President Obama, in a completely partisan speech defending Obamacare, claimed Thursday “there’s no widespread evidence” it is hurting jobs. Obama made such an outrageous claim despite the widespread reports that businesses are cutting back worker hours in order to avoid extra costs tied to the law, including a Cincinnati clinic he used as an example during the presidential election.
Obama’s comments come the same day that a round of new polling shows opposition to Obamacare is solid, if not worse, and the president’s job approval is suffering across-the-board.
The charge that ObamaCare is driving Americans into part-time work is one of the central claims that opponents make in arguing for the law to be defunded or delayed. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-TX, pounding the claim over and over during his 21-hour floor speech against ObamaCare this week.
While promoting the law to a friendly audience in suburban Washington, Obama brushed off the argument saying, “Most of the stories you’ll hear about how ObamaCare just can’t work, they’re just not based on fact.”
He continued: “They said this would be a disaster in terms of jobs. There’s no widespread evidence that the Affordable Care Act is hurting jobs. … Reforming health care’s going to help the economy over the long-term.”
The claim even contradicts what union leaders have been telling the White House and Democratic lawmakers for months. In a widely noted letter to Democratic leaders over the summer, the heads of the Teamsters and other unions argued that “perverse incentives” were hurting jobs.
Unless the law is changed, they wrote, “the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40-hour workweek that is the backbone of the American middle-class.”
They, and many employers across the country, point to provisions of the law that would require businesses with 50 or more full-time workers to provide health insurance to those workers. The argument is that businesses are deciding to make more workers qualify as part-time by reducing their hours to fewer than 30 a week.
“Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly,” the union leaders wrote.
The Obama administration, in a surprise move, delayed the employer mandate by a year. But that hasn’t stopped businesses from cutting hours, because they operate in a real world environment, making long-term business decisions.
Among them was SeaWorld, in my state of Florida, cutting back part-time hours from 32 to 28 per week.
The Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday on a South Carolina cleaning business claiming it will hire only part-time workers in order to stay under the 50-worker threshold.
Obama was promoting the law in Maryland in advance of the Oct. 1 launch of the so-called insurance “exchanges.” These are regulated marketplaces where Americans will be able to shop for approved insurance plans – enrollment begins Tuesday.
Obama tried to counter “misinformation” about the law, and noted: “If you already have health care, you don’t have to do anything.”
Paul Konigsberg, Ponzi scheme King Bernie Madoff’s longtime accountant and close friend, was arrested in New York Thursday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirms.
Konigsberg prepared tax returns for the Madoff Family Foundation, according to media reports. He was also a close personal friend of Madoff for over 25 years.
The New York City accountant was the only non-family shareholder in Madoff’s London operation. His attorney told The Wall Street Journal in 2009 that he had no “meaningful business role,” but that is obviously not the case. Madoff often referred associates to Konigsberg for tax preparation services, and there have been suspicions among prosecutors that he was privy to Madoff’s fraud.
It wasn’t immediately clear what the 77-year-old Konigsberg was charged with. A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York could not be reached for comment.
Reed Brodsky, Konigsberg’s attorney, said Konigsberg was “an innocent victim of Bernie Madoff,” adding that “he looks forward to clearing his good name at trial.”
Madoff was convicted of crafting a multi-billion-dollar Ponzi scheme that resulted in many victims losing all of their savings. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009.
The Commerce Department’s second reading on U.S. GDP shows the economy expanded at an annual rate of 2.5% in the second quarter, matching a previous estimate. Economists expected GDP to grow by 2.6%.
The Labor Department reports claims for initial jobless benefits fell to 305,000 last week from an upwardly revised 310,000 the week prior. Economists expected the number of claims to rise to 325,000 from an initially reported 309,000. The Labor Department said computer issues that caused a backlog of unprocessed claims have been resolved.
This is the second reading of GDP since the Commerce Department changed how it would calculate the measurement. The measurement now calculates future government investment, future Hollywood productions, and a host of otherwise untraditional measures of production. When the news was announced it was widely seen as a government gimmick to mask anemic economic growth.
Also in the report, the Commerce Department said its price index for consumer purchases, which is the Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation, fell at a 0.1 percent rate.
That is a troublesome sign for the national economy, because it suggests businesses have little leverage to raise prices. It was the first decline since the first quarter of 2009, which were some of the worst days of the 2007-09 recession.
Even stripping out volatile food and energy costs, prices rose at only a 0.6 percent rate, also the weakest reading for this so-called core category since early 2009.
The report also showed government austerity dragged on U.S. economic growth a little less in the second quarter than initially estimated, chipping about a tenth of a point off the growth rate.
Secretary of State John Kerry gestures as he speaks at the American Jewish Committee Global Forum in Washington, Monday, June 3, 2013. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)
Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday signed a controversial UN arms treaty, leading U.S. lawmakers to vow the Senate will not ratify the agreement. Ahead of the signing, a State Department official said the treaty would “reduce the risk that international transfers of conventional arms will be used to carry out the world’s worst crimes,” while simultaneously protecting gun rights.
“The treaty builds on decades of cooperative efforts to stem the international, illegal, and illicit trade in conventional weapons that benefits terrorists and rogue agents,” the official said.
U.S. lawmakers have long admitted the treaty would lead to new gun control measures, without even addressing the stated goals. They note the U.S. Senate has final say on whether to approve the agreement.
Sen. Bob Corker R-TN, in a letter to President Obama, urged the administration not to take any action to implement the treaty without the consent of the Senate. He wrote the treaty raises “fundamental issues” concerning “individual rights protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
Sen. Jim Inhofe R-OK, one of the most vocal opponents of the treaty, also sent a letter to Kerry declaring the treaty “dead in the water,” since a majority of senators has gone on record against the agreement.
“The administration is wasting precious time trying to sign away our laws to the global community and unelected U.N. bureaucrats,” he wrote. Kerry, who is now in New York attending the U.N. General Assembly session, announced earlier this year that the administration planned to sign the treaty.
The treaty would require countries that ratify to establish national regulations to control the transfer of conventional arms and components and to regulate arms brokers, but it supposedly will not explicitly control the domestic use of weapons in any country.
Gun-rights supporters on Capitol Hill warn the treaty could be used as the basis for additional gun regulations inside the U.S. and have threatened not to ratify. Over the summer, 130 members of Congress signed a letter to President Obama and Kerry urging them to reject the measure for this and other reasons.
The chance of the Senate ratifying the treaty is next to nil at this point. A two-thirds majority would be needed in the Senate to ratify, and they simply do not have the votes. They could easily bring the treaty up in a subsequent Congress if Democrats win more seats in the future, however. A GOP-controlled Senate would have legislative procedures to use as tools to prevent ratification in the future, as well.
What impact the treaty will have in curbing the estimated $60 billion global arms trade also remains to be seen. Even the more optimistic reports have not been rousing. The U.N. treaty will take effect after 50 countries ratify it, and much will depend on which ones ratify and which ones don’t, and how stringently it is implemented.
The Control Arms Coalition, which includes hundreds of non-governmental organizations in more than 100 countries that promoted an Arms Trade Treaty, has said it expects many of the world’s top arms exporters – including Britain, Germany and France – to sign alongside emerging exporters such as Brazil and Mexico. It said the United States is expected to sign later this year.
The coalition notes that more than 500,000 people are killed by armed violence every year and predicted that “history will be made” when many U.N. members sign the treaty, which it says is designed “to protect millions living in daily fear of armed violence and at risk of rape, assault, displacement and death.”
Many violence-wracked countries, including Congo and South Sudan, are also expected to sign. The coalition said their signature – and ratification – will make it more difficult for illicit arms to cross borders.
The treaty covers battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, and small arms and light weapons.
It prohibits states that ratify it from transferring conventional weapons if they violate arms embargoes or if they promote acts of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes. The treaty also prohibits the export of conventional arms if they could be used in attacks on civilians or civilian buildings such as schools and hospitals.
In addition, the treaty requires countries to take measures to prevent the diversion of conventional weapons to the illicit market. This is among the provisions that gun-rights supporters in Congress are concerned about.
Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on 10 out of the 15 of the top issues regularly tracked by Rasmussen Reports.
On the most important issue on voters’ minds, the economy, the GOP leads by a handsome 44% to 37% margin. Democrats held an advantage on this issue in surveys from November 2006 until early 2009. Since June 2009, the GOP has led in all but one survey.
But that didn’t translate into an Election Day victory in 2012, and the Democrats have an average lead of 2% in the Generic Congressional Ballot. This is easily explained by the disparity in the nationwide survey and individual congressional districts. Even though Democrats enjoy nationwide advantages, because of the urban population centers, the GOP dominates the congressional districts.
This also explains why the GOP House is solid, while the Senate – which is a statewide vote – is a heavier lift for Republicans. Nevertheless, on Election Day 2012, the GOP did not enjoy such an advantage with the trust on issues surveys. Only on Social Security, the environment, and education do the Democrats still have an advantage. Other issues that are statistically close are energy – R+3 – and healthcare – R+1. Democrats once enjoyed a double-digit lead on healthcare.
Note that Government Ethics and Corruption is the only category where the two parties are tied, with no particular party being seen as honest by a majority of Americans, or even close at 37%
National Surveys of 1,000 Likely Voters September 8-9, 12-13 & 18-19, 2013
Watch Sen. Ted Cruz filibuster on the Senate floor. He rose this afternoon in his fight to defund Obamacare. I am sure that the Republican establishment is choking on their filet mignon, but too bad. They should perhaps take notes, because the people love it.
Cruz is reading from letters that were sent to him and supporters, which tell of their hardships due to Obamacare and the unintended consequences that the law has had on the economy and people’s lives. He slammed some of the Republican lawmakers who claim to oppose Obamacare but ignore their constituents who vehemently oppose the law, but not because they are partisan, but because they are negatively impacted by the “train-wreck” of a law. Twitter lit up with tweets such as this one:
Sen. Ted Cruz also stated how Democrats behind closed doors are greatly concerned with how the law is effecting the economy and politics. The AFL-CIO is now officially gearing up to express their public opposition to Obamacare:
What the establishment GOP doesn’t understand is that this bill will hurt Americans – all Americans – and Sen. Ted Cruz is laying out many of those examples. But here is another:
Not only was #KeepCruzing trending on Twitter, but supporters were changing their pictures to several versions of the hashtag. One such tweet and pic is as follows:
Senators Mitch McConnell R-Ky, and John Cornyn both announced that they will support the cloture bill to fund the government, including a provision that allows amendments to be added. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid D-NV, will no doubt use the procedure to add an amendment that funds Obamacare back into the House bill.
Apparently, the tow GOP Senate leaders are using their leadership influence to pressure other Republican senators into supporting the cloture bill when it comes up for a vote later this week.
Earlier in the year, both senators voted to fund Obamacare, but under pressure from grassroots conservatives, they pledged to defund Obamacare, even running ads in their home states saying as much.
Senator Mitch McConnell is already in the political fight of his life, with a serious primary challenger – Matt Bevin – who is sure to win the backing of Senate Conservatives Fund and other conservative grassroots. Then, even if he wins, he will go on to face a Democratic challenger who may have hit her ceiling of support in Kentucky, but it is still more support than McConnell is able to muster. The latest round of polling has him trailing Allison Lundergan 46% – 40%.
In an email, Senate Conservatives Fund Executive Director Matt Hoskins, said the move the “ultimate betrayal” and called McConnell and Cornyn “turncoats.” They are asking supporters to “burn up the phones” across the country. If you would like to do so, or know where your senator stands, then here is an updated Whip List for cloture.
Home prices in 20 major U.S. metropolitan areas rose 1.8% from June to July on a non-seasonally adjusted basis, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home price report. Economists expected the gauge to rise 2%. Prices were up 12.4% from the same month in 2012.
Even though home prices missed expectation, their gain from a year ago was the strongest in more than seven years, a closely watched survey showed on Tuesday.
The S&P/Case Shiller composite index of 20 metropolitan areas rose 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis, compared to economists’ forecasts for a 0.8 percent gain. Prices rose 0.9 percent in June.
Compared to a year earlier, prices were up 12.4%, matching economists’ expectations and marking the strongest rise since February 2006. Prices were up 12.1% in the year to June.
The report suggested the housing sector continues to recover slowly despite a recent rise in mortgage costs. Prices in all 20 cities rose on a non-seasonally adjusted yearly basis, led by a 27.5 percent surge in Las Vegas and followed closely by a 24.8 percent gain in San Francisco.
Today’s Markets
Enthusiasm over the Federal Reserve’s move to not begin the process of exiting its massive bond-buying program has been waning over the past several sessions. Indeed, the markets closed out the day on Monday at just about the levels they were ahead of the Fed’s policy-setting meeting last week.
“We’ve either reached a point where the market can’t keep using the same excuse to rally with the same effectiveness or we assume that the taper is coming soon anyway,” Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at The Lindsey Group wrote in an email to clients, calling recent trading “unusual action.
In commodities, U.S. crude oil futures slid $1.72, or 1.6%, to $104.67 a barrel. Wholesale New York Harbor gasoline dipped 0.06% to $2.621 a gallon. Gold dropped $12.80, or 0.96%, to $1,314 a troy ounce.
The Conference Board reports consumer confidence slipped to 79.7 in September from 81.8 the month prior. Economists expected the gauge to fall slightly to 79.9.
WASHINGTON – Lois Lerner, the IRS official at the heart of the scandal involving the targeting of Tea Party groups, is calling it quits and retiring. Lerner, who headed up the division in the agency that handles applications for tax-exempt status, had been placed on paid administrative leave back in May.
Calls for her dismissal came almost immediately following allegations she had participated in unfairly targeting conservative groups, which was added validity with revelations she had planted a question during a Q&A conference. The IRS confirmed on Monday that she has resigned, though it’s unclear how that decision might affect the ongoing congressional investigations into the scandal. The agency said in a written statement announcing her retirement:
Since May, the IRS has taken decisive actions to correct failures in Exempt Organizations management, replacing top leadership throughout the chain of command. Acting IRS Acting Commissioner, Danny Werfel, created an Accountability Review Board to fully review information to ensure proper oversight in handling personnel issues.
The announcement will not stop calls for a serious probe into the agency’s actions. It’s not yet clear what kind of government-paid retirement benefits Lerner might be receiving.
Rep. Darrell Issa R-CA, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said:
Lois Lerner’s exit from the IRS does not alter the Oversight Committee’s interest in understanding why applicants for tax exempt status were targeted and inappropriately treated because of their political beliefs. We still don’t know why Lois Lerner, as a senior IRS official, had such a personal interest in directing scrutiny and why she denied improper conduct to Congress. Her departure does not answer these questions or diminish the Committee’s interest in hearing her testimony.
Lerner first disclosed the IRS targeting at a May 10 tax law conference, when the question at the Q&A was planted. Lerner then infamously refused to testify at a hearing before Issa’s committee, citing her constitutional right not to incriminate herself. Three congressional committees and the Department of Justice, though, launched investigations into the IRS and its actions.
Eventually, the agency acknowledged that while she was in charge, IRS agents improperly targeted Tea Party groups for extra scrutiny when they applied for tax-exempt status from 2010-2012. Earlier this month, newly released emails surfaced that clearly support accusations against the IRS official and her role in scrutinizing Tea Party and other conservative applications. The email was released by the House Ways and Means Committee and parts were redacted.
The agency had initially tried to spin the story, claiming the unfair targeting was the work of rogue Ohio-based employees. One email dated February 2011 from Lerner said, “Tea Party Matter very dangerous” – before going on to warn that the “matter” could be used to go to court to test campaign spending limits.
The Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee (SFRC) is a group of publicly recognized independent experts on the financial services industry — including experts in banking, insurance, and securities — who meet regularly to study and critique regulatory policies affecting this sector of the economy.
During closed sessions before the luncheon, committee members will discuss a variety of current financial-regulation issues: the Federal Reserve’s Basel III-related rules, housing policy, municipal bankruptcy, and testing for equivalence of US and foreign regulatory systems. In a briefing following the sessions, SFRC members will present the adopted policy statements and answer related questions.
Speaker Biographies
Marshall Blume is the Howard Butcher III Professor Emeritus of Financial Management and the director emeritus of the Rodney L. White Center for Financial Research at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he has worked since 1967. He researches financial markets, investments, investment behavior, and fixed-income securities. Blume is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Portfolio Management and the Journal of Fixed Income. He is on the board of the Measey Foundation and is an independent director of various CPA real-estate investment trusts.
Kenneth W. Dam is the Max Pam Professor Emeritus of American and Foreign Law and a senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School. He served as deputy secretary in the US Department of the Treasury from 2001 to 2003 and at the US Department of State from 1982 to 1985. Previously, he was the executive director of the Council on Economic Policy and assistant director for national security and international policy at the Office of Management and Budget. Dam’s work in the private sector includes serving as IBM’s vice president for law and external relations and as president and CEO of the United Way of America. He is an honorary member of the board of the Brookings Institution and serves as a nonresident senior fellow of that organization. Dam is also a board member of the Committee for Economic Development and was formerly chairman of the German-American Academic Council. He has been a board member of numerous nonprofit institutions and served for 13 years on the board of Alcoa.
Franklin Edwards is professor emeritus and former Arthur F. Burns Chair of Free and Competitive Enterprise in finance and economics at the Columbia Business School. He has been a visiting scholar at AEI and senior economist at the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. His areas of expertise include financial markets and the regulation of financial institutions, hedge funds, corporate governance, and derivatives markets. Edwards is the author of “The New Finance: Regulation and Financial Stability” (AEI Press, 1996) and the textbook “Futures and Options,” (McGraw-Hill College, 1992). Edwards has authored more than 100 scholarly articles.
Robert A. Eisenbeis is the vice chairman and chief monetary economist at Cumberland Advisors, where he advises the company’s asset managers on US economic and financial market developments and their implications for investment and trading strategies. Eisenbeis was formerly executive vice president and director of research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, where he advised the bank’s president on monetary policy for Federal Open Market Committee deliberations and was in charge of basic research and policy analysis. Previously, he was the Wachovia Professor of Banking at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has also held senior positions at the Federal Reserve Board and Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Eisenbeis is a member of the Financial Economists Roundtable and a fellow of the National Association of Business Economics.
Richard J. Herring is cochair of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee. He is also the Jacob Safra Professor of International Banking and codirector of the Wharton Financial Institutions Center at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he has worked since 1972. He is likewise executive director of the Financial Economists Roundtable. His research areas include international banking, international finance, and money and banking. He has written more than 125 articles, monographs, and books and his research has been sponsored at various times by the National Science Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and several different international organizations.
Edward Kane is a professor of finance at Boston College. From 1972 to 1992, he held the Everett D. Reese Chair of Banking and Monetary Economics at Ohio State University. Kane is a founding member of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee and served for 12 years as a trustee and member of the finance committee of Teachers Insurance. He currently consults for the World Bank and is a senior fellow in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s Center for Financial Research. Previously, Kane consulted for numerous agencies, including the International Monetary Fund, components of the Federal Reserve System, and three foreign central banks. He also consulted for the Congressional Budget Office, the Joint Economic Committee, and the Office of Technology Assessment of the US Congress. He is a past president and fellow of the American Finance Association and a former Guggenheim fellow. He also served as president of the International Atlantic Economic Society and the North American Economics and Finance Association. Kane is a longtime research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has authored three books and coauthored or coedited several more. Kane has published widely in professional journals and currently serves on seven editorial boards.
George G. Kaufman is the cochair of the Shadow Financial Regulatory Committee. He is also the John Smith Professor of Finance and Economics at Loyola University Chicago, where he has taught since 1981. He previously taught at the University of Oregon and was a research officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. He was likewise a visiting professor at Stanford University; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of Southern California. He was a visitor at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco and at the Comptroller of the Currency, where he was acting director of research. He also served as a deputy to the assistant secretary of the US Department of the Treasury. Kaufman has published widely in leading professional journals and was a founding editor of both the Journal of Financial Services Research and Journal of Financial Stability. He has served as president of the Western Finance Association, the Midwest Finance Association, and the North American Economic and Finance Association; is president-elect of the Western Economic Association; and is a past director of the American Finance Association.
Kenneth E. Scott is the Ralph M. Parsons Professor of Law and Business emeritus at Stanford Law School. He is a leading scholar in the fields of corporate finance reform and corporate governance, and on federal deposit insurance issues and federal banking regulation. Also a senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution, he has recently written books on the financial crisis and bailout reforms. Scott has extensive consulting experience, including turns with the World Bank, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Resolution Trust Corporation, and the National Association of Securities Dealers (now FINRA). He is also a member of the Financial Economists Roundtable and the State Bar of California’s Financial Institutions Committee. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 1968, Scott was general counsel to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board and chief deputy savings and loan commissioner of California. He has practiced law in New York and Los Angeles.
Chester Spatt is the Kenneth B. and Pamela R. Dunn Professor of Finance at Carnegie Mellon, where he has taught since 1979. From 2004 to 2007, Spatt served as the chief economist and director of the Office of Economic Analysis for the US Securities and Exchange Commission. He has written extensively on financial regulation, market structure, taxation and asset allocation, pricing and valuation, and the impact of information in the marketplace. Additionally, he is a member of the Federal Reserve’s Model Validation Council, the Systemic Risk Council, and the Financial Economists Roundtable. He is also a fellow at the TIAA-CREF Institute. Spatt was a founder and the second executive editor of the Review of Financial Studies, is past president of both the Western Finance Association and Society for Financial Studies, and served as a member of the economic advisory board for NASDAQ from 2000 to 2002.
Peter J. Wallison holds the Arthur F. Burns Chair in Financial Policy Studies at AEI, where he codirects the program on financial market studies. He was also a cochair of the Pew Financial Reform Task Force and a member of the congressionally authorized Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. Wallison previously practiced banking, corporate, and financial law at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in New York and Washington, DC. In 1986 and 1987, Wallison was White House counsel to former president Ronald Reagan. From 1981 to 1985, he was general counsel of the US Department of the Treasury, where he played a significant role in the development of the Reagan administration’s proposals for deregulation in the financial services industry. He also served as general counsel to the Depository Institutions Deregulation Committee and participated in the US Department of the Treasury’s efforts to deal with the debt held by less-developed countries. Between 1972 and 1976, Wallison was special assistant to former New York governor Nelson A. Rockefeller and, subsequently, counsel to Rockefeller when he was vice president of the US.
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