United Liberty

The Congressional Budget Office is out with some numbers today that shows that ObamaCare would cause premiums to increase for anyone buying their own insurance policy or through a government sponsored “exchange”:

The report, prepared at the request of Sen. Evan Bayh, found that those obtaining insurance on their own or through the government-run exchanges could expect to pay 10 percent to 13 percent more for insurance in 2016 than they would under current law. In dollar terms, in 2016 an individual policy would cost $5,800 and a family policy would cost $15,200 if the Senate bill were enacted, according to the CBO, compared with $5,500 and $13,100 under the status quo.

Of course, taxpayers will be subsidizing at least half of these individuals.

Group plans for small business, according to the CBO, could increase by as much as one percent or fall by as much as two percent. For larger groups, premiums would either stay the same or decrease by three percent.

CBO put its usual disclaimer down on the estimates. This is probably a good time to remind you of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which operates under the Department of Health and Human Services, report that showed higher health care costs under ObamaCare than the status quo.

Let’s fix the system, but in ways that will actually reduce costs and open up competition without putting taxpayers at risk.

Rep. John Duncan (R-TN) has it right:

There is nothing conservative about the war in Afghanistan. The Center for Defense Information said a few months ago that we had spent over $400 billion on the war and war-related costs there. Now, the Pentagon says it will cost about $1 billion for each 1,000 additional troops we send to Afghanistan. One Republican Member from California told me recently that we could buy off every warlord in Afghanistan for $1 billion.

Fiscal conservatives should be the ones most horrified by all this spending. Conservatives who oppose big government and huge deficit spending at home should not support it in foreign countries just because it is being done by our biggest bureaucracy, the Defense Department.

We have now spent $1.5 trillion that we did not have—that we had to borrow—in Iraq and Afghanistan. Eight years is long enough. In fact, it is too long. Let’s bring our troops home and start putting Americans first once again.

Thank you, Rep. Duncan, for speaking out.

Over the weekend, voters in Honduras elected a conservative to lead the country, months after Manuel Zelaya was deposed for violating the Constitution:

Porfirio Lobo, a longtime conservative politician, appeared to have won on Sunday in the Honduran presidential election, which many hoped could help the country emerge from the crisis caused by last summer’s coup and end its isolation.

The electoral tribunal said Sunday night that Mr. Lobo had 52 percent of the vote, with almost two-thirds of the votes counted. That gave him a margin of more than 16 percentage points over his main opponent, Elvin Santos. Shortly before midnight, Mr. Santos conceded, Reuters reported.

The coup has divided Honduran society between those who support the restoration of the president, Manuel Zelaya, and those who say the coup was the only recourse against a populist president seeking to remain in power beyond his term.

You’ve got to love how the New York Times still refers to Zelaya’s removal as a coup. It wasn’t, as I’ve pointed out before. I’m not defending the tactics used to silence dissent, but the Honduran Constitution was clear that what Zelaya was trying to do is illegal and the courts and military acted within their charge.

Hopefully the Obama Administration will stay out of Honduran affairs and let the sovereign country govern itself.

Dan Mitchell points out that the deficits from FY 2009 are almost entirely on George W. Bush, not Barack Obama. According to Mitchell, spending added by Obama only increased the budget by “amounted to just a tiny percentage of the FY2009 total – about $140 billion out of a $3.5 trillion budget.”

Two Democrats in the Senate, Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Arlen Specter (D-PA) would violate pledges not to cast votes to increase taxes if they decide to support ObamaCare:

Americans for Tax Reform, the group which persuaded Nelson and Specter to sign the pledge, will press both lawmakers on the issue during next month’s Senate healthcare debate, putting them in an awkward position.

“If they vote for this bill as the written it violates the pledge,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, in an interview.

The $848 billion piece of legislation would extend health insurance coverage to an additional 31 million Americans and would impose new taxes and tax increases. An analysis by Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee estimates the bill would raise taxes by $494 billion.

Nelson isn’t up for re-election until 2012. Specter is up for re-election next year and faces a tough challenge from Pat Toomey.

Sales on Black Friday, the biggest day of the year for retail, fell short this year:

Preliminary sales data from [ShopperTalk], a Chicago research firm that tracks sales at more than 50,000 stores, showed shoppers spent $10.66 billion when they hit the malls on the day after Thanksgiving. That’s only 0.5 percent more than last year when Black Friday sales rose a striking 3 percent.

Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey notes how these numbers don’t tell the whole story because of how aggressive retailers in were in days leading up to Black Friday:

The problem with using retail sales as a calculation is the same as using topline figures for a business to determine its health.  Sales numbers are important, but we’re missing a critical piece — the cost of the sales.  After all, anyone can sell a lot of merchandise if they’re willing to do it at a loss.
[…]
Discounts moved from traditional low-margin seasonal gift ideas to staples, where retailers usually hope to recoup their bottom lines.  That could be very bad news; as Ashley Heher notes, last year’s 3% Black Friday increase heralded a 4.4% drop in the overall holiday shopping season, topline.  If retailers bought a 0.5% increase through deeper discounts, the margin on those sales will be thinner, and they may have pulled some future sales into Black Friday as a result.

We still have Cyber Monday to come, but consumers are still being cautious, even at Christmas. Despite what we are constantly told, all is not well with the economy.

We haven’t kept on this like we should have, but we have a winner in the United Liberty College Football Challenge.

Congrats to Brad Warbiany of The Liberty Papers dominated in the final weeks to come off on top and embarrass the rest of us. Matt Wittlief finished second, and I finished third.

Here is a look at the final standings:

1. bwarbiany (Brad Warbiany) - 2054 points
2. Winning Ugly (Matt Wittlief) - 1875
3. JaseLiberty (Jason Pye) - 1821
4. CarpeForem (Daniel Adams) - 1788
5. Bring It On (Steve Handel) - 1776
6. Marcus’ Picks (Marcus Adams) - 1707
7. rockjohnson98 (B. Bittner) - 1291
8. Liberty Dawgs (Tyler Burgess) - 1106

We will probably do this again next year, though I think we may do a “pick ‘em” instead of a fantasy style game.

Thanks for playing.