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Wednesday, March 11, 2020
Trump Pitches Economic Response to Coronavirus on Capitol Hill
Friday, March 6, 2020
federal deficite
Horowitz: The federal government issued $175 billion in 'improper payments' in 2019
Imagine taking $175 billion in cash and flushing it down the toilet. Well, that is what our federal government did last year, according to a new survey from the government's watchdog.
Every year, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) tracks the amount of improper payments made by various federal agencies and programs in the form of waste, fraud, and abuse. The audit does not subjectively judge whether a program itself is wasteful, but whether, based on the program's own guidelines, there are payments made that should not be. For fiscal year 2019, the GAO found that the federal government made $175 billion in improper payments, a 15 percent jump from FY 2018.
While we will never tackle the federal deficit crisis by combating waste and fraud alone, these numbers do add up. $175 billion is roughly the cost of the entire annual budget for the gargantuan federal civilian and military retirement pension program. According to the GAO, the federal government has wasted $1.7 trillion on improper payments alone since 2003. That's when Congress began requiring this annual audit.
Here are some other key takeaways from the report, which was published yesterday.
- Roughly $121 billion (69 percent) of the waste was concentrated in just three programs: Medicaid ($57.4 billion), Medicare ($46.2 billion), and Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) ($17.4 billion). In other words, Medicaid accounted for more waste than all of the other government programs (aside from Medicare and EITC) combined. This is another reason why it would be better to convert Medicaid into a direct subsidy to those in need, much like food stamps, rather than funneling it through corrupt managed care. The rate of improper payments for Medicaid accounts for a whopping 13.5 percent of the entire cost of the program, as compared to a 6 percent improper payment rate for the food stamp program. The same principle applies to the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP), which is also funneled through the managed care cartel and racked up improper payments ($2.7 billion) composing 15 percent of the program's budget.
- Roughly $38 billion of the total amount of improper payments resulted from the agency not being able to authenticate eligibility criteria. Think about what could be done with such a sum of money if we merely clamped down on eligibility standards.
- Medicaid was the big culprit for the large increase in improper payments from FY 2018 to FY 2019. There was a $21.1 billion increase in Medicaid improper payments estimated by HHS this past year.
- Some of the increase came as a result of the government tracking waste in certain programs it never previously monitored. For example, this was the first year that the Treasury Department tracked improper payments in some of the other refundable tax credits. It found $7.2 billion in improper payment estimates for Additional Child Tax Credit and $2.1 billion for the American Opportunity Tax Credit.
What's so tragic about this is that both parties always talk about cutting "waste, fraud, and abuse" as a cop-out for actually addressing the systemic problems in major government programs and the premise of the federal government's involvement in various aspects of our lives. However, when it comes time to actually cutting waste, they never do it. Why is it that they are constantly increasing spending to record levels and then passing even more emergency spending bills without ever trying to genuinely combat what is universally regarded as improper payments?
It's also sad how so much of the waste is embedded in socialist transfer-of-wealth programs, such as Medicaid and refundable tax credits, aka welfare through the tax code. These are programs that many Americans pay for but never receive benefits from. Taken together, the tab for improper payments among all the refundable tax credits was $26.7 billion. That is more than a quarter of the entire cost of refundable credits, estimated to cost about $96 billion!
With the debt surging past $23 trillion and with endless trillion-dollar annual deficits as far as the eye can see, one would think this report would spawn a bipartisan effort to at least combat universal waste. Sadly, the only bipartisanship in Washington is a commitment to waste even more taxpayer funding, subsidize more favored industries, and redistribute even more wealth.
Meanwhile, with 5,000 deportation officers for over 3 million criminal aliens, they can't fund a few billion dollars to remove other countries' violent criminals, one of the most important jobs of a national government.
Author: Daniel Horowitz
Daniel Horowitz is a senior editor of Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @RMConservative.
Gerrymandering costs lives
Robert -- This movement has spent so much of our energy passing and protecting Obamacare because every single one of us deserves access to affordable health care. This law means so much to so many Americans, but at every turn, conservatives have attacked and tried to undermine the effort to expand health coverage. Here's the latest example: a recent study by the Center for American Progress found that the most gerrymandered states were the most likely to block the expansion of Medicaid.
Medicaid expansion was a key piece of the Affordable Care Act that gave states the opportunity to provide millions more Americans with access to health care. Consider these numbers:
These numbers are a sobering reminder of the stakes of our work. Gerrymandering creates an obstacle to progress on so many of the issues this movement cares about. I know this is why tens of thousands of you have already volunteered your time and money to advance the cause.
We've risen up time and again to defend Obamacare. Now, we have to fight for the law in a new way -- by achieving fair electoral maps.
When asked why he didn't get discouraged, President Obama said, "the only way that we're going to battle back against that kind of cynicism is if all of you get involved."
So what are you waiting for? Join our movement and chip in today:
Thanks,
Saumya
All On The Line is the grassroots advocacy campaign supported by the National Redistricting Action Fund. Support our work to end gerrymandering.
Medicaid expansion was a key piece of the Affordable Care Act that gave states the opportunity to provide millions more Americans with access to health care. Consider these numbers:
These numbers are a sobering reminder of the stakes of our work. Gerrymandering creates an obstacle to progress on so many of the issues this movement cares about. I know this is why tens of thousands of you have already volunteered your time and money to advance the cause.
We've risen up time and again to defend Obamacare. Now, we have to fight for the law in a new way -- by achieving fair electoral maps.
When asked why he didn't get discouraged, President Obama said, "the only way that we're going to battle back against that kind of cynicism is if all of you get involved."
So what are you waiting for? Join our movement and chip in today:
If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately.
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Thanks,
Saumya
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| Contributions or gifts to The National Redistricting Action Fund are not tax deductible. | |
| This email was sent to: alex@yorkteaparty.org. |
Gerrymandering costs lives
Diane -- This movement has spent so much of our energy passing and protecting Obamacare because every single one of us deserves access to affordable health care. This law means so much to so many Americans, but at every turn, conservatives have attacked and tried to undermine the effort to expand health coverage. Here's the latest example: a recent study by the Center for American Progress found that the most gerrymandered states were the most likely to block the expansion of Medicaid.
Medicaid expansion was a key piece of the Affordable Care Act that gave states the opportunity to provide millions more Americans with access to health care. Consider these numbers:
These numbers are a sobering reminder of the stakes of our work. Gerrymandering creates an obstacle to progress on so many of the issues this movement cares about. I know this is why tens of thousands of you have already volunteered your time and money to advance the cause.
We've risen up time and again to defend Obamacare. Now, we have to fight for the law in a new way -- by achieving fair electoral maps.
When asked why he didn't get discouraged, President Obama said, "the only way that we're going to battle back against that kind of cynicism is if all of you get involved."
So what are you waiting for? Join our movement and chip in today:
Thanks,
Saumya
All On The Line is the grassroots advocacy campaign supported by the National Redistricting Action Fund. Support our work to end gerrymandering.
Medicaid expansion was a key piece of the Affordable Care Act that gave states the opportunity to provide millions more Americans with access to health care. Consider these numbers:
These numbers are a sobering reminder of the stakes of our work. Gerrymandering creates an obstacle to progress on so many of the issues this movement cares about. I know this is why tens of thousands of you have already volunteered your time and money to advance the cause.
We've risen up time and again to defend Obamacare. Now, we have to fight for the law in a new way -- by achieving fair electoral maps.
When asked why he didn't get discouraged, President Obama said, "the only way that we're going to battle back against that kind of cynicism is if all of you get involved."
So what are you waiting for? Join our movement and chip in today:
If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks,
Saumya
| |
| Contributions or gifts to The National Redistricting Action Fund are not tax deductible. | |
| This email was sent to: awolofa@yorkteaparty.org. |
Wednesday, March 4, 2020
Deemocratic party
Walker Wildmon Vice President Operations MORE
With the rise of Senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, I have caught myself calling other Democratic candidates moderates compared to Sanders. The reality is there are no moderates left in the Democratic Party.
The Democratic National Convention published its party platform in 2016 which outlines the party's position on a wide array of issues.
Multiple times throughout the platform, it is made clear that the murder of a baby should be legal throughout all nine months of pregnancy. The platform is also deceptive by labeling abortion as "safe and legal." There's nothing safe about ending the life of a child in the womb.
The 2016 platform claims that those who engage in abnormal sexual behavior such as homosexuality have a "human right" to advance their lifestyle upon other people. Meaning, anyone who disapproves of said behavior is violating their "human rights" and should be rebuked accordingly. We've seen this totalitarian mentality on display with various faith-based business owners who have been forced to lend their artistic gifts in favor of this lifestyle or be closed down.
Lastly, the party platform frames healthcare as a human right. Meaning, the government should take over the national healthcare system and operate what has historically been part of the private sector. This would take America from having the best quality healthcare in the developed world to one of the worst in a matter of years.
Overall there is a fundamental flaw in the policies that the Democratic Party promotes. It boils down to whether the government is the solution to our problems or whether the free market can provide various solutions to our problems.
To my original point, the Democratic Party platform no longer allows for moderates. The platform is radical and largely hostile to our country's founding principles of liberty and limited government. The platform, through the aforementioned support for killing babies in the womb, makes it hard for people of faith to even fathom voting for someone with a D by their name.
Individual liberty and free-market ideals produce the best results for the most amount of people. History proves it.
America is an exceptional nation and our free-market ideals have produced the best quality of life in the world for hundreds of millions of people. We need to focus more on lifting people out of poverty and improving the quality of life through free-market means.
As freedom-loving Americans, we must be careful not to downplay the extreme views of virtually all of the Democratic candidates running for the presidential nomination. There are no moderates. Every elected official, at the local, state, or federal level, who still wears the hat of the Democratic Party must ask themselves whether or not they share the anti-American policies that are being promoted by the national Democratic Party.
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
E-Newsletter: Abortion Survivors, HBCUs, Justice for Victims of Lynching Act
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