United Liberty

The Obama Administration will spend $18 million over the next five years on Recovery.gov to tell you how much of your money is being wasted through the so-called “stimulus” bill:

For those concerned about stimulus spending, the General Services Administration sends word tonight that $18 million in additional funds are being spent to redesign the Recovery.gov Web site.

The new Web site promises to give taxpayers more information about where their money is going than the current version of the site.

As I mentioned a couple days ago, Democrats plan to finance their expansion and eventual takeover of health care with a surtax on incomes over $250,000.

Chris Edwards of the Cato Institute points out that such a surtax coupled with President Obama’s tax increase proposals will push the United States well above the OECD average.

This tax burden does not make the United States more attractive to companies looking to expand, nor already existing companies already inside the country.

Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV) isn’t a fan of President Obama’s cap-and-trade proposal, at least in it’s current form:

The 91-year-old Byrd, D-W.Va., was released from an unidentified Washington, D.C. hospital last week after a month-long stay for a staph infection. He expects to return to the chamber before the Senate begins debate on “cap and trade” - which is tentatively set for this fall, according to Byrd’s office.

When Republicans were in the majority in Congress, many Democrats complained that their patriotism was questioned on certain issues, such as the war in Iraq. It’s was a legitimate point and Republicans should be taken to task for it. A day after Al Gore essentially compared climate skeptics to Nazis, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) says the critics of the Obama Administration are “rooting against the country”:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer actually laughed at the idea that members of Congress read legislation before voting it into law:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference.

Hoyer was responding to a question from CNSNews.com on whether he supported a pledge that asks members of the Congress to read the entire bill before voting on it and also make the full text of the bill available to the public for 72 hours before a vote.

The National Journal reports that the Congress Budget Office will release a new cost-estimate for ObamaCare tomorrow. The cost is expected to be $1.5 trillion over the first 10 years:

CBO has scored the House healthcare overhaul bill at $1.5 trillion over 10 years, according to sources. House Ways and Means Democrats plan to help pay for the bill by raising taxes on people earning $250,000 or more and taxing sugary beverages, sources said.

The tax on sugary drinks is expected to raise about $50 billion. A previous Ways and Means paper revealed Democrats were considering raising taxes on the wealthy through a 2 percent surtax that would raise $256 billion.

Democrats, including House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer and an advisor to President Barack Obama, are warming up to the idea of a second “stimulus” bill just a few days after Paul Krugman lobbied for it in the New York Times:

The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the $787 billion approved in February was “a bit too small,” said Laura Tyson, an outside adviser to President Barack Obama.

Political Math brings us the story healthcare systems, Massachusetts (which has universal health care) and Georgia (which does not), with a visulization using Legos.

Doug Mataconis brings us our morning statistic:

Number of “Czars” appointed by the Obama Administration: 31

Number of Tsars of Russia serving from 1530-1918: 28

Among the many “czars,” the Obama Administration has an AIDS czar, a car czar, a Great Lakes czar, an information czar, a Mideast peace czar, a Mideast policy czar, a pay czar and a Sudan czar.

We are well past the point of being ridiculous.