United Liberty

Politico is reporting that the House Energy and Commerce Committee has passed ObamaCare (HR 3200) by a 31 to 28 vote, with five Democrats voting against. The full House won’t take up the bill until after Labor Day.

I’ll get vote information if and when it is available.

[9:29pm] The press release from the committee can be read here.

[9:34pm] Link to Politico story added in the original post.

[10:16pm] The five Democrats that voted against the bill were John Barrow (GA), Rick Boucher (VA), Jim Matheson (UT), Charlie Melancon (LA) and Bart Stupak (MI).

The last day of the month brings what looks like good news for the economy:

The U.S. economy shrank at a more subdued pace this spring, the government said Friday morning, as the steep downdraft of the winter gave way to a more orderly contraction.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, fell at a 1 percent annual rate in the April through June quarter, the Commerce Department said. That compares with a 6.4 percent pace of decline in the first quarter, a revision from an earlier estimate of a 5.5 percent rate of decline.

Here’s a great MSNBC panel discussion that asks a great question — why hasn’t Obama followed through on this campaign promise?

Milton Friedman, an economist and Nobel Prize laureate, was born on this day in 1912.He would’ve been 97 today.

Friedman is known for his works on monetary policy, defending the morality capitalism and advancing school choice, among many other things.

He wrote several books, including Capitalism & Freedom and Free to Choose, which was turned into a video series of the same name that was broadcast on PBS.

A federal judge has ruled against Fox News’ request for information from the Federal Reserve concerning bailouts:

A U.S. judge on Thursday denied a bid by Fox News Network LLC seeking details from the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve about the central bank’s loans to companies affected by the financial crisis.

The owner of the Fox Business cable network made an initial request for documents in November last year under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) about the companies and funds they received between August 2007 and November 2008.

Both parties had filed motions with U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan federal court to rule in their favor after Fox filed its request to the court in January.

At 6pm today, President Obama, Henry Louis Gates, and Cambridge Police Officer James Crowley will assemble at the White House and knock back a few cold ones:

Well said:

The government has mismanaged the Post Office and is now set to cover up its mistakes with a bailout.

The government has mismanaged the Highway Trust Fund and is now set to cover up its mistakes with a bailout.

The government has mismanaged Amtrak, which is chronically unprofitable, and is set to cover up its mistakes with a bailout.

The government has mismanaged the Social Security Trust Fund and is ignoring its responsibility to fix the program.

Three new polls make clear what I noted yesterday; Barack Obama’s political capital is disappearing quickly.

First, the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows that Obama has lost ground personally, and in support for his health care reform plan:

WASHINGTON - Despite his public-relations blitz over the past two weeks to promote his plans to reform the nation’s health-care system — including holding two town halls on Wednesday — President Barack Obama has lost ground on this issue with the American public, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

New data released by the IRS shows that the tax burden on the top 1 percent of income earners now exceeds the tax burden of the bottom 95 percent.

Scott Hodge at the Tax Foundation says, “To put this in perspective, the top 1 percent is comprised of just 1.4 million taxpayers and they pay a larger share of the income tax burden now than the bottom 134 million taxpayers combined.”