ‘royalty fees’ are based on the weight of the containers the dockworkers move.  Stemming from the fact that shippers use weight as one of components in determining its shipping cost to customers, union logic concludes that if the shipper profits by weight then so should its members.  However, the union fails to acknowledge that work being performed by its members is impervious to weight while the shipper must recover the cost to purchase and maintain transport equipment, fuel costs and various transportation taxes and fees imposed by state and federal law.  The concept of these ‘royalty fees’ is another example of the backwards union logic used to manipulate its members and its miss use of power to get into the pockets of those who employ there members.

At the same time, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) and employers have also reached a stalemate over a number of proposed rule changes in the existing labor contract.  The proposed rule changes would remove a significant number of employee ‘perks’ that simply are unfair to the employer, such as paying workers while conducting union business at the work place for example.  As their argument, the ILWU cites that the companies are attempting to impose changes to contract terms that have been in place for over 80 years while also claiming the reason for these changes is simply to break the union.  I guess it has never occurred to the ILWU that business practices have progressed over the past 80 years.

And earlier this month approximately 800 striking Clerical Workers Union (OCU) members, supported by an additional 10,000 longshoremen, cripple both the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach after failing to reach an agreement with shipping line employers.  The striking OCU member, who reportedly receive a wage and benefits package which amounts to roughly $90 per hour, were demanding language in the new labor contract that would ‘guarantee’ there jobs would never be outsourced.  The OCU has made claims that shipping line employers have been outsourcing OCU jobs lost through attrition, a claim the shipping lines deny.  At an economic loss of an estimated $1 billion per day, the striking OCU left approximately 20 ships stranded at anchor, some being re-routed to other ports in order to keep retail goods moving.

An agreement, which heavily favored the OCU and its members, was finally reached putting an end to an eight day strike.  In addition to a wage and pension increase, of which the union claims neither was a point of contention, the new contract includes a ‘no outsourcing’ and a ‘no layoff’ clause which now prohibits the employers from taking advantage of modern computer systems and technology that would streamline and better manage many of the work activities of its OCU employees, virtually forcing employers into progress stagnation.  Losing this technological edge on their competitors, the shipping lines now have to seek out corners to cut that will provide an equivalent cost savings in order to remain competitive.

We’ve come a long way baby

A sad testament to an ideology that, so many years ago, saved and consequently fortified the workforce of our nation, the number of union greed horror stories that are plaguing our nation grows larger by the day.  

With unemployment rates at a record high and an economy still struggling to recover from recession,  both public and private sector labor unions have been waging war with employers in an effort to preserve unjustifiable wages and unsustainable pension plans. From coast to coast, hundreds of cities are facing insolvency largely due to underfunded pensions.  With the lack of participation from the public sector labor unions, many of these financially strapped cities have fallen into bankruptcy and there will be many more to follow.  The private sector faces the same dilemma, those businesses enduring financial hardship are having to make cuts, were ever possible, to offset revenue losses resulting from the nation’s long lasting recession. Those businesses that are bound by a union labor agreement rarely are offered any meaningful assistance from labor unions and their members.  Any assistance that is offered, by the labor union, are almost certain to include a caveat for significant concessions, at a later date.

The recent fall of Hostess is a text book example of union greed trumping common sense which, in the end left roughly 18,000 union members unemployed.  Ignoring Hostess’s warning of an immediate liquidation of assets if production was interrupted during the bank managed restructuring, a small group of union bakers walked off the job.  As warned, Hostess requested that the bank authorize its immediate liquidation of its assets in order to prevent any further debt from being accumulated.  The request was granted and the rest is history.

The Twinkie will most certainly return, as well at least a portion of those 18,000 jobs however, the likelihood of those jobs being union are slim at best.  And for those former Hostess union employees, the new makers of Hostess products may not be so eager to hire those very employees that were responsible for the closure of Hostess in the first place.

At the expense of our children

In what might be the most grotesque display of unions ‘doing the wrong thing’ are those public union representatives that stand behind school administrators who have fallen subject to a states ‘Parent Trigger Law’. The Parent Trigger Law has been adopted by several states and allows parents to protect their children’s education from low performing public schools through a legal mechanism that transfers the failed administration into the hands of a charter school administration.  The California Parent Trigger Law has been triggered on not one but two occasions targeting two separate grossly underperforming public schools.  On both occasions the respective Teachers Unions blocked the action through false accusation, harassment and direct persuasion of several affected parents.  With little ability to put up a fight against the powerful Teachers Union, on both instances the actions against its union members were quickly dismantled, leaving the parents powerless and the children to remain in those underperforming school environments.  

And it gets worse, as many of those very same Teacher Unions that have place its members above the education of the children, have also protected and defended the jobs of several of its members who have committed egregious acts against defenseless students leaving one to wonder if any of these Teachers Unions posses a moral compass.  

The Union agenda

Once standing in protection of fair wages, benefits and work environment, for its members, Labor Unions have now become little more than a group of well dressed thugs that care for little more than increasing union membership and maximizing its membership’s wages from which they draw their salary. 

Today’s labor unions choose to ignore advances in technology and changes in the business environment as this knowledge is counterproductive to their mission of increase both labor force and wages.  Another tendency of today’s unions is to unfairly convey the needs of the company and the challenges it faces, to its members.  Their goal now is to create the perception, to its members, that the company cares more of its bottom line then providing fare wage and benefits to its employee.  If the union is successful in its false portrayal, of the company, it will have the support of its members to use as leverage during contract negotiations exploiting the threat of a labor walkout to push employer concessions right to the edge of unprofitability.