An army of Internal Revenue Service agents have been hired to enforce the new taxes contained in ObamaCare.  Snookie and her Jersey Shore pals should watch out, because the IRS has hired 81 agents to crack down on any tanning salons that don’t pay the new Obamacare 10% excise tax on tanning.  Let’s say a serious tanner buys a package for $100 per month.  Get ready to hand over $1o per month to Uncle Sam.

According to Paul Bedard at US News, the IRS has to hire an army of federal bureaucrats to take more of your money pursuant to the mandates in ObamaCare and we are not merely talking about the tanning tax enforcement squadron.

The Internal Revenue Service says it will need an battalion of 1,054 new auditors and staffers and new facilities at a cost to taxpayersof more than $359 million in fiscal 2012 just to watch over the initial implementation of President Obama’s healthcare reforms. Among the new corps will be 81 workers assigned to make sure tanning salons pay a new 10 percent excise tax. Their cost: $11.5 million.

That is correct.  81 new bureaucrats to travel the nation to see if tanning salons are paying the 10% tax.  They need to make sure that underground tanning salons don’t pop up next to Meth Labs and illegal casinos.  Who knows what will happen if somebody sets up a tanning bed in their basement to make some money without paying the new ObamaTax.  Maybe some jail time for that ObamaCare criminal.

Paul Bedard writes that, in addition to the crack down on tanning salons, the Obama Administration will have new government IRS Agents to make sure that business cough up $2.8 billion in taxes in the next two years on imported and domestic drug manufacturing.

The detailed IRS budget documents spell out exactly what most of the new workforce will be doing. For example, some 81 will be tasked just to handle the tax reporting of 25,000 tanning salons. They face a new 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services. Another 76 will be assigned to make sure businesses engaged in making and imported drugs pay their new fee which is expected to deliver $2.8 billion to the Treasury in 2012 and 2013. The new healthcare corps will also require new facilities and computers.

Of course this new tax will pay for silly programs like the new Qualified Therapudic Discovery Project Program.

This program was designed to provide tax credits and grants to small firms that show significant potential to produce new and cost-saving therapies, support U.S. jobs and increase U.S. competitiveness. Applicants were required to have their research projects certified as eligible for the credit or grant. IRS guidance describes the application process.

The IRS defines a qualified program as a project that is designed to:

1. To treat or prevent diseases or conditions by conducting pre-clinical activities, clinical trials, and clinical studies, or carrying out research protocols, for the purpose of securing approval of a product under section 505(b) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act or section 351(a) of the Public Health Service Act,
2. To diagnose diseases or conditions or to determine molecular factors related to diseases or conditions by developing molecular diagnostics to guide therapeutic decisions, or
3. To develop a product, process, or technology to further the delivery or administration of therapeutics.

This is a great case study on how ObamaCare is growing government.  On one hand they are using ObamaCare to expand the IRS and on the other hand they are using ObamaCare to hand out tax credits for a “Therapeutic Discovery Project.”  More taxes and more government money to promote activities that should be promoted by a profit motive.  Snookie, Pauly D., JWOWW, The Situation, Ronnie, Vinny and Sammi should invest in a tanning bed for the beach house.

One can make a credible case that ObamaCare is a job killer for the tanning service industry and a stimulus program for government paid tax collectors at the IRS.  Yet another reason to repeal this unconstitutional law.

The Hill reports that Senator Vitter wants to use this legislation to slam the door on state and local bailouts by the federal government.

With the State Bailout Prevention Act, Vitter is looking to make legally binding an earlier commitment from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke that the central bank would not make loans to states and municipalities struggling with budget gaps and large debt burdens. Testifying before the Senate Budget Committee on Jan. 7, Bernanke said states “should not expect loans from the Fed.”

Vitter is memorializing the Bernanke promise into law.  Because of Bernanke’s promise, one should expect the Federal Reserve to wholeheartedly support this effort by Senators Vitter, DeMint and Crapo.  This law would make it the iron clad promise of the federal government not to use taxpayer money or taxpayer backed loans to prop up, bail out and otherwise enable state and local governments in deep financial distress because of irresponsible budgetary decisions.

The legislation is a comprehensive effort to shut the door on all of the federal government’s financial tools available today to bailout states and localities.  This legislation follows on the heels of the termination of President Obama’s “Build America Bonds” (BABs) created in the President’s so called “Stimulus” plan.  The BABs were tax free federal bonds that served to provide a rolling blue state bailout for states that have spent more than they take in.  The BABs expired at the end of 2010 and conservatives blocked all efforts to renew these bonds.

The Vitter bill will stop states on the verge of bankruptcy, like California or Illinois, to secretly borrow hundreds of billions from the Federal Reserve to push to the future tough budgetary cuts.  The Vitter bill is just what the Tea Party doctor ordered for America and this hopefully is evidence of a trend on Capitol Hill for politicians to just say no to more and more government spending.

The Hill further reports that earlier this year both Republican and Democrat leaders have closed the door on legislative bailouts.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said state and local governments already have all the tools they need to shore up their budgets. House minority whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) has agreed that the federal government will not step in to rescue state budgets.

The Vitter legislation makes good on that promise.  Vitter said in a press release that taxpayers were exposed to billions in risk when the Fed bailed out failing banks and they should not have the power to do the same for irresponsible state and local governments.

The Federal Reserve has already put taxpayers at serious risk in recent years by unilaterally propping up failing banks and other financial entities, and by no means should the federal government be in the business of bailing out state and local governments that are in the red.

The legislation uses three methods of preventing bailouts.  Section (a) of the Vitter legislation prevents federal funds from being used to bail out any state that is at risk of default.  This is an effort to prevent the whole federal government from bailing out a State, municipality, locality, county.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, no Federal funds may be used to purchase or guarantee obligations of, issue lines of credit to, or provide direct of indirect grants-and-aid to, any State government, municipal government, local government, or county government which, or or after January 26, 2011, has defaulted on its obligations, is at risk of defaulting, or is likely to default, absent such assistance from the United States Government.

The next section is more specific to prevent Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner from using Treasury authority to bail out states or localities.  Section (b) of the bill prohibits the Department of Treasury from directly or indirectly bailing out those at risk of default.

The Secretary of the Treasury shall not, directly or indirectly, use general fund revenues or funds borrowed pursuant to title 31, United States Code, to purchase or guarantee any asset or obligation of any State government, municipal government, local government, or county government, or otherwise assist such government entity, if, on or after January 26, 2011, that State government, municipal government, local government, or county government has defaulted no its obligations, is at risk of defaulting, or is likely to default, absent such assistance from the United States Government.

The last section targets the Fed and makes good on Chairman of the Fed Ben Bernanke’s promise.  Section (c) of the legislation prohibits the Federal Reserve from repeating the mistakes of the past.

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System shall not provide or extend to, or authorize with respect to, any State government, municipal government, local government, or county government, or other entity that has taxing authority or bonding authority, any funds, loan guarantees, credits, or any other financial instrument or other authority, including the purchasing of the bonds of such State, municipality, locality, county, or other bonding authority, or to otherwise assist such government entity under any authority of the Board of Governors.

Vitter concluded that “it’s encouraging that the chairman believes that the Fed shouldn’t get involved in bailing out states, but my legislation solidifies that into law.”  This bill is a comprehensive means to shut the door on State and local bailouts.  It will be interesting to see how quickly Congress acts on this proposal and if the Fed flip-flops on the Bernanke promise.

Liberals in the Senate are ready for high noon today as the moment for them to start a procedural fight to chip away at the filibuster.  They hope this ploy will result in a successful power grab.  Liberal Senators and allies on the left have been preparing for months for this moment so they can strong arm through the Senate a change in the rules that will grant them complete control over the Senate’s agenda.

Expect liberals in the Senate to offer a resolution to lower the threshold to shut off debate.  They plan on arguing that the Senate is not a continuing body, notwithstanding the fact that the Senate’s rules state otherwise.  They are intent on forcing through this change to the rules with only a simple majority of Senators.  This ploy is a violation of the constitutionally authorized rules of the Senate and may be an unconstitutional power grab.

I wrote almost a year ago on Big Government that the filibuster is the friend of conservatives.

If you hate big government, you should love the Senate filibuster.  The filibuster serves the good government purposes of slowing legislation. This allows citizens to understand and participate in the legislative process, provides scrutiny for complicated legislation and slows the process to confirm nominees.  The left absolutely hates the filibuster, because the filibuster prevents liberal Democrats from steamrolling moderate Democrats and Republicans when trying to pass legislation or confirming extremist judges with minimal debate.  A veteran Senate staffer tells Big Government that “the filibuster is a tool to slow down and make people really consider things. For those that believe in freedom and limited government the less the Congress does the better.”  Of course the left’s goal is to exterminate the filibuster from the Senate rules by setting the table for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to argue that a filibuster is unconstitutional, then for Vice President Biden to order that the rule be ignored.

Liberals are going to use a procedural tactic called the “Nuclear Option,” also known as the “Constitutional Option.”  This option is merely a theory that Senators can change the rules of the Senate at the beginning of a new Congress.  They claim that the Senate functions under anarchy until the Senate operates under the old rules.  This theory allows  for a simple majority of Senators to expunge the filibuster rule from the Senate’s rule book — even though the explicit rules of the Senate mandate that they need 67 votes to shut off debate on any rules change.  This power grab by the left may be unconstitutional, because it tosses aside constitutionally authorized Senate rules.  A strong case can be made that the actions of liberals in the Senate is an unconstitutional power grab.

The Constitution empowers the House and Senate to establish rules of procedure.  Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution states that “each house may determine the rule of its proceedings.”  This provision in the Constitution empowers the Senate to make rules governing debate.

The Senate in 1917 established the cloture rule requiring a 2/3rds vote of all Senators present and voting to shut down debate after years of not having a means to shut down debate.  Senate Rule 22 today states “invoking cloture on a proposal to amend the Senate’s standing rules requires the support of two-thirds of the Senators present and voting.”  The clear letter of the Senate’s rules mandate a supermajority vote to stop debate on a change to the Senate’s rules.

The Senate’s rules further state that the Senate is a continuing body.  According to Marty Gold and Dimple Gupta’s Harvard Law Review article titled “The Constitutional Option to Change Senate Rules and Procedures:  Majoritarianism Means to Over Come the Filibuster,” Senate Majority Leader Lydon B. Johnson’s (D-TX) proposed a compromise in 1959 to make it easier to shut down debate and affirm that the Senate is a continuing body.  Senator LBJ’s proposed compromise was the following:

Rule XXII would be amended to reduce the required vote for cloture to “two-thirds of the Senators present and voting,” and, in order to assuage the worries of Senators who opposed the constitutional option, a new clause would be added to the Senate Standing Rules holding, “The rules of the Senate shall continue from one Congress to the next Congress unless they are changed as provided in these rules.”

The Senate is set up as a continuing body.  Our Founders set up the Senate with staggered 6 year terms and only 1/3rd of the Senate is up for election every two years.  Our Founders set up the Senate to be a far different body than the House of Representatives.  The length of terms and mandate that every state, regardless of size, gets two votes is evidence that our Founders wanted a Senate to be far different from the House.

The facts are that the constitution authorizes the Senate’s rules.  The Senate’s rules confirm that the Senate is a continuing body and that it takes a 2/3rds vote to shut off debate on a rules change.

The so called “Constitutional Option” is arguably unconstitutional.

This is not the time to raise taxes on job creators, yet the Senate will vote on the Obama tax plan today that imposes tax increases on families making over $250,000/yr and individuals making over $200,000/yr.  If the Obama plan is signed into law, get ready for 10% unemployment numbers again.

The Heritage Foundation has put together a comprehensive analysis concluding that tax increases on “the rich,” will keep unemployment numbers high and punish the poor.

This analysis shows that the economic harm of raising taxes on investment, small businesses, and upper-income filers affects households of all types. An economy with fewer employment opportunities results in lower wages and lost consumption and savings. Households across the income spectrum are left with lower disposable income. The attempt to raise additional revenues by raising taxes on the productive sectors of the economy, particularly dur­ing a period of recovery, harms the very citizens the revenue would be used to aid with social welfare programs.

On Thursday, the House passed what House Speaker-designate John Boehner (R-OH) called a “chicken crap” proposal to raise taxes with no opportunity for amendments. The House package, the Obama tax increase plan, has almost no chance of passing the Senate today.  The House vote was 234-188 and was a vote to increase taxes on job creators.

Politco reported that even liberals predict this Obama idea of tax increases on job creators DOA on arrival today in the Senate.

Speaker Pelosi (D-CA) used an unamendable motion to recommit to prevent Republicans from offering any amendments to extend tax cuts for all Americans.  The vote was a political ploy to raise taxes permanently on families making over $250,000 and individuals making over $200,000.  Immediately after the vote, negotiations continued between the White House and a bipartisan negotiating team from Capitol Hill to cut a deal for a two or three year extension of all tax cuts.

Today, the Senate will commence a purely political debate on the Obama tax increase proposal.  This is a structured debate and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has blocked all amendments but two favored by Democrat leadership.   The bill is doomed to failure, yet the liberals want to continue with class warfare against “the rich.”  These leftists believe that the federal government is more efficient in spending money than small businesses and capitalists.

The web site for Democrats in the Senate posted this description of the first vote today:

Senator Reid then moved to concur in the House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to H.R.4853, with a Baucus amendment #4727. The Baucus amendment #4727 includes the $250,000 tax cut extension plus several additional items such as UI extension, AMT relief, estate tax, 1099 repeal, making work pay credit, and others. Senator Reid then filed cloture on the motion to concur with the Baucus amendment #4727.

The amendment by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) adds the following ideas to the Obama Tax increase proposal:  an extension of unemployment benefits; a patch for the Alternative Minimum Tax; an estate tax compromise; a repeal of the 1099 provision in ObamaCare that imposes burdensome paperwork requirements on small business; and, an extension of the “Making Work Pay” silly tax credit that President Obama included in the so called Stimulus package.  Did any of these liberal politicians notice that the unemployment rate went up to 9.8% this month and that the stimulus has proven to be a failure?

There will be a second vote vote today on an amendment by Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

Senator Reid then offered the Schumer amendment #4728 to Baucus #4727. The Schumer amendment #4728 includes the tax cut extension for those making up to $1 million, plus several additional items such as UI extension, AMT relief, estate tax, 1099 repeal, making work pay credit, and others. Senator Reid then filed cloture on the Schumer amendment #4728.

Senator Schumer’s idea is to apply tax relief to those making under $1 million and imposes tax hikes on small business and job creators who don’t qualify under the Schumer approach.  Senate Majority Leader Reid again abused his authority as Majority Leader to block all Republican Amendments using a parliamentary tactic on Thursday when he filed cloture to set up this series of Saturday votes.  This act by the Leader dooms this debate to be a few cloture votes on Democrat ideas that will fail.

The left will cry that Republicans are filibustering these proposals, yet these Republicans have to vote to filibuster in order to assert their right to offer amendments.  If allowed, Republicans would offer an extension of all the tax cuts, yet they have been precluded by Reid’s obstructionist tactic of blocking all amendments to the bill.  These proposals will not garner the required 60 votes to shut off debate and we can expect more calls from the left to abolish the filibuster as a result.

Liberals have continued the war on these people they demonise as “the rich.”  Everyone else knows these evil people as job creators.  Have you ever met a poor individual who wrote a paycheck to an employee?  The money liberals want to seize for President Obama, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid to spend is money that should be allowed to be reinvested in small businesses across America by the private sector.

Conservatives believe in keeping the current tax rates for all taxpayers at a reasonable rate with no exceptions.  Haven’t we done enough over the last two years to punish success in America?  Our federal government needs to stand down on the war against job creators now.

Conservatives want to stop all tax increases on income taxes, dividends, cap gains and estate tax.  This fight is about jobs, jobs, jobs.  Raising taxes on small businesses, job creators and investors is a huge job killer and a terrible idea.  Tax cuts for all now.

Last week, President Obama tried to buy the vote of linchpin Republican Sen. Jon Kyl by promising billions in “nuclear modernization” funds—a top priority for the defense-minded conservative.  At the NATO conference, he conjured up a rump meeting with Dmitry Medvedev, allowing the Russian president to warn of “very unpleasant” consequences should the treaty fail.  The President then dispatched Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to the TV talk show circuit to make the dubious assertion that Ronald Reagan would’ve loved this treaty.

Signed by President Obama earlier this year, the New START treaty purports to limit strategic warheads held by the U.S. and Russia while establishing a new, bilateral inspection system.  The President calls the treaty “a national security imperative,” but skeptical Senators want more time to study the deal.  They’ve also demanded to see the negotiating record to see if negotiators entered a side agreement to halt the U.S. missile defense program—a claim made by members of the Russian Duma.

The Administration has stone-walled the document request for months.  Yet now it insists lawmakers must vote on the treaty—without this critical information—in a matter of days.

Why the rush?

It’s a matter of simple, political arithmetic.  The treaty needs 67 Senate votes to pass.  Assuming all Democrats vote in favor, the Administration needs to win—by hook or by crook—only nine GOP votes in the Lame Duck session.  Senator Mark Kirk’s (R-IL) swearing in has changed the makeup of the Senate in Lame Duck and the Democrat Caucus now only contains a coalition of 58 Senators.  If the vote rolls over to the new, more conservative Senate that will be seated next year, the Administration will need to pick up 14 Republican votes—a much more difficult task.

For this Administration, a ticking clock calls for desperate measures… and an exercise in “the Chicago way” of winning support.  According to Time magazine, the president sent  Gen. Kevin Chilton, four-star commander of America’s nuclear forces, and Jim Miller, a top civilian staffer, to offer Sen. Kyl (R-AZ) a quid pro quo: “In exchange for his vote backing the treaty, Chilton and Miller said, Obama would fund a $4.1 billion increase for nuclear modernization from 2012-16.” But, they stressed, it was a limited-time offer, good only until the end of Lame Duck.

If the treaty is really as good as the president says it is, he wouldn’t need to stoop to alarmist rhetoric, threats from foreigners and vote-buying.  All he’d need to do is let senators review the negotiating record and debate the treaty and side-agreements on their merits.

But the President refuses to engage critics of the treaty.  Former Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and Paula DeSutter, former arms control expert in the George W. Bush Administration, wrote in the Washington Times that the Senate should deal with the unresolved questions “from compromising our national missile defense capabilities to undercutting the modernization of U.S. nuclear forces to unnecessarily limiting our use of missile and bomber launch capabilities for conventional warheads, the treaty is increasingly understood as badly flawed.”  It’s substantive issues like these that need to be resolved, not how big a presidential earmark it will take to buy off individual senators.

The promise of nuclear modernization money has nothing to do with missile defense or the structural problems of the treaty itself.  This ethical morass reminds many of the Cornhusker Kickback that carried the day in Senate debate on health reform.    The Cornhusker Kickback was a provision added to the bill to give Nebraska additional health care subsidies to help offset higher costs created by the reform.  That “pot-sweetener” brought Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) aboard.  He dropped his opposition to ObamaCare and cast the deciding vote that made ObamaCare the law of the land.  The President and his allies on the Hill are now playing the same dirty game with our national security.

There are substantive issues that need to be resolved by the Senate before ratification.  Promising nuclear modernization money will not solve problems within the Treaty. James Carafano, a coworker of mine at The Heritage Foundation who has written the “Top 10 Reasons Why New START is a Non-Starter.”  Carafano cites nuclear modernization, missile defense, the likelihood ”that New START will fail to protect the U.S. and its allies from attack, to provide verification of existing programs, and to prevent nuclear proliferation.”  These are merely a few of the arguments that deserve a full and fair airing in the Senate by elected members in the next Congress.

The New START Working Group argues that the verification measures in the Treaty are flawed.

The expiration of START’s verification regime does not represent a national security crisis, and New START’s verification regime will not do a great deal to foster greater Russian transparency regarding its strategic nuclear forces.

The left is losing the argument on national security grounds and they have desperately deployed the argument that military support for the Treaty should be dispositive 0n the issue.  Media Matters, the George Soros funded attack dogs of the left, assailed the opponents of the New START Treaty in a post titled “Right-wing media at odds with military leaders over START (sic).”

The right-wing media have been attacking President Obama’s New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), claiming it “may harm national security.” But the treaty enjoys widespread support among military leaders, who have called its passage a “no-brainer,” and have argued that “the treaty makes us safer.”

Media Matter cited my Big Government blog post as an example of an argument at odds with the military position on New START:

Big Government: “New START Treaty May Harm National Security.” In a July 24 Big Government post, contributor Brian Darling called New START “an idea that may harm American national security,” and claimed “[a]ny agreement to dismantle missile defense would [be] a mistake.” Darling quoted Sen. Jim DeMint(R-SC), writing on his blog, as saying, “[T]he U.S. should not sign a treaty that weakens our ability to protect Americans and our allies from nuclear weapons. While our missile defense systems are currently engineered to deter threats from rogue nations like Iran and Syria, our goal should be to continue to improve and expand those defenses to protect our people from any nuclear threats.” Darling concluded that DeMint is “right on the money.”

Media Matters argues that Defense Secretary Gates and other military leaders support for the Treaty should trump rational arguments against the substance of the Treaty and reported side agreements on missile defense.

Gates: ‘The treaty has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership.’ In a May 13 Wall Street Journal op-ed, Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted that New START ‘has the unanimous support of America’s military leadership.’”

It seems logical that President Obama’s appointed Secretary of Defense would support a Treaty signed by Gates’ appointing authority.  The military’s support of a Treaty signed by the Commander-in-Chief seems like the logical outcome of the will of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces being implemented down the chain of command.  Would anybody expect the military to oppose a position taken by the President?  I think not.

Keith B. Payne and Tom Scheber wrote an excellent piece in National Review Online titled “The Threat of New START” showing some inconsistency in Secretary Gates’ argument:

During a September 2010 interview, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was asked whether Russia is a national-security threat, and whether he is concerned about Russia’s buildup of new, “more powerful ICBMs.” Secretary Gates’s response: “No. . . . I don’t see Russia as a threat. I see Russia –Russian-U.S. relations being those of normal states now.” Roughly a week later, Secretary Gates said again publicly, “It’s hard for me to imagine that those who are currently in NATO feel a real military threat coming from Russia.”  What about the potential threat of Russian cheating? A major 2010 State Department study reportedly concludes happily that “any” Russian cheating “would have little effect on the assured second-strike capabilities of U.S. strategic forces.”  Little wonder that the administration finds New START’s strikingly weak limits and verification measures acceptable. If Russia is no military threat and prospective Russian cheating would have little effect, then those verification measures serve only ornamental purposes. This line of thinking also fits well with the administration’s apparent lack of clear support for the modernization of U.S. nuclear forces in general. No firm limits on Russia, no strong verification measures, no problem.

A New START vote should be pushed into next year where a new Senate can take a fresh look at this flawed treaty.  For that to happen, though, the current Senate will have to refrain from playing “The Price Is Right” with treaty proponents throughout the Lame Duck session.

Delaware Republican candidate for Senate Christine O’Donnell was stopped from citing “waste, fraud and abuse” as a means to lower the estimated $13.6 trillion national debt during a debate aired on CNN.  According to a Daily News transcript published on October 14, 2010:

Arguably the toughest moment for O’Donnell came when she was asked to outline what programs she would cut to slash government spending and reduce the national deficit, two major themes of the Tea Party platform.  Before she responded, Blitzer told her she could not simply say cut waste, fraud and abuse because “everybody says that.”

This report shows that the elimination of waste, fraud and abuse is an important element of a comprehensive program to reduce the federal debt.  According to the Coburn Report, dead people received checks from the federal government in the form of Stimulus, aid to cool and heat homes, housing, prescription drugs, and medical supplies.  Dead people are receiving checks from Uncle Sam and you are paying for it.

Coburn writes that:

Over the last decade, Washington sent over $1 billion of your tax dollars to dead people.  Washington paid for dead people’s prescriptions and wheelchairs, subsidized their farms, helped pay their rent, and even chipped in for their heating and air conditioning bills.  In some cases, these payments quietly gather in a dormant bank account.  In many cases, however, they land in the pockets of still-living people, who are defrauding the system by collecting benefits meant for a now-deceased relative.

This is a one billion dollar problem and it shows the rampant incompetence of individuals running the federal government.  This report exposes two problems.  The first is that our government has not implemented an effective means to control the issuing of checks to deceased individuals.  We are not talking about a few thousand dollars of waste; we are talking big dollars.  The second problem is that people are defrauding a system that is easy to game.  When a politicians or talking heads argue that the problem of waste, fraud and abuse is a drop in the bucket with regard to the massive federal debt, the proper response is to cite the Coburn Report as evidence of rampant government incompetence and fraud.

Coburn wrote in this report that:

Since 2000, the known cost of these payments to over 250,000 deceased individuals has topped $1 billion, according to a review of government audits and reports by the Government Accountability Office, inspectors general, and Congress itself.  This is likely only a small picture of a much larger problem.

Thank you Senator Coburn for pointing out this fraud.  Now let’s see if President Obama puts out a statement of intent to tackle this problem.  Maybe he will form yet another commission to study the problem.  If nothing is done on this issue, then we the people will lose and pay higher taxes to enable bureaucrats to continue business as usual in Washington, D.C.  If nothing is done, then this Administration is guilty of executive branch financial malfeasance.

As Coburn documents specific instances of waste, fraud, and abuse.

• The Social Security Administration sent $18 million in Stimulus funds to dead people;
• The Department of Health and Human Services doled out checks of $3.9 million in assistance to pay heating and cooling costs out of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) to dead people. See GAO Report of June 2010;
• The Department of Agriculture cranked out checks for $1.1 billion to deceased farmers. See GAO Report of July 24, 2007;
• The Farm Services Agency (FSA) provided 171,801 deceased farmers subsidies;
• The Department of Housing and Urban Development cut checks for $15.2 million in housing subsidies to the dead.  See HUD IG’s Report of November 10, 2009;
• Medicaid payments of over $700,000 in prescriptions for 1,800 dead patients and prescriptions for drugs written by 1,200 deceased doctors;
• Medicare payments of $92 million in medical supplies prescribed by dead doctors and $8.2 million for medical supplies prescribed for non-living patients; and,
• Congress has also mismanaged the HIV/AIDs funding distribution method that slows care to those in the most need.

Candidates who get critiqued for citing “waste, fraud, and abuse” as one means to cut the deficit have an ally in Senator Coburn.  The Senator’s efforts expose the fact that our federal government is an inefficient allocator of resources.  This is yet another indictment of the so called Stimulus Plan and other government centered efforts to redistribute wealth from taxpayers, through government bureaucrats, to dead people.

As a Senator running for President, Barack Obama sounded like a politician who would not use Chicago machine-style politics to demonize opponents and crush dissent.  On December 15, 2007 in Waterloo, Iowa, Senator Obama said the following (as quoted by MSNBC) in response to charges of past drug use and lack of experience coming from Senator Hillary Clinton’s campaign:

There’s a history of politics being all about slash and burn and taking folks down and what I recall the Clintons themselves calling the politics of personal destruction, which they decried. And my suspicion is that that’s just not where the country is at. They are not interested in politics as a blood sport.

Evidently, Senator Obama did not like being the recipient of criticism, yet was perfectly comfortable using it himself to trash opponents later in his campaign and as President. 

On August 23, 2008, Senator Barack Obama gave a speech with Senator Joe Biden in Springfield, Illinois.  It was the first time the two spoke together during the campaign and Obama made some bold promises–promises  that have been broken. As quoted by the Washington Post, Senator Obama said (hat tip to PolitiFacts):

So Joe Biden won’t just make a good vice president. He will make a great vice president. After decades — after decades of steady work across the aisle, I know he’ll be able to help me turn the page on the ugly partisanship in Washington so we can bring Democrats and Republicans together to pass an agenda that works for the American people.

As to the issue of if President Obama can bring together Republicans and Democrats, Politifacts rates this promise as “stalled”:

On the economic stimulus bill that passed in February 2009, only three Republicans in the Senate supported the measure, and in the House, no Republicans supported it.  On the initial votes for a health care overhaul, he got one Republican in the House but no Republicans in the Senate.

Both these pledges to the American people have been breached.  This President made promises that he either could not keep or never intended on keeping.  Either way, the American people should take a second hard look at the President, because many of his former supporters are rejecting the President’s shift from unifier to Divider-in-Chief.

The tone of the President over the past two years indicates that this President, unlike President Bill Clinton, may not want to triangulate in order to work with Republicans.  He may dig in and campaign against Congress for the next two years in an effort to win back the House and Senate.  The President may also continue a disturbing trend of attacking American organizations and individuals who dare to oppose his destructive agenda.  Expect gridlock in the next Congress if, as predicted, the Republicans win the House and increase numbers in the Senate.  Also, expect more divisive rhetoric.

Mark Hyman wrote an excellent piece in The American Spectator titled “Obama’s Enemies List” on February 18, 2009 where Hyman previewed the current controversy over the Obama’s enemies list:

What America witnessed before the election and mere hours after Obama was sworn into office is just a sampling of what Americans can likely expect throughout an Obama presidency. One cannot help but reach the conclusion an Obama Enemies List is already being compiled and free speech restrictions are being considered. Fortunately for Obama he has no shortage of Congressional foot soldiers to help in his cause to muzzle critics and silence news outlets that refuse to adhere to Democratic talking points that are faxed directly into the network newscast teleprompters.

Hyman has proven to be correct.

I wrote in Human Events in October of last year “Enemies of the State” where I argued that the Obama Administration was engaging in compiling an enemies list to bully opponents into submission:

“Don’t create an enemies list.”  Advice given years ago to President Nixon?  No, a tip delivered just last week — from Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) to President Barack Obama. Alexander cited some of the announced enemies of Obama and his henchmen, including the Chamber of Commerce, Humana, Fox News, banks, investment houses, bondholders of General Motors and Chrysler, insurance companies and numerous members of Congress. Evidently if you dare to oppose the Obama administration, you risk ending up on the White House enemies list.

In this week’s Human Events I updated the list to include Koch Industries:

If you dare to oppose the Obama agenda, expect to become an enemy of the state. Koch Industries found this out the hard way. The New York Times reports that “with growing scrutiny of the role of tax-exempt groups in political campaigns, congressional Republicans are pushing back against Democrats by warning about the possible misuse of the Internal Revenue Service to audit conservative groups.” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R.-Iowa) and long-time protector of whistleblowers in the federal government, “and six other Republican senators [sent a letter alleging] that a senior administration official had improperly disclosed confidential taxpayer information in the case of Koch Industries during a background conference call with journalists.” The specific allegation is that Obama administration official Austan Goolsbee illegally disclosed information about the tax status of Koch Industries during a conference call with reporters. If proven true, this is a serious attack on the 1st Amendment rights of all Americans.

The Obama enemies list does not end at Koch.  The President’s campaign arm, Organizing for America, had the audacity to declare the Chamber of Commerce a “threat to our democracy.”  Erick Erickson has an excellent analysis of this allegation today on Red State.

Why would the President of the United States want to slander 3 million American companies, and their tens of millions of employees? Why would he assume them evil enough to subvert the law deliberately like this?

Don’t stop at the Chamber of Commerce.  Add Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie to the enemies list.  According to Politico: