Flap's Blog – FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog

• CBO Director: The Long-Term Budget Outlook – Unsustainable Path
  Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run. Although great uncertainty surrounds long-term fiscal projections, rising costs for health care and the aging of the population will cause federal spending to increase rapidly under any plausible scenario for current law. Unless revenues increase just as rapidly, the rise in spending will produce growing budget deficits. Large budget deficits would reduce national saving, leading to more borrowing from abroad and less domestic investment, which in turn would depress economic growth in the United States. Over time, accumulating debt would cause substantial harm to the economy. The following chart shows our projection of federal debt relative to GDP under the two scenarios we modeled.
  (tags: CBO barack_obama)
• CBO Chief Criticizes Democrats' Health Reform Measures – Worsen the Budget
  Instead of saving the federal government from fiscal catastrophe, the health reform measures being drafted by congressional Democrats would increase rather than reduce public spending on health care, potentially worsening an already bleak budget outlook, the director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said this morning.

  Under questioning by members of the Senate Budget Committee, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf said bills crafted by House leaders and the Senate health committee do not propose "the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount."

  (tags: Douglas_Elmendorf CBO Obamacare)
• Democrat Sen. Max Baucus: On Paying for Health Care Reform, Obama Isn’t Helping
  Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said on Thursday that President Obama had hindered his efforts to reach a bipartisan compromise on sweeping health care legislation by opposing a tax on some employer-provided health insurance benefits.

  “Basically, the president is not helping us,” Mr. Baucus told reporters outside his office. “He does not want the exclusion. That’s making it difficult.”

  The tax on benefits, or limiting hte so-called ‘exclusion’ of benefits from income taxes, was a main way Mr. Baucus and his committee had planned to help pay for the health care bill and would have generated about $320 billion toward the roughly $1 trillion 10-year price tag.

  (tags: barack_obama Obamacare max_baucus)
• CIA Director George Tenet canceled secret CIA Al Qaeda hit teams
  As CIA director in 2004, George Tenet terminated a secret program to develop hit teams to kill al-Qaida leaders, but his successors resurrected the plan, according to former intelligence officials.

  Tenet ended the program because the agency could not work out its practical details, the officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified program.
  Porter Goss, who replaced Tenet in 2005, restarted the program, the former officials said. By the time Michael Hayden succeeded Goss as CIA chief in 2006 the effort was again flagging because of practical challenges.

  CIA Director Leon Panetta drove the final stake into the effort in June after learning about the program. He called an emergency meeting with the House and Senate Intelligence committees the next day, informing lawmakers about the program and saying that as vice president Dick Cheney had directed the CIA not to inform Congress about the operation.

  (tags: CIA George_Tenet PorterGoss leon_panetta)
• WTF? Social Security spends $700,000 on Phoenix conference Including Dancers
  A Social Security Administration motivational management conference held at a high-end Valley resort last week cost $700,000, the SSA told the ABC15 Investigators.

  Costs for the conference at the Arizona Biltmore Resort & Spa included airfare, hotel entertainment, dancers, motivational speakers, and food, an administration official said.

  A spokesperson outside the SSA's Phoenix office declined to comment.

  (tags: social_security barack_obama)
• Obamacare: ‘Blue Dog’ Democrats may block health care bill – Needs NOT Addressed
  A leader of the conservative "Blue Dog" Democrats told CNN Wednesday he and other group members may vote to block House Democrats' health care bill from passing a key committee if they don't get some of the changes they want.

  "We remain opposed to the current bill, and we continue to meet several times a day to decide how we're going to proceed and what amendments we will be offering as Blue Dogs on the committees," said Rep. Mike Ross, D-Arkansas.

  Ross said the bill unveiled Tuesday by House Democratic leaders did not address concerns he and other conservative Democrats outlined in a letter late last week to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

  The conservative Democrats don't believe the legislation contains sufficient reforms to control costs in the health care system and believe additional savings can be found. Their letter to leaders raised concerns about new mandates on small businesses. Blue Dogs also say the bill fails to fix the inequities in the current system for health care costs for

  (tags: Obamacare)

Democrat Senator Barbara Boxer has always had weak opponents when running in California elections. If the GOP can mount any sort of campaign this time, Boxer should have enough negatives to be drummed out of the Senate.

Watch this clip in the Fall 2010 blast the California television airwaves.