Patterico's Pontifications

2/4/2014

CBO: ObamaCare Will Cost 2.5 Million Jobs By 2024

Filed under: General — Patterico @ 10:12 pm



The Hill:

The new healthcare law will cost the nation the equivalent of 2.5 million workers in the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated in a report released Tuesday.

The nonpartisan agency found the reform law’s negative effects on employment would be “substantially larger” than what it had previously anticipated.

It said the equivalent of 2.3 million workers would be lost by 2021, compared to its previous estimate of 800,000, and that 2.5 million workers would be lost by 2024. It also projected that labor force compensation would be reduced by 1 percent from 2017 to 2024 — twice its previous estimate.

The White House says it’s OK, because people are choosing not to work. Choosing, you see.

The White House swiftly pushed back against the findings, seeking to dismiss suggestions from Republicans that the Affordable Care Act has contributed to a slower economic recovery or would “kill” jobs.

It pointed out that the CBO concluded the reduction in worker hours was almost entirely because of workers choosing to work less.

“The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in business’ demand for labor,” the CBO report said.

That’s lovely — but it’s ObamaCare that is providing the disincentives to work, which is what leads to all that choosing not to work stuff. As Investor’s Business Daily explained in 2010, in response to a similar comment from CBO about people choosing not to work:

The conclusion isn’t a surprising one; any extra support from the government takes some pressure off of workers to provide for themselves. However, ObamaCare’s progressive subsidies, i.e. more generous for those who earn less, carry more of a disincentive than the flat, universal benefit favored by some Republicans.

As Capital Hill has noted previously, work disincentives will be particularly strong for older workers because both health care premiums and the law’s subsidies grow much bigger with age.

Further, the new health law will give some older households without access to employer care a big incentive not to earn too much. That’s because earning more than 400% of the poverty level would make them ineligible for subsidies that may be well in excess of $10,000 for couples.

Consider this example of a single individual age 62 in a high-cost area and no access to employer care. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Reform Subsidy Calculator:

* At 200% of the poverty level, or $23,000 in income in 2014, an individual would get $10,750 in premium subsidies.

* At 400% of the poverty level, or $46,000, an individual would get $7,830 in premium subsidies.

* And at 401% of the poverty level, an individual would get no government support.

Everybody knew this would happen. Don’t pretend it’s not a surprise.

Oh: deficits are projected to be $1 trillion higher than previously thought. To put that number in perspective, one trillion is greater than the number of times Barack Obama will use the word “I” or blame his problems on President Bush in all eight years of his presidency.

A trillion here, a trillion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real numbers economic collapse.

Thanks to gary gulrud.

73 Responses to “CBO: ObamaCare Will Cost 2.5 Million Jobs By 2024”

  1. Yeah, thanks for that upper, gary!

    Patterico (9c670f)

  2. Our economy works best when a portion of us choose not to work. Just like a boat rows fastest when some of the rowers choose not to row. It’s Obama Economics and Physics all distilled into one handy metaphor.

    JVW (d2eeb5)

  3. As I predicted on Twitter (@rcjparry), Michael “Mikekoshi” Hiltzik says this is good news.
    http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-cbo-20140204,0,3106578.story#axzz2sQYYgzUe

    Robert C. J. Parry (a5133c)

  4. Just a month or so ago Obama was sneering at the idea that paying people not to work gives them an incentive not to work. That’s back when he was heckling the Republicans about extending “emergency” unemployment benefits. He claimed that was nonsense because people collecting unemployment checks would rather have a job.

    Now, his WH is claiming the opposite. It’s a plus that Obamacare provides people with an incentive not to work (not like that’s entirely what’s going on, but that’s how they’re spinning it).

    Is this guy a brazen liar or what?

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  5. Nancy Pelosi was right. People are no longer “job locked” in order to keep their health insurance.

    No matter how much they’d really like to be locked into a job to keep food on the table or a roof over their heads. Nope.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  6. Consider this example of a single individual age 62 in a high-cost area and no access to employer care. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Reform Subsidy Calculator:

    * At 200% of the poverty level, or $23,000 in income in 2014, an individual would get $10,750 in premium subsidies.

    * At 400% of the poverty level, or $46,000, an individual would get $7,830 in premium subsidies.

    Obama giveth with one hand. He taketh with both fists:

    http://beforeitsnews.com/opinion-conservative/2014/01/watchdog-taking-obamacare-subsidy-increases-likelihood-of-an-audit-2793562.html

    The government hasn’t told you this subsidy comes with a price — even more intrusion into your everyday life, said Joshua Archambault, a senior fellow with theFoundation for Government Accountability.

    “What people don’t know is that their potential for being audited goes up dramatically,” Archambault said. “You have to release twice as much personal information than an applicant for private insurance and, depending on your income, you could actually end up owing upwards of $10,000 or more.”

    Or if you’re in your fifties or early sixties and ineligible for Medicare, they could just force you into Medicaid if your income is low enough. Then seize your assets that you spent a lifetime building when you die.

    And people worried that the government takeover of the health care sector of the economy would lead them forcing you to eat broccoli. Sheesh!

    It really is a wealth transfer. Obama destroys your health insurance, then uses that as an excuse to steal even more from you. I imagine if if you take the subsidy you’ll come home one day to those thousands of newly hired IRS agents looking through your sofa for loose change. You know; “unreported income.”

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  7. i figure t will kill moar than that…

    Radio Shack is going to close 500 stores in the next few months, Dell is planning on axing 15,000 people, and that’s just the good news i ‘member off the top of my head.

    embrace the suck, because it’s coming.

    redc1c4 (abd49e)

  8. Did they just claim that the only jobs lost were bad jobs not worth having? Like the coverage lost was just bad policies people should not have had?

    Machinist (b6f7da)

  9. Apparently the only jobs worth having are minimum wage jobs. Because Obama and the Democrats sure spend a lot of time on what used to be entry level jobs held by 2.9% of the working population in 2012.

    Minimum wage is the new normal. Those are the jobs Obamanomics creates.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  10. Voting and not voting have severe consequences and politics shouldn’t be about coffee klatches or sewing circles.

    Lawrence Westlake (48fb95)

  11. Democrats need not worry too much. Republicans may once again come to the rescue of Democrats by discrediting themselves and snatching defeat from the very jaws of victory.
    Thomas Sowell

    Chew on that racists.

    mg (31009b)

  12. As we wait for the White House claim that people being killed by drones are simply choosing not to live.

    Joe Miller (00407a)

  13. Perhaps I am missing something here. The CBO report is stating that employees will opt for shorter hours, resulting in the loss of 2.5 million FTEs.

    While the numbers are likely accurate, the cause of the losses is not. It is not the employees deciding they want to work less, it is the employers cutting their hours to part time status (less than 30/week) to avoid the massive ACA cost increases for employers. There have been numerous stories over the past year of this happening.

    The best is on the Coyote Blog, written the owner of parks management company. He has converted all of his non-management employees to part time.

    Corky Boyd (c95a33)

  14. Off topic – Dustin told all his followers on Twitter to follow me.

    The Cabal seems to have more members than I thought …

    SPQR (768505)

  15. The only thing that can save the Democrats this fall is an amnesty bill passed by the House. Therefore the leadership is busy on an amnesty bill.

    Mike K (cd7278)

  16. SPQR, you are on Teh Twitterz? I will look for you.

    Simon Jester (c8876d)

  17. 4. Comment by Steve57 (71fc09) — 2/4/2014 @ 10:53 pm

    Just a month or so ago Obama was sneering at the idea that paying people not to work gives them an incentive not to work….Now, his WH is claiming the opposite.

    Not his White House. The Congressional Budget Office. His White House is pointing out what the CBO said as counterspin to the headline CBO projection that there will be less employment.

    You do see here, him using any argument in a storm.

    I don’t think too much weight shold be put on CBO projections. They claim people will be seeking less work becausxe:

    1) People will not seek out jobs, or postpone retirement just to get health insurance.

    I think here they are ignoring where the actual sticker shock is, and the fact of limited networks. Obamacare is not affordable, except with subsidies, and then a person faces boobytraps. In addition people will simply be familar with the various consequences for a while.

    2) The various incentives in Obamacare – the de facto marginal tax rate, will create a disincentive to work. I think the Medicaid disincentive is much worse, and it could be the CBO is factoring that into account too.

    I think here the Obama White House doesn’t even realize or isn’t going into, or at least hopes nobody else does, WHY people might not work, and instead is focusing on the idea that insurance has become affordable.

    If we abolished Social Security, said some flunky, you’d see a lot (!) of 95-year olds working (95?! Can’t you say 75 or 80?) but we wouldn’t really want that. This is a paraphrase.

    Sammy Finkelman (e24bc2)

  18. 15. Comment by Mike K (cd7278) — 2/5/2014 @ 8:03 am

    The only thing that can save the Democrats this fall is an amnesty bill passed by the House.

    An amnesty bill, especially one that applies to people brought here as children, that passes the Senate and narrowly fails to pass the House. But just calling more attention to this hurts the Republicans, as they cannot lay the issue to rest.

    But the Democrats aren’t yet ready to run all out on that.

    Sammy Finkelman (e24bc2)

  19. Simon, yes. Guess who my first follower was?

    My friend Patterico.

    SPQR (768505)

  20. Let’s be careful out there, SPQR.

    elissa (804f90)

  21. I’ll say it in this forum again, we are experiencing the Lost Presidency. Hang an empty frame in the portrait gallery of presidents. Construct the Obama presidential library as a cenotaph – no doors nor windows, no lights, no contents, no staff. Repeal all of Obama’s executive orders en masse. Undo the dereliction that is the Affordable Care Act. In his retirement, find Mr. Obama an Elba.

    LTMG (9a1240)

  22. LTMG, St. Helena would be better.

    SPQR (768505)

  23. “It is not the employees deciding they want to work less, it is the employers cutting their hours to part time status (less than 30/week) to avoid the massive ACA cost increases for employers.”

    Corky – Youn are 100% correct. This is Pelosi level stupid spin by the White House.

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  24. Let’s be careful out there, SPQR.

    Comment by elissa (804f90) — 2/5/2014 @ 9:34 am

    It’s such a shame that the internet, a marvel of human development that should be a safe place for folks to discuss news or opinions, is so badly tarnished by a few really nasty bastards.

    I think SPQR gets that. I think we all do, just seeing how a few of our friends have been put through so much.

    Dustin (303dca)

  25. I will soon be offering my clay pots and assorted artistic flotsam to offset the lower wages that result from this opportunity given to me by ObamaCare. Thanks for having my back, Preezy Armslength Fubar!

    Colonel Haiku (9e0e6b)

  26. Hairy Reid believes that Obamacare eliminates “job lock” so more people are free to become “Cowboy Poets.”

    daleyrocks (bf33e9)

  27. Just some perspective, because people don’t understand how big those big numbers really are.

    Imagine a group of eccentrics who strove to take turns counting, one number per second, all the way to one billion. Granted, odd thing to do, but remember they’re eccentrics. It would take them roughly 30 years. You could say to your grandchildren, “I remember when these oddballs counted to a billion.”

    Now imagine another oddball set who didn’t understand magnitudes of order, and wanted to count to one trillion. This little exercise would take longer than the previous count to one billion, of course, taking, what, 100 years? 300 years? Try 30,000 years, longer than all of recorded human history. We are 17 times that in debt, and upwards of 145 time that with unfunded liabilities.

    Imagine those dollars in time at $1/second. Those two numbers represent 210,000 years, and 4.35 million years, respectively. Truly, truly staggering sums of money, and doing nothing but grow.

    NeoCon_1 (0dcb02)

  28. The premium subsidies don’t tell the whole story, either. There are also copay subsidies with zero deducible “enhanced silver” policies available to those just above the Medicaid threshold. These policies are actually better than any of the platinum plans, since the copays are $3 with no deductible for anything.

    And the “best” part: If you lie miscalculate your income and have to pay back the premium subsidy you don’t have to make up the copay or deductible subsidies, which can amount to $6350 per person here in California.

    Kevin M (536c5d)

  29. The only jobs that I want to see destroyed by BarryCare are those of the Congresskritters and Senators who voted for this abomination, and those of the administration who advanced and promoted it.
    If they never again trod the Halls of Power, the country will be well served.

    askeptic (2bb434)

  30. Here’s a guy, says his daughter, who wants honest work but nobody’s hiring.

    She said her dad began dealing drugs because he couldn’t find other work.
    “He’s a genius when it comes to music, but he’s 57. Getting a job isn’t easy when you’re a musician at 57.” she said.
    He got into selling because, “When you’re a jazz musician, you know people who do that [sell drugs.]”
    “He’s just a good jazz musician trying to pay his rent,” the daughter contended.
    “this was his unfortunate way of trying to keep up. He wanted to make money the right way. He was trying to stop doing that so he could make an honest living.

    http://nypost.com/2014/02/05/my-stepdad-sold-heroin-to-hoffman/

    elissa (804f90)

  31. Voting and not voting have severe consequences and politics shouldn’t be about coffee klatches or sewing circles.

    On the contrary, they should be; the problem is that they aren’t. A fit constitution would be one that so restricted the power of the state that most people could safely ignore politics, and trust that whomever the politically minded citizens elected would not be able to do too much harm.

    Milhouse (b95258)

  32. Obamacare is doing for the US labor market what fire bombing Tokyo or carpet bombing the Ruhr valley did for the labor market in Japan and Germany.

    All those factory workers with good jobs in manufacturing woke up one day and looked at the smoking ruins and realized they were going to get to experience “funemployment” because they were no longer “job locked.”

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  33. an Honest Man, doin’ teh best he can?

    Suuuuuuuuurrrrrrrre

    Colonel Haiku (9e0e6b)

  34. Here is a slightly different spin on the situation. My wife is one of many in the workforce who have to carry the burden of lower workforce participation. Thank God she kept her job through the recession, but at a cost of her personal life.

    In 2009 her team headcount was cut and the positions have never been re-filled even as the workload rebounded and the company hits record sales and earnings. It was announced a week ago that the goal this year is a 12% growth – with no new staff. In fact her team is being cut again. She now works over 70 hours per week, every week. Everyone on her team was moved from hourly to salaried last year – so no overtime.

    My guess is that the company looked at the cost of maintaining an employer supported health insurance plan versus hiring and decided people would work harder to keep their coverage benefit.

    Over 60, with specialty skills in a market with few players, 25 years in the industry, and a pre-existing medical condition. Talk about feeling trapped.

    in_awe (7c859a)

  35. SPQR, agree with you. But let’s also consider Johnson Atoll and French Frigate Shoals.

    LTMG (9a1240)

  36. “Is this guy a brazen liar or what?”

    Comment by Steve57 (71fc09) — 2/4/2014 @ 10:53 pm

    = = = = = =

    What’s a more dramatic / emphatic synonym for “brazen” ??? ‘Cause “brazen” doesn’t come NEAR the quality of lying, misdirection, mendacity, and douchbaggery that The Won has engaged in over the last 5 years (—> and 3 more to go, folks!!)

    A_Nonny_Mouse (57cacf)

  37. Sammy @17,

    Just a month or so ago Obama was sneering at the idea that paying people not to work gives them an incentive not to work….Now, his WH is claiming the opposite.

    Not his White House. The Congressional Budget Office. His White House is pointing out what the CBO said as counterspin to the headline CBO projection that there will be less employment.

    No, Sammy, the CBO was not sneering at the idea. In fact, the CBO clearly stated that extending unemployment benefits has exactly that effect. It creates a disincentive to go to work.

    http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/29/news/economy/unemployment-benefits-cost/index.html

    The agency also highlighted the effect of once again extending unemployment benefits. While it would provide greater protection for those who lose their jobs and allow them to continue spending, it also provides an incentive for recipients to stay unemployed longer than they otherwise would have.

    Ultimately we’re not talking about the validity of CBO projections. We’re talking about the contradictory and dishonest spin this WH (and liberals in general) try to put on the effects of welfare depending on the situation.

    When it comes to spending on things like SNAP or unemployment checks then they deny those subsidies create disincentives to work. Yet when it comes to Obamacare, they admit the subsidies which are reduced the more you earn do provide a disincentive to work. But now they claim that’s a good thing.

    Next week I’m sure they’ll be back to denying that subsidizing people for not working creates an incentive not to work, should the situation call for it.

    Telling the truth is not a liberal value. Advancing the cause is the only thing that matters. If the truth advances the cause, they’ll use it. But if the truth hurts the cause, they’ll abandon it for a lie. This is the Stalinist view of “truth.” “Truth” is good and “Lies” are bad. The socialist agenda is good, therefore the truth, therefore a lie in service of the truth is the truth.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  38. in_awe @34, that’s just the price she has to pay so that the government can subsidize younger, prime working age people so they can spend without working.

    That’s what the economic geniuses Pelosi and Obama believe, if you look at the sum total of the parts.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  39. This is how insane this WH is:

    http://freebeacon.com/white-house-grilled-over-cbo-report-on-obamacare/

    However, Furman argued by definition if someone makes a decision with respect to lowering their weekly hours for the purposes of attaining government assistance that person could not be worse off. “There’s no way you have a set of stuff; you can make exactly the same choice you made before, and now,

    I give you something else,

    that you could be — that you’re worse off as a result of that,” he said.

    The people who would choose not to work are by definition low income workers. But low income workers can’t choose to lower their weekly hours. If their employer needs them to work 40 hours, they can’t choose to work 30. Or 29. Because low income workers are low skilled workers, and a worker with low skills can and will be quickly replaced.

    The only way they could execute a choice would be to quit their job, and then go compete with all those people willing to take any part-time job. Good luck. Oh, and these low wage workers live paycheck to paycheck. How are they going to survive, given that they don’t collect unemployment if they choose to quit.

    And then this miserable excuse for an economist goes on to talk about how “I give you something.” No, of course he doesn’t give anybody anything, first of all. He’s in on the theft from in_awe’s wife, and on the wealth redistribution after he takes what must be his very handsome cut as that wealth is first redistributed to people like the Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. But that government subsidy is not his “gift” to anybody.

    But second, these people who can’t afford to work more because they will now lose that subsidy are by definition worse off. Because before Obamacare they had an incentive to improve their financial situation. Now, with Obamacare, the government has established a wage ceiling. They can’t afford to improve their financial situation.

    http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/27/business/la-fi-income-inequality-obama-20140127

    Obama is expected to focus on the twin themes of income inequality and social mobility, which is the ability to move up the economic ladder.

    Wealth disparity has drawn enormous attention with the U.S. income gap at its highest level since the Great Depression. A study last week found that the 85 richest people in the world have the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of the global population.

    The richest 1% of U.S. households — those making at least $394,000 a year — have been helped by surging stock prices and a recovering housing market. The rest of the country has grappled with stagnant wages, a phlegmatic job market and wearisome student debt.

    This guy Furman works for a boss who claims to be concerned about people’s ability to move up the economic ladder. And now Furman is trying to spin the fact that his boss’ signature legislation makes things worse in that regard as a good thing.

    Again, it’s all one huge lie. If Obama was concerned about upward mobility, then the last thing he would shut the government down to protect is a program that makes it stupid to pursue upward mobility. But that’s exactly what Furman, and the democrats, are saying when they claim it’s a good thing that low income workers would value leisure more than making more money. Now they’re locked into low income jobs with no hope for escape.

    Furman is Harvard educated. You have to go an elite university to be this stupid.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  40. So the White House spin is basically the bully’s taunt of “Stop hitting yourself.” Done while the bully is smacking you with your own arm.

    “I didn’t make you hit yourself, you chose to.” Says Barack O.

    bonhomme (bc1e91)

  41. Comment by Steve57 (71fc09) — 2/5/2014 @ 2:37 pm

    My 25 year old daughter who is also working insane hours is less than thrilled about her future subsidizing old, young, sick, well.

    In multiple rounds of “tough love”, we started telling her when she was old enough to understand that it was her personal responsibility to work hard and save for her own needs and retirement. That government would take away more and more of what she earned to give it to others and by the time she retired there would be nothing left and too fewer workers to provide for her. We are so proud of her work ethic, sense of self-reliance, and the savings she has amassed at such a young age. It is sad that she is so much of a statistical outlyer in that regard.

    in_awe (7c859a)

  42. Barack Obama, 28 April 2010, Quincy IL:

    I mean, I do think at a certain point you’ve made enough money.

    And now we know what that certain point is:

    Consider this example of a single individual age 62 in a high-cost area and no access to employer care. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s Health Reform Subsidy Calculator:

    * At 200% of the poverty level, or $23,000 in income in 2014, an individual would get $10,750 in premium subsidies.

    * At 400% of the poverty level, or $46,000, an individual would get $7,830 in premium subsidies.

    * And at 401% of the poverty level, an individual would get no government support.

    400% of the poverty level. Unless a 62y.o. can find someone willing to offer him or her a raise that’s more than the $7,830 they’d lose then they can’t afford to make money.

    But Obamacare is full of ceilings like that. “I mean, I do think at a certain point” you’ve grown your business large enough. That’s when you have 49 employees, and hiring number 50 would bankrupt you. “I mean, I do think at a certain point” you have enough restaurant locations. And that point is 19. Add that 20th and you have to deal with all the expensive requirements to post nutritional information.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  43. 40. So the White House spin is basically the bully’s taunt of “Stop hitting yourself.” Done while the bully is smacking you with your own arm.

    “I didn’t make you hit yourself, you chose to.” Says Barack O.

    Comment by bonhomme (bc1e91) — 2/5/2014 @ 3:31 pm

    That’s basically been the spin since Obama said he wouldn’t stop anyone from building coal-fired electricity plants, but he promised to bankrupt anybody who did.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  44. You’re very welcome.

    Drew at Ace’s notes the WH will ‘fix’ the problem with restricted provider choice by mandating larger networks and thereby increase the cost, to you, hapless inmate.

    http://minx.cc/?post=346944

    Oh, yeah, a bonus from Congressman Ryan. “May I have another, Sir?”

    gary gulrud (e2cef3)

  45. Dustin, quite a few of my friends have been subjected to criminal harassment by vile, dangerous, criminals / lunatics. Some of them well known incidents, some lesser known.

    Counting quickly on my fingers, the total is over a dozen now.

    SPQR (768505)

  46. 32. It is impossible now, to believe, let alone maintain, that Crack Whore had any other goal than bringing Amerikkka to her knees, a goal whose opening milestones are significantly achieved.

    This man is our enemy, who intends us and ours nought but harm.

    No politician who fails to articulate and attribute this motivation is worthy of support.

    gary gulrud (e2cef3)

  47. 1. More ebullience:

    Issa notes that the 2.5 million jobs lost will easily be reached over the coming year.

    The outcome for all but the destitute is that ‘insurance’ as Obamaneycare defines it, is worthless. Expensive leg irons.

    And here we find the GOP stepping forward to fix the damned thing.

    More than ever, the only path forward is wholesale repeal of 50 years of bipartisanship.

    gary gulrud (e2cef3)

  48. Via another blogger at Ace’s:

    Aliso Viejo resident Danielle Nelson said Anthem Blue Cross promised half a dozen times that her oncologists would be covered under her new policy. She was diagnosed last year with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and discovered a suspicious lump near her jaw in early January.
    But when she went to her oncologist’s office, she promptly encountered a bright orange sign saying that Covered California plans are not accepted.

    “I’m a complete fan of the Affordable Care Act, but now I can’t sleep at night,” Nelson said. “I can’t imagine this is how President Obama wanted it to happen.”

    Dear lady, Barry couldn’t care less about your misery, only that you are miserable.

    gary gulrud (e2cef3)

  49. Just a month or so ago Obama was sneering at the idea that paying people not to work gives them an incentive not to work….Now, his WH is claiming the opposite.

    Me @ 17:

    Not his White House. The Congressional Budget Office. His White House is pointing out what the CBO said as counterspin to the headline CBO projection that there will be less employment.

    Comment by Steve57 (71fc09) — 2/5/2014 @ 2:30 pm

    No, Sammy, the CBO was not sneering at the idea.

    I didn’t say that. I meant the CBO said the second thing.

    That fits quite well with saying the first as well.

    Ultimately we’re not talking about the validity of CBO projections. We’re talking about the contradictory and dishonest spin this WH (and liberals in general) try to put on the effects of welfare depending on the situation.

    The White House went with the CBIO the second time because it was saying less people would be employed voluntarily

    When it comes to spending on things like SNAP or unemployment checks then they deny those subsidies create disincentives to work. Yet when it comes to Obamacare, they admit the subsidies which are reduced the more you earn do provide a disincentive to work. But now they claim that’s a good thing.

    Unemployment insurance is directly related to work and that they really wouldn’t like to be considered a disincentive. So they try ti turn it into some kind of Thurston Howell III stupidity. But an unrelated program is not so bad, and they are kind of ignoring the de facto marginal tax rate.

    Telling the truth is not a liberal value.

    Not one for the kind of politician Barack Obama is. By the way, that is generally not a value for lawyers.

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  50. Comment by Steve57 (71fc09) — 2/5/2014 @ 3:12 pm

    Obama was concerned about upward mobility, then the last thing he would shut the government down to protect is a program that makes it stupid to pursue upward mobility.

    And where were the Republicans> Where are they in fact, right now.

    What causes this problem is means testing.

    http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/means-testing-and-its-limits

    But means-testing also has some serious drawbacks, especially when it comes to how the policy might shape Americans’ financial decisions. Means-testing entitlement benefits could punish the very people who work the hardest and save the most, depressing economic activity and discouraging good behavior…

    http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/6-reasons-joseph-stiglitz-and-other-top-economists-think-means-testing-medicare

    Sammy Finkelman (dfe091)

  51. Lest we forget, the bald-faced lie “If you like..”
    is hardly alone among his crimes.

    http://www.jammiewf.com/2014/sen-inhofe-benghazi-will-go-down-in-history-as-the-greatest-cover-up/

    Frank Davis’ Evil Spawn, in all seriousness, merits just execution scores of times over.

    gary gulrud (e2cef3)

  52. “I’m a complete fan of the Affordable Care Act, but now I can’t sleep at night,” Nelson said. “I can’t imagine this is how President Obama wanted it to happen.”

    Danielle Nelson reminds me of the good communists Solzhenitsyn would encounter in The Gulag Archipelago. They couldn’t believe Stalin knew, and if only Stalin knew he’d put a stop to their persecution.

    Useful fools all. Ms. Nelson chose to believe in magical thinking, so now she can enjoy her new healthcare system.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  53. More CYA misdirection:

    http://www.jammiewf.com/2014/the-u-s-affordable-care-act-software-was-written-in-part-in-belarus-by-software-developers-under-state-control/

    At the close of my software career, I did verification of Bulgarian contractor’s testing suites of our software.

    Their work was hardly a weak link in our process. That honor was manifestly reserved for EEs.

    gary gulrud (e2cef3)

  54. 52. More than most, I’m given(as ‘lissa has flagged) to fabulism around our approaching counter-insurgency and open revolt.

    More likely our heroism will be lived out, like Sharansky and Solzhenitsyn before us, in some frozen gulag.

    gary gulrud (e2cef3)

  55. I can’t tell full story due to 3rd party privacy issue.

    But so far, Obamacare has cost me about $5,000 – no shit – out of my pocket.

    And its only the first week of February.

    I am really not amused.

    SPQR (768505)

  56. By way of Instapundit: Groucho explains the administration position.

    Kevin M (536c5d)

  57. “I’m a complete fan of the Affordable Care Act, but now I can’t sleep at night,” Nelson said. “I can’t imagine this is how President Obama wanted it to happen.”

    What a maroon.

    Pardon me while I shed a tear.

    [sniffle, sniffle]

    Mark (f0ef14)

  58. Under Obama, what was once farce has become policy.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  59. https://patterico.com/2014/02/03/snls-lorne-michaels-republican-politicians-can-take-a-joke-better-than-democrats/

    Q: Are there any basic rules for what works and what doesn’t politically?

    A: Republicans are easier for us than Democrats. Democrats tend to take it personally; Republicans think it’s funny.

    How could anyone expect Democrats not to take it personally when there agenda was once recognized in a more sane age as complete nonsense? Only worthy of a comedy?

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  60. 55. Let me guess-very large contribution from foreign donor, outside controlling authority, is extended to DNC and the OFA.

    gary gulrud (e2cef3)

  61. That’s just paranoid of you gg because the software prevents foreign…

    Oh, wait, not if you disable it!

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  62. 63. We, of course, can rely on Issa’s Congressional Tsk Tsk Committee to be all over this story like stink on..

    gary gulrud (e2cef3)

  63. But naturally Dinesh D’Souza must be criminally prosecuted for allegedly violating campaign contribution laws to the tune of $20k while no one in the Obama campaign went to prison for illegally hiding millions of dollars in illegal contributions.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-campaign-to-pay-375000-fine-for-omitting-some-donors-names-in-2008/2013/01/04/78973402-56bb-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html

    …The document shows that the Obama campaign failed to disclose the identities of donors responsible for $2 million in contributions in the weeks ahead of the election. The campaign also misreported the dates of $85 million in other contributions.

    In addition, the Obama campaign also kept $1.3 million in contributions that were above the legal maximum allowed for a federal campaign, failing to return them within the 60 days required by law. The campaign kept almost $874,000 of those donations until the FEC discovered they were unlawful.

    Gee, I wonder why the Bush administration failed to prosecute anyone in the Obama campaign for these gross violations of law?

    By T.W. Farnam, Published: January 4, 2013

    Never mind. It’s good to be the Preezy of the Banana Republic and have your own appointees deciding these matters.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  64. The distinction to this argument today is that ObamaDoesn’tCare in fact doesn’t force employers to not employ these 2 to 2.5 million people but that these people will see that it is to their advantage not to work additional hours and will cut themselves off.

    Wow! The government has create a incentive to not work, to be less productive, to remain in your station, to create more “income inequality.”

    And, tell me again .. which Party will be campaigning against “income inequality” this year ?

    Neo (d1c681)

  65. You know a term we haven’t heard in a while, particularly since the the WH and the Democrats have been singing the praises of being able to get health insurance without working? Without being “job locked?”

    Free riders. The Democrats used to hate free riders. That’s why they called the fine for not signing up to be ripped off in order to pay for other people’s health insurance the “shared responsibility fee.”

    Yet now they’ve created a whole new slew of free riders, and they think it’s a great thing.

    Steve57 (71fc09)

  66. Hairy Reid believes that Obamacare eliminates “job lock” so more people are free to become “Cowboy Poets.”

    Comment by daleyrocks (bf33e9) — 2/5/2014 @ 11:20 am

    This Joblock spin is silly. But as silly as it seems, it stems from the underlying belief that personal fulfillment comes through the state.

    AZ Bob (0efd49)

  67. I can’t help but wonder what some of the unions and union members think about this Obamacare fiasco “job lock” meme and spin, tho. It’s almost as if the WH is completely disconnected from some of it’s most powerful amd vocal base. Naw. Disconnected? That couldn’t be possible.

    elissa (99f483)

  68. More happy job-quitters getting low cost insurance, with subsidies paid for by … well, who cares, actually,

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/they-quit-their-jobs-thanks-to-the-health-law/2014/02/08/7b10df46-901a-11e3-84e1-27626c5ef5fb_story.html

    Kevin M (dbcba4)

  69. Unions are organized based on the principle of job-lock.

    Sammy Finkelman (c08134)


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