For decades small business owners have been telling anyone who would listen that they need health-care reforms that lower costs. But President Obama and his allies in Congress pushed through a law that will dramatically raise health-care costs and increase the overall cost of doing business. What's more, the federal mandate requiring that nearly all U.S. residents carry health insurance by 2014 seriously threatens our basic constitutional rights and individual freedoms.
This is why the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB), on behalf of small business owners nationwide, has joined the lawsuit with 20 states mounting a constitutional challenge to this devastating new health-care law.
This law is death by a thousand cuts for small business owners. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the overhaul will cost about $115 billion more than first projected, bringing the total to more than $1 trillion. Small businesses will also now have to deal with an onslaught of new taxes and burdensome paperwork.
Supporters say the law will significantly help small businesses, focusing on the much-talked about small business tax credit. But the reality is that the tax credit is complex and very limited because firms qualify based on number of employees and average wages. The credit, which is only available for a maximum of six years, puts small business owners through a series of complicated "tests" to determine if they qualify and how much they will receive. Fewer than one-third of small businesses even pass the first three (of four) tests to qualify: have 25 employees or less, provide health insurance, and pay 50% of the cost of that insurance.
More importantly, the credit is temporary, but health-care cost increases are permanent. When the credit ends, small businesses will be left paying full price. They'll also be forced to deal with all sorts of new taxes, fees and mandates buried in this 2,000-page law.
One of these new taxes is a so-called health insurance fee. It's a massive $8 billion tax (that escalates to $14.3 billion by 2018) on insurance companies based on their market share. This tax will be paid almost exclusively by small businesses and individuals because the law specifically excludes self-insured plans, the plans that most big businesses and labor unions offer, from having to pay the tax.
While the health insurance fee was designed to "go after" large health-insurance companies, the reality is that insurers aren't simply going to absorb this new tax; it will be passed on to customers. Specifically, it will be passed on to the plans that 87% of small businesses and individuals buy. A study by the Federal Policy Group published last October found that the amount of taxes passed on to the typical family of four could be $500 or more per year.
Adding insult to injury, the law also requires all businesses to issue IRS 1099 forms to document every business-to-business transaction of $600 or more. To someone who's never run a business, this may sound like nothing. But Congress hopes to raise $17 billion in added tax revenues and fees from this new mandate. That's hardly nothing.
The burden of raising that expected revenue falls again on the backs of small business owners who already suffer under unmanageable federal paperwork burdens. What's worse, this new reporting requirement has absolutely nothing to do with health-care reform. It was included to help pay for the nearly trillion-dollar price tag of the bill. Why should small business owners have to pay for a bill that causes them so much harm? They shouldn't, which is why NFIB is fighting against this law in court.
We also believe the health-care law is unconstitutional. The centerpiece of this law is an individual mandate requiring virtually all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a fine. We strongly believe that the Commerce Clause of the Constitution does not give Congress the power to force individuals to purchase a private product or face a fine. Requiring individuals to purchase something simply because they are alive is unprecedented. The military draft is the only exception to this, and Congress's authority to enact the draft is provided for in the Constitution, unlike this mandate.
The individual mandate imposes unique burdens on those small business people, including many NFIB members, who are sole proprietors and the least able to afford it. These independent men and women rarely can afford to distinguish between their own "personal" resources and those of their business. The mandate will now force them to spend money on insurance they may not want, rather than using those funds to run and grow their businesses.
If this law is not overturned, then all citizens should be prepared for the long arm of the federal government to reach even further into how we choose to live our lives, spend our money and pursue our own definitions of happiness.
Health-care reform is too important to be based on an unconstitutional mandate. Small businesses need the judicial systemif necessary, the U.S. Supreme Courtto overturn this law to protect them from having to pay for a statute that causes them more harm than good and ultimately infringes on all Americans' personal freedoms.
#1
National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB)
I hate to say it, but who did they support in the run up to this? The first rule of socialism, any socialism, is that what is yours (money, property) is open to debate.
#2
What the Obamacare effect is, is to raise prices for everything across the bord to pay for it.
Example, since all small buisness owners HAVE to pay for this increased insurance, the cost of (Say) Auto repair, Just went up to pay the difference.
(If it doesn't they will have to go out of business)
Think that over next time you have to repair any auto related repair, or fender-bender, It'll be higher making the insurance higher, etc in a domino falling chain throughout the entire economy.
Forced inflation is the result.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/27/2010 12:53 Comments ||
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#3
The path of least resistance for small business owners is to (1) pay the fine per employee for not providing gov't-sanctioned health insurance and then (2) either add that to their prices and/or cut their employees' pay by an equal amount. That's how my brother in Mass. has been getting by running his business since they instituted Obamacare there.
#2
Beyond a doubt. The answers to California budget mess are staring us in the face, but lawmakers don't want to see them. At least this year they are embracing some cuts with some tax increases. Believe me that is progress in Kalifornia.
That is, make 2011 spending dollar-for-dollar equivalent to 2006 spending, and cut the differences in each department, agency, bureau and center.
I don't recall any state program being especially starved for cash in 2006. We all managed to live through 2006 somehow.
Cut the budget by five years and see how close to balance you are. Then make further adjustments as needed.
That would be one year of shock therapy for the states, after which we'd be wiser about what we really need and what we can do without.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/27/2010 9:31 Comments ||
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#4
Well, as I've mentioned a few times over the past month, Commifornia is going to crash and crash hard. The numbers demand it.
Barry O & the Dems will attempt to rescue them, but I can't believe that in this political climate that a massive Commifornia bailout by the Fed could actually make it through Congress. I guess a good testbed will be if Barry O can con the country into bailing out the big union retirement funds that are soon to default.
Oh boy. :(
Posted by: Jefferson ||
05/27/2010 9:32 Comments ||
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#8
I have the mental picture of California Democrats putting Toll Booths on I-10 at the California border, toll $1000 per Auto and another $500 each passenger.
Democraps will think the tolls will straighten out their financial mess.
Truth is the Tolls will cause the collapse to happen faster and harder because traffic on I-10 will come to a screeching halt, and toll collections will be Zero after the first day.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/27/2010 13:07 Comments ||
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#9
The worst part of it all is that California has the tools and resources to be the financial powerhouse that it used to be. Only politics and policy are holding it back. A very capable and highly skilled workforce is sitting on its ass while the retards in Sacramento spend their days trying to figure out how to ram through gay marriage and swipe all the guns from people's houses.
#10
Sorry, Jim. That very capable and highly skilled workforce either isn't big enough to matter or it is responsible for sending the retards to Sacramento. Either way, Caliphornia is not coming out of this voluntarily and it won't be the same when it does.
#12
The financial situation in California is like giving your kid credit cards and they keep maxing them out and then they come back to you for a bailout. But then they don't learn anything and they repeat the cycle. Then they start paying off credit cards with credit cards. That is where we are today. There is no fiscal restraint or responsibility in California. We are all going to end up paying for their liberal clusterf&%^ nightmare. At that point you will see states start talking about secession.
In this special edition of Frontpage Symposium, we have invited four distinguished guests to discuss the question: Is there a moderate Islam? Our guests today are:
Timothy Furnish, a former U.S. Army Arabic interrogator, he is a consultant and author with a Ph.D. in Islamic History.
Tawfik Hamid, an Islamic thinker and reformer who is the author of Inside Jihad: Understanding and Confronting Radical Islam.
M. Zuhdi Jasser, M.D. is the President and Founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD).
and Robert Spencer
Posted by: ed ||
05/27/2010 11:21 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#2
If you think that moderate Islam does not exist, you are proving you did NOT read the symposium, I definitively proved the existence of moderate Islam. And don't libel me as "liberal"--I am quite conservative.
Posted by: Tim Furnish ||
05/27/2010 13:38 Comments ||
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#3
There are many moderate moslems, each of whom perhaps believes in an idiosyncratic personal Islam. Some of these even believe in equal rights for women and gays.
There are also several minority sects of Islam who are mostly nonviolent.
Mainstream Islam however, well that's the problem. Hundreds of thousands (maybe millions or tens of millions) who would willingly kill an infidel if they thought they could get away with it and millions (or tens of millions or hundreds of millions) who cheer on the killers of infidels (or killers of heretics or killers of apostates).
Posted by: lord garth ||
05/27/2010 13:43 Comments ||
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#4
I have come to the conclusion that if there are moderate muslims, they for whatever reason cannot prevent the extremists from spoiling the brand. Ultimately the extremists will go so far that the vast majority of Americans will come believe that it is best left for God to sort them.
#5
If it doesn't exist there's no way we can ally with Muslim governments or treat with Muslim organizations.
I've said on a few occasions that without Khomeiniism, Shi'a Islam would be our natural ally against Salafism. But the two are spiritual kin.
It is always a good idea to keep our eyes open and our heads clear when dealing with the Islamic world. Their values aren't ours, and in fact they are more different from us than are China and Japan.
That doesn't mean all elements within that culture represent a perpetual danger to us. But when we try to convince ourselves that there's no danger at all then we're being stoopid.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/27/2010 13:50 Comments ||
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#6
IMHO, either extreme, that there are no radicals, or that there are no moderates, is more useful to the ruling classes of the enemy countries than it is to us.
In one of the most embarrassing news stories I've ever seen in the mainstream press, the New York Times has a comprehensive report on the catastrophic meltdown in the public's interest in global warming.
The only problem: nothing in here is news, if by news you mean 'new'.
"Climate Fears Turn To Doubts Among Britons," blares the headline.
The story begins:
LONDON -- Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?
Last month? The conference was last month and we are only hearing about it now, at the end of this month?
It turns out, however, that by Times standards a report on a conference from last month is a late breaking newsflash. The main evidence that ace reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal has tracked down for her story about changing public sentiment comes from a BBC opinion poll from February.
The last I looked, we were approaching the end of May. This is deliberative journalism at its best: only ninety swift days between a BBC poll and the time that the New York Times thinks you are ready to hear about it.
Rosenthal has tracked down some other elusive leads. Concern about climate change, she reports, has also dropped dramatically among Germans -- from 62 percent to 42 percent. This time, the news dates only from March. Sixty days from simmer to serve: the head spins at the speed of information in this globalized world of ours.
And there's nothing as thorough as a professional journalist hunting a good story; she's also got another late breaking revelation. As recently as January, a scant four months ago, a mere flick of the eyelid in geological time, a survey of Conservative political candidates in the UK showed that stopping climate change rated as the lowest among 19 priorities for the new government.
Now six months after the rest of the world found out about it, Times readers are finally learning that Climategate and Glaciergate so seriously reduced public confidence in climate science in so many countries that there is little or no chance that serious global climate change legislation will be enacted. At the time, the story did not merit much attention in the print pages of the Times; but sometimes a good story has to age like a fine wine.
But late as it is, it's a good story. Read the whole thing. And give thanks that you live in the information age, when the news of the day, properly vetted and screened by layers of professional news editors, will be delivered to you as soon as it's safely matured.
Who knows, in a few more months or years, somebody may write a story about the damage that the culture of cocooning and coddling did to a movement that only slowly learned that it had lost the public trust. Somebody might even interview the editors and journalists involved to find out why the collapse of the climate change movement's political momentum was too unimportant to print while the news was still fresh. Somebody else might look at that journalistic culture and write a story about how failures of aggressive reporting and news editing undermined the credibility of some of the greatest news gathering organizations on earth.
But I wouldn't publish any of that stuff too quickly. Stories this big and this rich need to be properly aged.
#1
If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet?
It's actualy quite simple, we know Bullshit when we smell it.
And NOT being a Globull Warming Scientist, NOT having our reputation at risk, we can see falsehood when it's shoveled on our plate, we DON'T have to keep up a lie to be paid or respected.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/27/2010 16:41 Comments ||
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#2
I believe my exact comments about yesterday's 'treasonous' NYT story on the intelligence 'document' 'leak' were...
#3
I suspect public interest is also getting diverted by years of unemployment, unrecoverable losses in pension plans and the expectation that we are all getting poorer. Poverty now trumps global warming later.
#2
First, the Kingdom of Thailand is an "unsavoury regime?" Obviously, the bigots at the Economist can only generalize a few well-worn leftist memes about "the (non-communist) third world" and know nothing of Thailand, its culture or history. Piss on them.
Louise Arbour, head of the International Crisis Group (ICG), says the Sri Lanka model consists of three parts: what she dubs scorched-earth tactics (full operational freedom for the army, no negotiations with terrorists, no ceasefires to let them regroup); next, ignoring differences between combatants and non-combatants (the new ICG report documents many such examples); lastly, the dismissal of international and media concerns.
The winning formula for those threatened by terrorist uprisings. This takes away the terrorists' only strong ally, the global media, and neutralizes their most effective tactic, the use of human shields.
The questions on the ads aren't subtle: Leaving Islam? Fatwa on your head? Is your family threatening you?
A conservative activist and the organizations she leads have paid several thousand dollars for the ads to run on at least 30 city buses for a month. The ads point to a website called RefugefromIslam.com, which offers information to those wishing to leave Islam, but some Muslims are calling the ads a smoke screen for an anti-Muslim agenda.
Pamela Geller, who leads an organization called Stop Islamization of America, said the ads were meant to help provide resources for Muslims who are fearful of leaving the faith.
"It's not offensive to Muslims, it's religious freedom," she said. "It's not targeted at practicing Muslims. It doesn't say 'leave,' it says 'leaving' with a question mark."
Geller said the ad buy cost about $8,000, contributed by the readers of her blog, Atlas Shrugs, and other websites. Similar ads have run on buses in Miami, and she said ad buys were planned for other cities.
Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials said Geller's ad was reviewed and did not violate the agency's guidelines.
"The religion in question would not change the determination that the language in the ad does not violate guidelines," MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz said Wednesday.
All ads are screened, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said. Most are reviewed by the company that handles the MTA's advertising opportunities, but some are sent to the MTA for ultimate approval.
Last month, Miami-Dade Transit pulled the ads from 10 buses after deciding they "may be offensive to Islam," according to The Miami Herald. But the agency decided to reinstall them after reviewing the ads with the county attorney's office.
The county decided "although they may be considered offensive by some, they do not fall under the general guidelines that would warrant their removal," Transit spokesman Clinton Forbes told the newspaper.
Glenn Smith, a professor at California Western School of Law in San Diego, said discriminating against the ads could result in First Amendment issues for the city.
While people may find the content objectionable, courts have ruled that the First Amendment requires Americans to put up with "a lot of unenlightened and objectionable messages," he said.
"It's sort of the price of keeping government out of the marketplace of ideas," he said.
Eugene Volokh, a First Amendment expert at UCLA School of Law, said the ads could leave some Muslims reluctant to ride the bus. There could also be a risk that some extremist groups might bomb the buses, although that possibility wouldn't limit free speech rights, he said.
The agency had received no complaints since the ads went up on May 14, MTA spokesman Aaron Donovan said. The 30 or so buses with the ads pass through all five boroughs of the city.
Council member Robert Jackson, a Muslim, said he had not seen the ad. But he questioned the criteria the MTA uses in determining what is appropriate.
He also takes issue with the content. He doesn't believe anyone is being forced to stay in a religion, especially in America, which was built on religious freedom.
"I think this is a campaign by the extreme right, those that are against the Muslim religion," he said. "Quite frankly, I would think the average New Yorker would take it for what it's worth."
Faiza Ali, of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the ads were based on a false premise that people face coercion to remain with Islam. She said Muslims believe faith that is forced is not true belief.
"Geller is free to say what she likes just as concerned community members are free to criticize her motives," Ali said.
Geller has a history of speaking out against Muslims, and the ads are "a smoke screen to advance her long-standing history of anti-Muslim bigotry," Ali said.
Geller said she had no problem with Muslims, but was working to "maintain the separation of mosque and state." She is also among those speaking out against the building of a mosque and cultural center near ground zero.
#2
Faiza Ali, of the New York chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the ads were based on a false premise that people face coercion to remain with Islam. She said Muslims believe faith that is forced is not true belief.
And if you don't believe her you can ask Amina and Sarah Said of Texas. Or Rifqa Bary.
#3
Breathing is "Ofensive To Islam" if non Islamics do it.
I've decided that since everything is "Offensive" to these 5 year old little girls, ignore them and get on with life, if they bother ME, I'll just kill them until they go away.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
05/27/2010 13:13 Comments ||
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#4
the ads were based on a false premise that people face coercion to remain with Islam.
They don't coerce you to stay. They just kill you if you leave.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
