The White House expects the federal budget to shrink by more than $200 billion this fiscal year, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
In its Mid-Session Review, the OMB projects the deficit for fiscal 2013 to check in at $759 billion, revised down from the $973 billion the office projected in the president’s 2014 budget. OMB Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell announced the lower deficit in a blog post on OMB’s website, writing that “we do not need to choose between making critical investments necessary to help grow our economy and support middle class families and continuing to cut the deficit in a balanced way.”
According to the OMB’s figures, the lower deficit is mainly the result of higher tax receipts, cuts to domestic programs from the budget sequestration that took effect in March and dividend payments from the government-owned mortgage firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The figures show the deficit falling in fiscal 2016 to its lowest level as a percentage of gross domestic product since before President Obama’s inauguration. It would be 3.1 percent in 2016, dropping to 2.1 percent of GDP at the end of the budget window in 2023.
The OMB also revised down its projections for economic growth. The Mid-Session Review anticipates 2.4 percent growth in 2014 and 3.4 percent during 2014, assuming that President Obama’s preferred policies are put into place. That would include undoing the automatic sequestration spending cuts.
Joseph Lawler, Economics Writer
HHS gives up on Obamacare’s anti-fraud measures
The Obama administration is delaying the implementation of anti-fraud procedures that were scheduled to kick in on Oct. 1 because of the administrative difficulty of verifying the income and insurance status of applicants for federal health coverage subsidies.
In theory, a prospective beneficiary of Obamacare was supposed to be able to visit a website like Orbitz, enter basic information, and wait as multiple state and federal government databases communicated with one another to confirm in real time the applicant’s income level, and then display the level of subsidy to which the applicant was entitled, if any. It was a level of technological sophistication unlike anything ever attempted by the government. Now, with less than three months to go before Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges are set to begin enrolling applicants, the Department of Health and Human Services said the administration will rely instead on self-reported data.
So, a man who earns $50,000 per year and gets insurance through his employer could log on to the new government website and say he earns $20,000 and gets no insurance through his employer, and the government would not attempt to confirm that the information is accurate before sending out generous taxpayer subsidies.
Those caught would be subject to a $25,000 fine and forced to repay any excess subsidies they received. If they’re caught.
Philip Klein, Senior Writer
Dem opposition research group gears up for 2016
American Bridge, a Democratic super PAC dedicated to opposition research, just started its first program aimed at the 2016 elections. That’s right, 2-0-1-6.
Less than year after President Obama won a second term, American Bridge unveiled CorrectTheRecord2016.org, a website bolstered by a “war room” that is designed to respond to Republican attacks on potential Democratic presidential candidates. A spokesman for American Bridge declined to discuss the level of resources devoted to this effort, but said hiring and investment would ramp up over the next three years.
American Bridge described Correct the Record as “a dedicated research, tracking and rapid response communica- tions project.” A spokesman for the organization said the effort would “beef up research, communications, digital, video production and media monitoring departments” as the 2016 campaign draws closer.
“Correct the Record is a logical extension of the American Bridge brand to defend Democrats against right-wing dirt and phony scandal-mongering with the truth,” American Bridge Chairman David Brock said.
David M. Drucker, Senior Congressional Correspondent
It’s all Greek (yogurt) to Schumer
The federal government wants kids to eat more Greek yogurt, and Sen. Charles Schumer couldn’t be happier.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that the Democrat’s home state, New York, along with Tennessee, Arizona and Idaho, had been selected for a pilot program in which the federal government will subsidize school districts to buy Greek yogurt for their lunch programs.
The Greek yogurt industry is booming in the United States. And because New York is home to some of the biggest producers of the milk byproduct, Schumer had pressed the USDA for the pilot program.
“Starting this school year, students across the state will be balancing New York-made Greek yogurt on their lunch trays,” Schumer said. “I am proud to see this pilot plan reach this final step, because it’s a boon for New York yogurt and dairy industries, and it’s beneficial for the health of our kids.”
While other New York lawmakers pressed for the pilot, Schumer’s political muscle is considered the driving force behind the program. He has long fought to make New York the Greek yogurt capital of the United States, pushing for federal investments in production facilities and federal assistance to dairy farmers to increase milk production to meet the increased demand from Greek yogurt.
Sean Lengell, Congressional Correspondent
Spitzer: I need ‘skin as thick as a rhinoceros’ to survive sex scandal jokes
Former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, who resigned in 2008 in the wake of a high-end prostitution scandal, reacted to the jokes that were already surfacing since he announced his intention to run for New York City controller.
Asked on “CBS This Morning” about how he planned to deal with the jokes like the New York Post cover headline “Here we ho again,” he admitted that politics was a “contact sport” and that he was ready for hard hits.
“You need willpower, you need fortitude, you need skin as thick as a rhinoceros has and you need a desire to serve the public,” Spitzer said.
When asked whether his political comeback was a matter of personal ego, Spitzer insisted that he did not see public service as a path for redemption.
“For five years I have talked, I’ve written, I’ve had TV shows and I hate to say this here, but the most satisfying thing for me ever is public service,” he said.
Charlie Sperling, Commentary Writer
SEIU targets 10 Republicans with immigration ads
Republicans in mostly Western states with significant Hispanic populations are being targeted by the Service Employees International Union.
The SEIU is spending $200,000 in Spanish-language ads calling on them to back the Senate immigration reform bill.
The radio ads will be targeted at California Reps. Jeff Denham, David Valadao, Gary Miller and Howard McKeon, Colorado’s Scott Tipton and Mike Coffman, Nevada’s Joe Heck and Mark Amodei, Randy Weber of Texas and Florida’s Daniel Webster.
The ads are hard-edged. The text accuses those who do not support the reform bill of being in league with “extreme members of the Republican Party who continue to express harmful statements about immigrants, stigmatizing them as ‘criminals’ and ‘takers.’ ” The ad calls this “offensive and an insult to our community.”
The SEIU, whose membership is heavily Hispanic, has been a major booster of comprehensive immigration reform. Recent indications are that the bill is faltering in the House, though, which explains the union’s aggressive effort to push Republicans into supporting it.
Sean Higgins, Senior Writer
Limbaugh: GOP getting ‘skunked’ by Democrats
Republicans are getting “skunked” by Democrats, according to talk radio host Rush Limbaugh.
The conservative broadcaster joined “Fox and Friends” and criticized Republicans for failing to raise more awareness about the problems with Obamacare.
“I think it’s a golden opportunity for the Republicans to get back in people’s good graces and stand for something the American people actually stand for,” Limbaugh said.
Part of the problem, Limbaugh said, was that Republicans were focusing on issues that would hurt them in elections — like immigration reform.
“Republicans are sitting around twiddling their thumbs, worried about immigration and whether the Hispanics like them or not, and being skunked on issue after issue after issue,” Limbaugh said.
Limbaugh reminded the audience that the 2014 congressional midterm elections were critical to stopping Obama’s second-term agenda — adding that it was a real possibility that Democrats could take back the House.
“The 2014 midterms are really, really important,” he said. “Democrats win the House, then there is no such thing as a lame duck last two years for Obama. He’s going to have clear sailing.”
Charlie Sperling , Commentary Writer
Senator seeks information on data-mining by new consumer protection bureau
Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, wants to know what kind of data about the financial habits of Americans is being collected by the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
Crapo, who is the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, sent a letter to the Government Accountability Office asking for an analysis of the CFPB’s data collecting.
Crapo said the CFPB has allocated $20 million for the collection of information on the spending habits of millions of people, though CFPB officials say the information is not identifiable to individuals.
Crapo wants the GAO to determine the “purpose, scope and intended use,” of the data, the collection of which could pose a security risk, he added in the letter.
According to Crapo, the CFPB mining includes the personal credit card, banking, student loan and mortgage information of millions of Americans.
“The size and scope of this data collection warrant proper government oversight to both guard consumers’ privacy and ensure that the CFPB is acting within its existing authority,” Crapo wrote.
In May, agency head Richard Cordray sent a letter to Crapo explaining that the information being collected “allows us to better educate consumers, enables our coordination with other regulators, facilitates our efforts to craft tailored rules based on careful examination of costs and benefits, and allows us to provide meaningful reports to Congress.”
Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent
Geithner receives $400,000 for three speeches
Former Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has received about $400,000 for three speeches since leaving the Obama administration in January, according to CNBC.
According to the report, Geithner was paid about $200,000 for a speech at a Deutsche Bank conference in June, and about $100,000 each for speeches for private equity groups Blackstone and Warburg Pincus.
Charlie Sperling , Commentary Writer
Police sued for ‘quartering soldiers’ at private home during operation
Police officers in Nevada are being sued for violating the Third Amendment, which bans the government from “quartering soldiers” in a private home without the owner’s consent, after allegedly forcing a man to allow them to use his house when responding to a domestic violence call at his neighbor’s house.
Law enforcement in Henderson, Nev., broke down the door of a man’s house after he refused to let them occupy it, according to the suit. “Fearing for his life, plaintiff Anthony Mitchell dropped his phone and prostrated himself onto the floor of his living room, covering his face and hands,” according to the complaint, per Courthouse News. “Although plaintiff Anthony Mitchell was lying motionless on the ground and posed no threat, officers, including Officer David Cawthorn, then fired multiple ‘pepperball’ rounds at plaintiff as he lay defenseless on the floor of his living room. Anthony Mitchell was struck at least three times by shots fired from close range, injuring him and causing him severe pain.”
Mitchell was then arrested. “The most obvious obstacle to winning a Third Amendment claim here is that police arguably do not qualify as ‘soldiers,’ ” the Volokh Conspiracy’s Ilya Somin observes.
The Mitchells are seeking punitive damages for violations of the Third, Fourth and 14th amendments, assault and battery, conspiracy, defamation, abuse of process, malicious prosecution, negligence and emotional distress.
Joel Gehrke, Commentary Writer
Study: Catholic church sex-abuse scandal helps Democrats
Sex scandals rocked the U.S. Catholic Church in the early 2000s, as revelations of past abuses led to thousands of adherents to leave the church and the hierarchy to pay out $3.3 billion in damages to victims. They also may have boosted the Democratic Party’s fortunes, according to a new study.
In a report released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, economists Angela Dills and Rey Hernandez-Julian of Providence College and the Metropolitan State University of Denver, respectively, examined regions hit particularly hard by the scandals and found an uptick in votes for Democratic candidates and an increase in welfare spending, particularly Medicaid. Their findings suggest that the government stepped in to make up the difference after churches cut back social services when the pews and church coffers emptied out following the crisis.
Word of the abuse hit the mainstream in 2002, when details of priests’ abuse of minors and subsequent cover-ups in the Archdiocese of Boston led Cardinal Bernard Law to resign. In all, according to a 2004 inquiry by researchers at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 4,392 priests — about 4 percent of the U.S. total — were involved in abuse of minors between 1950 and 2002, with most cases in the late ’60s and ’70s.
Joseph Lawler, Economics Writer
White House nixes public showing of Obama’s librarian video
White House officials vetoed all public airing of a video of President Obama thanking the American Library Association Sunday for helping inform the public about Obamacare.
“We were specifically told by the White House to only show it [the video] once to conference attendees, and [the] White House said we aren’t able to send it out,” Jazzy Wright, press officer for the group’s Washington office, told the Washington Examiner.
The ALA, which is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) foundation, agreed during its annual meeting in Chicago to help the president get the word out about Obamacare.
Librarians across the country will be “navigators” handing out White House-approved information about the new government health insurance program.
In the video, the chief executive thanked conference attendees “for helping enroll for health insurance as part of the Affordable Care Act,” according to the ALA’s blog.
A White House spokesman declined to comment when asked why the ALA was instructed not to show the video after its single airing.
Charlie Spiering, Commentary Writer
Lawmaker moves to end TSA’s power to grope
Think TSA inspectors are a little too touchy at the airport? They have the power to pat you down and search your luggage when you board trains and boats, too, says Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., who wants to pass legislation that reins them in.
Garrett has introduced a bill that would end the Transportation Security Administration’s authority to randomly search non-airline transportation passengers.
He said the TSA can even search people traveling on the highways and that the “thousands of unannounced and random sweeps” don’t reduce the threat of terrorism according to the TSA’s own accounting.
Garrett’s bill comes on the heels of complaints by civil liberty groups against random searches by the TSA in subways and rail stations.
Garrett said the TSA should keep its focus on airline safety and let local law enforcement handle the rest of the transportation industry.
The TSA reported earlier this year that in 2012 there were 27 “enforcement actions” away from airports, most of them at rail lines.
Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent
