http://news.yahoo.com/…

First you paid to insure your car. Soon you may have to add health insurance premiums to that stack of monthly bills as well.

In a revamped health care system envisioned by senators, people would be required to carry health insurance just like motorists must get auto coverage now. The government would provide subsidies for the poor and many middle-class families, but those who still refuse to sign up would face fines of more than $1,000.

The details were unveiled Thursday in a health care overhaul bill supported by key Senate Democrats looking to fulfill President Barack Obama’s top domestic priority.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated the fines would raise around $36 billion over 10 years. Senate aides said the penalties would be modeled on the approach taken by Massachusetts, which now imposes a fine of about $1,000 a year on individuals who refuse to get coverage. Under the federal legislation, families would pay higher penalties than individuals.

Called “shared responsibility payments,” the fines would offset at least half the cost of basic medical coverage, according to the legislation. The goal is to nudge people to sign up for coverage when they are healthy, not wait until they get sick.

In 2008, employer-provided coverage averaged $12,680 a year for a family plan, and $4,704 for individual coverage, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual survey. Senate aides, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the cost of the federal plan would be lower but declined to provide specifics.

The legislation would exempt certain hardship cases from fines, which would be collected through the income tax system.

Tying it into the income tax is really really sneaky. It makes it very difficult to protest against. If the federal government wanted to fine me for not participating in the census they’d have to bring me to court. If this bill is passed the IRS handles the fine. It’s tied into your income taxes. If you don’t pay you don’t go to a normal court… but likely a tax court. You won’t be able to seperate the fine from the rest of their bill. It makes it easier for them to catch and easier to collect.

If they passed a bill requiring healthcare without this IRS enforcement of the fine I would seriously consider canceling my health insurance just to incure a fine and test the system. If it passes as currently is however only those who don’t pay income tax could really get out of this demand and if they ever got caught the fine would be the least of their problems.

Love how they talk about how much the fines will make them too. Scumbags.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/

http://www.lp.org/…

Libertarians are taking President Barack Obama to task for once again intentionally spreading false information about the source of guns used by Mexican drug cartels and blaming the United States for crime in Mexico.

“This war is being waged with guns purchased not here, but in the United States.  More than 90 percent of the guns recovered in Mexico come from the United States,” said Obama in a face-to-face meeting Thursday with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Mexico City.

That claim, however, is blatantly false.   According to information supplied by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) the real number is closer to only 17 percent.

Read More…

http://online.wsj.com/…

The White House is open to compromise on certain key elements of its climate-change agenda, including whether businesses could get some emissions allowances free, administration officials said Wednesday.

“[The president's] preferred approach was 100% auction to create incentives for companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions,” said White House spokesman Ben LaBolt. “Members of Congress are looking at a variety of policy options to help us make that transition, and the administration will be flexible during the policymaking process as long as those larger goals are met,” he said in an email.

Many lawmakers have warned that passing a climate bill will be difficult if the administration sticks to a position that all of the greenhouse-gas emissions allowances under a so-called cap and trade system would have to be purchased at auction. Recent Senate votes have indicated that proponents of an economywide cap and trade proposal don’t yet have the 60 votes needed in the Senate to overcome a filibuster.

Many of those same senators have written to Mr. Obama warning against trying to push a bill with 100% auction and outlining some of their concerns. Legislators are concerned that auctioning off so many credits would cost their industries too much and they want a larger portion of the revenues funneled into low-carbon energy technologies and energy-intensive sectors.

In the president’s fiscal year 2010 budget, the administration proposed cutting greenhouse-gas emissions 83% from 2005 levels by 2050, and auctioning off all of the credits that give the holder the right to emit gases such as carbon dioxide. Mr. Obama proposed distributing most of the revenues gathered in the auction as a tax credits to lower-income households, while siphoning off a fraction to fund clean-energy technologies.

If CO2 is truly a pollutant how is it legitimate that the government allows people to pollute? Giving them the permission to explicitly do so? Isn’t that exactly what lead to the polluted state we live in now? By going from upholding property rights to explicitly allowing others to infringe on them. It shows that they really don’t buy into the whole crisis thing. It’s just a way to gain more power and control and is heavily supported with the state socialist movements of the world. Cap and trade has shown to be at best ineffective if not an outright racket in which, as always, big business uses government as a means to keep out competition. Leading to corporatism, fascism, socialism.

http://rawstory.com/…

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) yet again went against the grain in Congress when he
stood up in the House and argued against a proposal that would tax 90
percent of AIG executive bonuses, saying that it was a “disgrace,” a
“distraction” and an “outrage” that undermined the Constitution.

Despite the protestations of Paul and a few others, the House voted
overwhelmingly to pass the bonus tax legislation Thursday afternoon.

Roll Call reports the vote was 328-93 to impose a 90 percent tax on
employee bonuses at companies that received federal bailout funds.

“While the vote was bipartisan, the GOP was split on the bill, with
Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) voting against it and Minority Whip
Eric Cantor (Va.) voting in favor of it,” reported Roll Call.

CNN notes that the measure, which now heads to the Senate for
consideration, would tax individuals on any bonuses received in 2009 from
companies getting $5 billion or more in money from the Troubled Asset
Relief Program. Those with incomes more than $250,000 would see their
bonuses taxed at the 90 percent rate.

“We can’t have any concept of we’re getting even, but we must have a
concept that we’re trying to show that Congress … cannot tolerate that,”
said Charlie Rangel (D-NY), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee
on Wednesday.

Said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “We must also protect the American
taxpayer from executives who would use their companies’ second chances as
opportunities for private gain. Because they could not use sound judgment
in the use of taxpayer funds, these AIG executives will pay the Treasury
in the form of this tax.”

It’s just sad. As Paul said it’s just a distraction. They are worrying about a minute amount of money which was unconstitutionally allocated and not earmarked. Then they go and pass this unconstitutional bill of attainer while they sit back and watch as the Federal Reserve System tosses billions of dollars around, debases the currency and further destroys the economy.

http://www.foxnews.com/…

The House of Representatives passed a measure Wednesday that supporters are calling the most sweeping reform of nationally-backed volunteer programs since AmeriCorps. But some opponents are strongly criticizing the legislation, calling it expensive indoctrination and forced advocacy.

The Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education Act, known as the GIVE Act — sponsored by Reps. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y, and George Miller, D-Calif. — was approved by a 321-105 vote and now goes to the Senate.

The legislation, slated to cost $6 billion over five years, would create 175,000 “new service opportunities” under AmeriCorps, bringing the number of participants in the national volunteer program to 250,000. It would also create additional “corps” to expand the reach of volunteerism into new sectors, including a Clean Energy Corps, Education Corps, Healthy Futures Corps and Veterans Service Corps, and it expands the National Civilian Community Corps to focus on additional areas like disaster relief and energy conservation.

It is the first time the AmeriCorps program, which was created by President Clinton in 1993, will be reauthorized, and supporters say it will have additional funding to match the renewed interest in national service since President Obama’s election and the acute need for volunteerism and charity in tough economic times.

“National and community service can help make Americans a part of the solution to get our country through this economic crisis. I hope the House and Senate will join us in moving as quickly as possible to help President Obama sign this critical bill into law,” Miller, chairman of the education committee, said after the bill was passed.

But the bill’s opponents — and there are only a few in Congress — say it could cram ideology down the throats of young “volunteers,” many of whom could be forced into service since the bill creates a “Congressional Commission on Civic Service.”

The bipartisan commission will be tasked with exploring a number of topics, including “whether a workable, fair and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the nation.”

“We contribute our time and money under no government coercion on a scale the rest of the world doesn’t emulate and probably can’t imagine,” said Luke Sheahan, contributing editor for the Family Security Foundation. “The idea that government should order its people to perform acts of charity is contrary to the idea of charity and it removes the responsibility for charity from the people to the government, destroying private initiative.”

House committee staff insist the GIVE Act will not change the voluntary nature of service.

Not change the voluntary nature? Note they ignore where the money comes from. Seems reasonable to me that if they claim ownership of 50% of my labor passively through taxation there is no philosophical jump required to claim 100% of my labor or force me to ’serve.’

Looks like this is the first real step to national state slavery. They’ve already got plenty of mandatory service plans ready to impliment. This is really little more than a formality.