Fox News Channel employee, Steve Doocy of “Fox and Friends” is on the liberal hot seat when he “misquoted” Obama during an interview he (Doocy) conducted with Mitt Romney. Obama, continuing with his class warfare rhetoric spewing forth on his tax payer funded campaign tour to battleground states, said: ”Somebody gave me an education. I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth. Michelle wasn't. But somebody gave us a chance." During his interview with Romney, Doocy asked Romney to respond to Obama's comment, quoting the president as saying, "Unlike some people, I wasn't born with a silver spoon in my mouth." If you are a reasonable person, I’ll bet you had to re-read both the Obama original quote and what Doocy mis-quoted Obama as saying. Are you kidding me that there is a flap over this? There goes that Liberal-Leftist double standard again. And then there is this butt wipe from the Washington Post, named Erik Wemple, who lambasted both Doocy and Fox News for the misquote, saying: ”Doocy might consider not only clarifying the real quote but also retracting the smirk that accompanies his false question." Whiny Wemple then wrote: "(The smirk) It's the sort of signal, so often seen on Fox, that lets Republicans interviewees know they're welcome here." Maybe Obama was not born with a silver spoon in his mouth but someone did give him an education,......those "someones" are Bill Ayers, Pastor Wright and a host of other anti-American, anti-capitalists, socialists bone heads.

Obama's Devious Medicare Plan

This was sent out on the conservative and patriot communications net, titled An $8 billion trick? by Benjamin E. Sasse and Charles Hurt. Call it President Obama’s Committee for the Re-Election of the President — a political slush fund at the Health and Human Services Department. Only this isn’t some little fund from shadowy private sources; this is taxpayer money, redirected to help Obama win another term. A massive amount of it, too — $8.3 billion. Yes, that’s billion, with a B. Here is how it works: The most oppressive aspects of the ObamaCare law don’t kick in until after the 2012 election, when the president will no longer be answerable to voters. More “flexibility,” he recently explained to the Russians. But certain voters would surely notice one highly painful part of the law before then — namely, the way it guts the popular Medicare Advantage program. For years, 12 million seniors have relied on these policies, a more market-oriented alternative to traditional Medicare, without the aggravating gaps in coverage. But as part of its hundreds of billions in Medicare cuts, the Obama one-size-fits-all plan slashes reimbursement rates for Medicare Advantage starting next year — herding many seniors back into the government-run program. Under federal “open-enrollment” guidelines, seniors must pick their Medicare coverage program for next year by the end of this year — which means they should be finding out before Election Day. Nothing is more politically volatile than monkeying with the health insurance of seniors, who aren’t too keen on confusing upheavals in their health care and are the most diligent voters in the land. This could make the Tea Party look like a tea party. Making matters even more politically dangerous for Obama is that open enrollment begins Oct. 15, less than three weeks before voters go to the polls. It’s hard to imagine a bigger electoral disaster for a president than seniors in crucial states like Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio discovering that he’s taken away their beloved Medicare Advantage just weeks before an election. This political ticking time bomb could become the biggest “October Surprise” in US political history. But the administration’s devised a way to postpone the pain one more year, getting Obama past his last election; it plans to spend $8 billion to temporarily restore Medicare Advantage funds so that seniors in key markets don’t lose their trusted insurance program in the middle of Obama’s re-election bid. The money is to come from funds that Health and Human Services is allowed to use for “demonstration projects.” But to make it legal, HHS has to pretend that it’s doing an “experiment” to study the effect of this money on the insurance market. That is, to “study” what happens when the government doesn’t change anything but merely continues a program that’s been going on for years. Obama can temporarily prop up Medicare Advantage long enough to get re-elected by exploiting an obscure bit of federal law. Under a 1967 statute, the HHS secretary can spend money without specific approval by Congress on “experiments” directly aimed at “increasing the efficiency and economy of health services.” Past demonstration projects have studied new medical techniques or strategies aimed at improving care or reducing costs. The point is to find ways to lower the costs of Medicare by allowing medical technocrats to make efficient decisions without interference from vested interests. Now Obama means to turn it on its head — diverting the money to a blatantly nonexperimental purpose to serve his political needs. A Government Accounting Office report released this morning shows, quite starkly, that there simply is no experiment being conducted, just money being spent. Understandably, the GAO recommends that HHS cancel the project. Congress should immediately launch an investigation into this unprecedented misuse of taxpayer money and violation of the public trust, which certainly presses the boundaries of legality and very well may breach them. If he’s not stopped, Obama will spend $8 billion in taxpayer funds for a scheme to mask the debilitating effects on seniors of his signature piece of legislation just long enough to get himself re-elected. Now that is some serious audacity. Benjamin E. Sasse, a former US assistant secretary of health, is president of Midland University. Charles Hurt covers politics in DC.

Large Cities in Trouble

The Entitlest Movement, Occupy Wall Street or Main Street, or whatever you want to call this movement or methodology is not just limited to the Federal Government or national unions. Several cities are also facing bankruptcy having much more obligations than they have the ability to pay for, especially for union negotiated retirements.

Other cities are faced with raising already high property tax rates in order to develop revenue to pay for big city deficit spending. Raising taxes will drive taxpapers away, further reducing revenue, especially in California , as the trends have shown for the past several years that business after business is leaving the highly taxed-highly regulated-big time anti-business California.

Seattle

Team tells City Council that Seattle can't afford pension plan. Seattle's generous employee-pension system, underfunded by $1 billion over the next 30 years, will require larger infusions from the city treasury or reduced benefits for newly hired workers, a study team told the City Council on Monday.

The $1.8 billion pension fund hasn't fully recovered from its $616 million loss during the 2008 financial crisis and is facing additional strain from the longer life spans of retirees.

The city has stepped up its contributions to the plan, as directed by actuaries, diverting millions of dollars from city utilities and the general fund, the Retirement Interdepartmental Team reported. This year's diversions into the pension fund are $5.5 million higher than last year, and 2014 diversions are expected to be $20.6 million higher than in 2011.

Los Angeles

Potential $50M Property Tax Shortfall Could Lead to L.A. Cuts. Los Angeles County could receive almost $50 million less than expected in property taxes next year, according to the latest estimates, which could lead to cuts in law enforcement, education and other services.

Last year, Assessor John Noguez estimated that the county property tax base would grow by almost $18.7 billion for the next fiscal year. But he revised that figure to $5.1 billion last week.

Property in Los Angeles County was valued at $1.1 trillion last year. Taxes paid on that real estate is the county's largest source of locally generated revenue and helps fund a variety of services and agencies, including the Sheriff's Department, county education office and Fire Department.

Los Angeles County supervisors are scheduled to begin considering their budget next week. The county has an annual budget of about $23 billion.

Supervisors questioned how Noguez's figures could change so drastically.
"I just know that everyone has never seen that kind of a swing in a three-month period," said Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. "Something went wrong. Either [the assessor] was either dead wrong in December, or they're dead wrong in March."

The biggest drop occurred in properties that declined in value. In December, Noguez estimated that the tax base would drop by about $2.6 billion because of falling home prices. That number changed to about $13.5 billion in his latest report.

If L.A. wants to come out of this deficit, then I suggest they tax the rich Hollywood types,...after all, doesn't the rich need to pay their fair share?.....Oh, wait a minute, that only pertains to job creating, conservatie rich people."