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KUNAR PROVINCE, Afghanistan, Dec. 18, 2009 – Getting through downtown Asadabad, Afghanistan, has become easier for hundreds of Afghan families, thanks to two and a half miles of new roads that were completed Dec. 13. Local workers cleaning the streets in Asadabad, Afghanistan, watch a provincial reconstruction team patrol conduct a final quality-assurance check on a new road through the provincial capital of Kunar province prior to a dedication ceremony, Dec. 13, 2009. U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Brian Boisvert  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Provincial reconstruction team engineers completed their final quality-assurance check just before a...

When you choose a career, two of the biggest factors to consider are your benefits and your salary. If you're the kind of person looking to make $500 million a year (a la Michael Milken), stay in the private sector. But for the rest of us, becoming a government employee seems like a more lucrative option. According to the BLS, total employer compensation costs for civilian workers, which include private industry and state and local government workers, averaged $29.40 per hour worked in September 2009. Total employer compensation costs for private industry workers averaged $27.49 per hour worked in September...

DECEMBER 13, 2009 Whole Foods Republicans The GOP needs to enlist voters who embrace a progressive lifestyle but not progressive politics. MICHAEL J. PETRILLI The Republican Party is resurgent—or so goes the conventional wisdom. With its gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey, an energized "tea party" base, and an administration overreaching on health care, climate change and spending, 2010 could shape up to be 1994 all over again. Maybe. The political landscape sure looks greener than it did a year ago, when talk of a permanent Democratic majority was omnipresent. But before John Boehner starts measuring the drapes in...

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken today urged the Senate to pass an extension of unemployment and COBRA benefits before the end of the year, citing the 10 percent unemployment rate and the annual rise in heating bills coming this winter. The Minnesota Democrats joined 22 other senators who signed a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, asking for a vote on the issue by Dec. 31. A 65 percent subsidy of premium costs for those with COBRA benefits, authorized by the stimulus bill, is set to expire at the end of the year.

One lesson that Democrats learned from the failure of HillaryCare in 1994 is that they had to buy the silence, if not the outright support, of the business class. They've done this brilliantly by peddling the illusion that ObamaCare will "lower costs" for employers. But slowly as the legislative details become clear, it is dawning on executives of businesses large and small that reform is boiling down to a huge tax increase to finance a gigantic new entitlement. The cost and quality of care are afterthoughts that will both suffer, as a growing roll of medical experts have been writing...

Government Statistics And Lies Politics / Market Manipulation Nov 02, 2009 - 11:14 AM By: Dr_Ron_Paul There has been a lot of talk in Washington recently about senior citizens, mostly about how various healthcare reform models would help or hurt them. But there is another critical issue that has quietly devastated seniors financially over the last few decades. It concerns how the cost of living is calculated. How does the administration justify not giving a cost of living increase to Social Security recipients this year? According to the official Consumer Price Index calculation, life has gotten cheaper for the first...

Businesses would not be required to provide health insurance under legislation being readied for Senate debate, but large firms would owe significant penalties if any worker needed government subsidies to buy coverage on their own, according to Democratic officials familiar with talks on the bill.For firms with more than 50 employees, the fee could be as high as $750 multiplied by the total size of the work force if only a few workers needed federal aid, these officials said. That is a more stringent penalty than in a bill that recently cleared the Senate Finance Committee, which said companies should...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Businesses would not be required to provide health insurance under legislation being readied for Senate debate, but large firms would owe significant penalties if any worker needed government subsidies to buy coverage on their own, according to Democratic officials familiar with talks on the bill. For firms with more than 50 employees, the fee could be as high as $750 multiplied by the total size of the work force if only a few workers needed federal aid, these officials said. That is a more stringent penalty than in a bill that recently cleared the Senate Finance Committee,...

As companies begin unveiling their workplace benefits for next year, many employees are learning they will have to dig even deeper into their pockets for health coverage. Such price increases have become a fact of life during open-enrollment season, when workers sign up for their health plans. But the jump is expected to be steeper in 2010 than this year, as employers struggle with the impact of the recession and continually rising insurance costs. Employees will pay $4,023 on average in premiums and out-of-pocket charges next year, up 10% from 2009, according to a projection from Hewitt Associates, a benefits-consulting...

WASHINGTON – Sixty years is how long Democrats say they've been pushing for legislation that provides health care access for all Americans. They'll have to wait another three if President Barack Obama gets a bill to sign this year. Under the Democratic bills, federal tax credits to help make health insurance affordable for millions of low- and middle-income households won't start flowing until 2013 — after the next presidential election. But Medicare cuts and a sizable chunk of the tax increases to pay for the overhaul kick in immediately. The eat-your-vegetables-first approach is causing heartburn for some Democrats. Three years...

WASHINGTON – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki announced the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has authorized checks for up to $3,000 to be given to students who have applied for educational benefits and who have not yet received their government payment. The checks will be distributed to eligible students at VA regional benefits offices across the country starting Oct. 2, 2009. “Students should be focusing on their studies, not worrying about financial difficulties,” Secretary Shinseki said. “Education creates life-expanding opportunities for our Veterans.” Starting Friday, Oct. 2, 2009, students can go to one of VA’s 57 regional benefit...

Over four days and three late nights of meetings, Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee have largely stood up to Republicans’ attacks on a proposal to overhaul the health care system. But behind the scenes and away from the C-Span cameras, their united front has given way to intraparty tensions, not just in the committee but in Congress generally. ... Senate Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority of 60 lawmakers. But a number of them are centrists, and the party cannot afford many defections, given Republicans’ nearly unanimous opposition. Further, seeking a semblance of bipartisanship, the White House still wants Ms....

The U.S. government failed to send promised college tuition checks to tens of thousands of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars before they returned to school this fall, even after being warned that it was inadequately staffed for the job. The Veterans Affairs Department blamed a backlog of claims filed for GI Bill education benefits that has left veterans who counted on the money for tuition and books scrambling to make ends meet. Veterans like American University student John Kamin, who received a letter Wednesday from the Army. He was hoping it contained news that his overdue GI Bill...

Boeing employees are about to lose a fabulous perk, and the cost-cutting move could mean a significant financial hit for some local colleges and universities as well. Until now, when a Boeing employee enrolled for any class at any accredited college, the company picked up the tuition — with no restrictions. Boeing currently pays for the classes of about 6,000 employees in the Puget Sound region and 21,000 companywide. But many of those enjoying free classes will lose that benefit at year-end, when Boeing starts limiting its subsidy to cover only courses that further an employee's career at the company....

California has chosen to indulge its poor with what President Obama might call the "Cadillac version" of Medicaid, with all the optional equipment, and no pesky documentation requirements. As a result, financial chaos looms. Medicaid covers nearly 60 million individuals. In 2007, states and the federal government spent $319 billion on the program. California's elected decision makers have expanded both program eligibility and benefits without demanding accountability, efficiency, quality or access to care.

Labor unions and some Democrats are pushing to scale back a proposal in the latest version of Senate health-overhaul legislation that would tax generous insurance plans. A sweeping proposal to fix the health system, unveiled this week by Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D., Mont.), would impose a 35% tax on high-dollar health plans offered by insurers. The tax on insurers is the biggest revenue generator for a plan that is expected to cost about $774 billion over 10 years. The new tax is intended to target "Cadillac" plans offered to wealthy individuals. It would fall on plans valued at...

As Congress's debate over health-care legislation lumbers toward a defining test for the Obama presidency, partisans on both sides of another issue -- immigration -- escalated their own proxy war this week, concluding that the fates of the two issues have become politically linked. Trying to beat back a furor over whether President Obama's centerpiece initiative would subsidize health care for illegal immigrants, liberal supporters of an immigration overhaul on Monday called a main proponent of that claim a "hate group," citing its founder's ties to white supremacists and interest in racist ideas, such as eugenics. The counterattack comes as...

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Jobless since January, Donald Money has already moved in with his elderly parents, stopped going to the movies and started using less of his prescription medication so it will last longer. This month, something else will fall by the wayside: Money’s unemployment check. The 43-year-old former printing press operator is among the more than 1.3 million Americans whose unemployment insurance benefits will run out by the end of the year, placing extra strain on an economy that is just starting to recover from the worst downturn in a generation. These are the most unfortunate of America’s 14.5...

WASHINGTON – A sleepy Montana checkpoint along the Canadian border that sees about three travelers a day will get $15 million under President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan. A government priority list ranked the project as marginal, but two powerful Democratic senators persuaded the administration to make it happen. Despite Obama's promises that the stimulus plan would be transparent and free of politics, the government is handing out $720 million for border upgrades under a process that is both secretive and susceptible to political influence. This allowed low-priority projects such as the checkpoint in Whitetail, Mont., to skip ahead of...

Dvoira Rososhanskaya wheeled her chair through the Hebrew Home of Greater Washington, past the bathrooms that say "tuyalet" in Cyrillic letters and the bookcase full of Russian translations of Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle. A Russian writer had just read his short stories to a group of senior citizens from the former Soviet Union, and Rososhanskaya, 87, had loved it. "It's very important for me to be among Russian speakers," said the onetime preschool teacher from Ukraine who earned three medals digging trenches near Stalingrad during World War II. "Everything he was telling and reading from his book corresponded...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Millions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won't be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn't happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1975. By law, Social Security benefits cannot go down. Nevertheless, monthly payments would drop for millions of people in the Medicare prescription drug program because the premiums, which often are deducted from Social Security payments, are scheduled to go up slightly. ''I will promise...

WASHINGTON, July 30, 2009 – The commander of Multinational Corps Iraq said an unanticipated result of the U.S.-Iraq security agreement is that relationships between Iraqi and U.S. commanders have improved. Army Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr. told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates this week that the improvement means better operations, better sharing of intelligence and better security for the Iraqi people. The security agreement called for all American combat troops to be out of Iraqi cities and villages by June 30. American forces started pulling out of these areas in November, and Iraqi security forces took...

A Missouri man driving his John Deere tractor from his home in Willow Springs, Missouri to Washington DC is making a stop in our region July 25th. The Gulf War Veteran says he's at a breaking point because he claims he is disabled, but not getting disability benefits from his country. As a result he can't afford to fix his car so his only remaining mode of transportation is his tractor. Letterman's tractor tops out at about 20 miles per hour. He plans on driving between 10 and 14 hours a day. He is making his way to DC because...

Key Points: Impact on cost: A top selling point by the administration for the Democrat bills in Congress is that their legislation will reduce costs. People aren’t buying it. · By two to one (34-18) Americans believe the cost of their health care will go up. · 45 percent believe costs will go up nationally and only 14 percent see a reduction in costs nationally Impact on care: While respondents are more optimistic about the impact nationally, more Americans believe the health care legislation will worsen their own medical care than improve it. · 34 percent believe their own health...

Boy, and we thought the huge retirement dollars going to public sector workers in California was crazy. But fat, guaranteed retirement checks are just the tip of the iceberg, really, when it comes to sucking money from the taxpayers. Bob Norman at the Broward Palm Beach New Times points out how public sector workers can work for the city and collect a retirement check simultaneously: Recently I did a post about BSO Lt. Col. Ricky Frey making nearly $320,000 off of a popular state retirement scam for government officials that basically allows triple dipping and opulent take-home pay at the...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demonstrated last week that she is a master at the poetic art of haiku -- the Japanese poem form...Regarding her party's health care bill, the California Democrat crafted the following haiku to assure the Blue Dog Democrats that they can tell their voters: "You have a cap on your costs, but not on your benefits." In just two lines of 14 syllables, the speaker encapsulated the illogic inherent in the Democratic health care bills. It is a compound proposition that is always untrue for all possible combinations of the true value of its components. Under the...

WASHINGTON, July 23, 2009 – The Post-9/11 GI Bill takes effect Aug. 1, but in the meantime, servicemembers may submit a request to transfer benefits to their spouses and children now. Army 1st Sgt. Steven Colbert takes a moment out of his day to read with his son, Jordan. Colbert is looking forward to transferring his GI Bill benefits to pay for Jordan’s college education. U.S. Army photo by Rob McIlvaine  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. “Transferability of Post 9/11 GI Bill benefits has been the most requested initiative we receive from our servicemembers,” said Bill Carr, deputy undersecretary...

As Democrats struggle to pass a sweeping health care bill, employer mandates are a key flash point.The House plan would make businesses cover their employees or pay an additional 8% payroll tax to help provide government-subsidized insurance. Employers' insurance would have to cover hospitalization, outpatient care, doctor visits, prescription drugs, rehab services, preventive services, and maternity and "well baby" care. It could have no annual or lifetime limits on benefits. Cash Cow, Job Killer?The House mandate would raise $163 billion from 2010 to 2019, with most in the last seven years, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Small firms with payrolls...

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<p>WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- House legislation that would overhaul health care would also expand tax benefits for employer-provided health insurance to same- sex partners.</p> <p>The provision authored by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., was a last-minute addition to a $1 trillion-plus health-care rewrite being considered by the House Ways and Means Committee Thursday.</p>

WASHINGTON, July 15, 2009 – Servicemembers interested in using the new Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits this fall are encouraged to contact the Veterans Affairs Department soon to determine their eligibility, the VA’s director of education said. “The reason we opened the door early on May 1 [was] so that we can manage this workload effectively; we expected a significant demand,” Keith Wilson told bloggers and online journalists during a “DoDLive” bloggers roundtable, yesterday. “We wanted people to come in as quickly as possible because the sooner we can get that eligibility determination out of the way, the better place we...

Behind the bipartisan motives for employer-provided health insurance. On Tuesday the CEO of Wal-Mart, long the bête noire of the American left, issued a joint statement with SEIU head Andy Stern and Center for American Progress President John Podesta, two close allies of Barack Obama, supporting the administration's health reform efforts. The letter called for bipartisan reforms that include an employer mandate to purchase health insurance for their employees. An odd alliance? Maybe. But when two camps eye the same goal for separate reasons, they can become unlikely bedfellows.

On Tuesday the CEO of Wal-Mart, long the bête noire of the American left, issued a joint statement with SEIU head Andy Stern and Center for American Progress President John Podesta, two close allies of Barack Obama, supporting the administration's health reform efforts. The letter called for bipartisan reforms that include an employer mandate to purchase health insurance for their employees. An odd alliance? Maybe. But when two camps eye the same goal for separate reasons, they can become unlikely bedfellows. For the Obama administration, this announcement comes at a particularly convenient time. The president's health reform effort has hit...

Matthew Yglesias proudly announces that his employer the liberal thinktank Center for American Progress has convinced Wal-Mart (WMT) to support a law that would legally obligate employers to pay for their employees' health insurance. The Center for American Progress, the Service Employees International Union, and Wal-Mart joined forces today to release a letter (PDF) endorsing the dual ideas of an employer mandate to provide health insurance and “triggers” to automatically reduce costs if health care spending gets too high (more on that here). The highly ideological behavior of the business community, and high degree of class solidarity exhibited by the...

In a major break with most other large companies, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. Tuesday told the White House that it supports requiring employers to provide health insurance to workers, a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's effort to provide near-universal coverage to Americans. The support of Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, could give momentum to one of the most-contentious aspects of legislation taking shape in Congress to fix the health system. To help pay for covering the 46 million uninsured, lawmakers have proposed mandating that all but small employers provide insurance for workers or help pay for it. Lobbies for large...

We were just reading through a little more of this proposal from Wal-Mart (WMT) and liberal thinktank Center for American Progress for some kind of law that would require all employers to provide health insurance. We already said why we think it's a ridiculous idea and that the CAP and its star blogger Matthew Yglesias are being used big-time by a company that wants to raise costs for its rivals. In looking though their supporting letter (.pdf) this line jumped out at us big time: In 2008, half of all people filing for home foreclosure cited medical problems as a...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to announce that she will grant the domestic partners of gay and lesbian diplomats many of the same rights and protections as the spouses of heterosexual Foreign Service officers. But there are limits to what she can promise. Clinton can open the door to diplomatic passports, emergency evacuations, medical clinics and language classes, and she can offer preferential consideration for certain jobs. But she can't extend coveted benefits such as membership in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program to domestic partners. The State Department situation illustrates a challenge for agency heads who want to...

President Obama will announce tomorrow that he is extending federal benefits to include unmarried domestic partners of federal workers, including same-sex partners, White House officials said tonight. Obama will sign an executive order implementing the change in the Oval Office, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid upstaging the president's announcement. The move would give partners of federal employees access to health care and financial benefits such as relocation fees for moves. The State Department announced a similar extension of benefits last month, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton calling it "the right thing to do."...

Fed: That extra $25 you now receive from SSI? Yeah, that is a gift from Obama - your welcome and please vote again. Public: That is nice and all, but that extra $25 means that I am now over the income threshold to receive my $300 in food stamps. Fed: My bad, but I promise we won't make those same mistakes with health care reform.

Officials voice no support for health benefits tax Obama is pressing for an overhaul that includes a government option WASHINGTON - Lawmakers and administration officials on Sunday distanced themselves from the idea of taxing health benefits to help pay President Barack Obama's health care overhaul and bickered over whether government insurance would strengthen the market. The debate over a government insurance plan has broken mainly along party lines. But Democrats and Republicans appearing on Sunday's TV news programs either rejected or offered no support for raising revenues on some people through a tax on health benefits. Obama has not supported...

The use of company-issued mobile phones could trigger new federal income taxes on millions of Americans as a "fringe benefit," spurring efforts by the wireless industry and others to kill the idea. The Internal Revenue Service proposed that employers assign 25% of an employee's annual phone expenses as a taxable benefit. Under that scenario, a worker in the 28% tax bracket, whose wireless device costs the company $1,500 a year, could see $105 in additional federal income tax.

Pensioners protest as their allotment of 864 brews a year will be cut to nothing If you sang that well-worn campfire song about the beer bottles on the wall, you'd have to start at 864. That's the annual complimentary beer allotment for retirees from the Molson brewery in St. John's, Nfld., the same amount of free suds they received while still working. But, without consulting them, Molson has decided to shut the tap. Come Jan. 1, the allotment will be a dozen bottles a month, down from six dozen a month (or 72 dozen a year), and in five years,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he doesn't have a problem with state workers making $63,815 in average base pay, but he does not think the "unbelievable benefits" they receive are sustainable."I think that it doesn't bother me as much that a state worker makes $60,000," Schwarzenegger said. "What bothers me more is when you have those unbelievable benefits that cost the state an enormous amount of money on top of that. So at one point or the other, something has to give."Schwarzenegger answered a wide range of questions from The Bee's editorial board and online readers during an hour-long Web interview....

A majority of Hispanic children are now U.S.-born children of immigrants, primarily Mexicans who came to this country in an immigration wave that began about 1980, according to a report released yesterday. The analysis of census data by the nonpartisan, Washington-based Pew Hispanic Center charts a substantial demographic shift among the nation's 16 million Hispanic children, who constitute one of the fastest growing child populations in the United States and account for more than one of five U.S. children. As recently as 1980, nearly six of 10 Latino children were in the third generation or higher, meaning that their parents,...

By DANA MATTIOLI Accelerating health-care premiums and sharp revenue shortfalls due to the recession are forcing some small companies to choose between dropping health insurance or laying off workers -- or staying in business at all. Sheryl Weldon, owner of Commerce Welding & Manufacturing Co., saw health-insurance payments increase to more than $800 monthly per employee from about $200 five years ago. With monthly revenue down 10% since December, Ms. Weldon stopped providing health coverage to employees, including one being treated for prostate cancer, for the first time in the 64-year-history of the Dallas sheet-metal company. Ms. Weldon and several...

(2009-05-26) — Calling it “the right thing to do” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today announced that the State Department would soon grant the same benefits to spouses and domestic partners as well as to those with whom U.S. diplomats conduct extra-marital affairs. “Same sex or opposite sex, married or not, faithful or cheating — any time people come together intimately, taxpayers are morally obligated to take care of their every need,” said Secretary Clinton. “History has shown that some couples in adulterous affairs are more devoted to each other than they are to the ones with whom they share...

President Blasted McCain on This Issue, but Experts Say It Could Help Pay for Reform During last year's campaign, Barack Obama poured millions of dollars into television ads attacking John McCain for wanting to tax employer-provided health care benefits. But now that Congress is beginning to consider ways to fix the health care system, a concept once pilloried by Obama is being placed on the agenda by a key member of the president's own party. Under current law, any money spent on employer-provided health plans is excluded entirely from employee's taxable income. "That tax provision should be on the table,...

In a fit of hypocrisy sure to outrage, just as Attorney General Eric Holder makes ready to attend a ceremony to honor fallen police officers, the Obama administration is proposing to cut almost in half a program that provides benefits to the future families left behind. So much for the more loving, more caring president “we’ve been waiting for.” So, wouldn’t you think the Old Media would be braying at the hypocrisy here? Wouldn’t you rather think that the Old Media would be up in arms about this one? Isn’t this typically the type of story that would get them...

WASHINGTON — For the first time in more than three decades, Social Security recipients will not get any increase in their benefits next year, federal forecasts show. The absence of a cost-of-living adjustment, calculated under a formula set by law, will be a shock to older Americans already hit by plummeting home values, investment losses and rising health costs. More than 50 million people receive Social Security. “Most seniors have never been through a year in which there was no Social Security COLA,” said David M. Certner, legislative counsel at AARP, the lobby for older Americans. Beneficiaries have received automatic...

The Internal Revenue Service has allowed some foreigners to improperly claim tax credits that will cost the government nearly $9 billion, according to a federal report scheduled to be released today. The report by the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, which was obtained by The Washington Post in advance of its release, criticizes the IRS for lax oversight of foreigners who use an alternative form of identification instead of a Social Security number. Many of the foreigners who use the code, known as an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, are illegal immigrants, according to government officials and immigration experts. The...