links for 2010-11-29

Latino leaders in Nevada and around the country are floating the idea of breaking traditional ties with the Democratic Party and creating a grass-roots independent movement tentatively called the Tequila Party. According to Delen Goldberg at the Las Vegas Sun, the leaders want to pressure the Democratic Party to deliver on Latinos' priorities much in the same way the tea party has done with the GOP over the past few years.

Robert de Posada, the former GOP operative behind this fall's controversial "Don't Vote" ads aimed at Latinos in Nevada and California, tells The Lookout that he has heard "rumblings" of this movement among national Latino leaders
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Is that because the Latinos are "drunk" for power? Political power that is….

The problem with the Latinos is their number of voters in order to exert power are only in California and somewhat in Nevada and New Mexico. Florida's Cuban population are in the GOP.

Congress agreed Monday to a one-month delay in Medicare payment cuts to doctors, giving a short-term reprieve to a looming crisis over treatment of the nation's elderly.

The House, in approving by voice vote the bill passed by the Senate earlier this month, postponed a 23 percent cut in doctors' pay scheduled to take effect Dec. 1. That gives lawmakers a month to come up with a longer-term plan to overhaul a system that in recent years has bedeviled Congress, angered doctors and jeopardized health care for 46 million elderly and disabled.

"This bill is a stopgap measure to make sure that seniors and military families can continue to see their doctors during December while we work on the solution for the next year," said Rep. Frank Pallone, R-N.J., chairman of the Energy and Commerce health subcommittee.

Health care payment formulas for military service members and veterans are tied to Medicare.
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It will be continued again in another 30 days or there will be mo physicians left

Irons said that while the deficit commission proposal would bring spending down to 21 percent of gross domestic product, the liberal groups plan would bring it down to only to 25 percent by 2020, while raising revenue to 21.7 percent of GDP.

To get spending down, the liberal plan would cut defense spending by $960 billion over 10 years.

Regarding long-term entitlement programs, Anrig pointed out that the groups estimate significant savings in cost due to the Obama healthcare reform bill in later years.

“We reject arbitrary caps on Medicare or Medicaid spending,” he said.

To make Social Security solvent, the liberal groups' plan would raise taxes but would not reduce benefits.

To raise revenue, the groups propose a carbon cap-and-trade scheme or carbon tax, a surcharge on millionaires, closing foreign tax loopholes, and limiting the value of tax deductions for higher earners.
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Yeah this left wing plan will really help Obama and America – NOT.

Even amoebas learn by trial and error, but some economists and politicians do not. The Obama administration's budget projections claim that raising taxes on the top 2% of taxpayers, those individuals earning more than $200,000 and couples earning $250,000 or more, will increase revenues to the U.S. Treasury. The empirical evidence suggests otherwise. None of the personal income tax or capital gains tax increases enacted in the post-World War II period has raised the projected tax revenues.

Over the past six decades, tax revenues as a percentage of GDP have averaged just under 19% regardless of the top marginal personal income tax rate. The top marginal rate has been as high as 92% (1952-53) and as low as 28% (1988-90). This observation was first reported in an op-ed I wrote for this newspaper in March 1993. A wit later dubbed this "Hauser's Law."
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Read it all

According to the Washington Post, Democrats are continuing to push for an increase in marginal rates, but only on the very rich.

A faction of congressional Democrats is making a push to persuade President Obama to consider a compromise on tax policy that would leave only the nation’s 315,000 richest households facing higher taxes in January.

That’s because these Democrats still think they will be able to raise more revenue by letting marginal rates go up. But that ignores the fact that the federal government has never been able to get much more than 19 percent of GDP in tax revenues, no matter how high the top marginal tax rate goes.
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Look at the chart

The New York Times is participating in the dissemination of the stolen State Department cables that have been made available to it in one way or another via WikiLeaks. My friend Steve Hayward recalls that only last year the New York Times ostentatiously declined to publish or post any of the Climategate emails because they had been illegally obtained. Surely readers will recall Times reporter Andrew Revkin's inspiring statement of principle: "The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won't be posted here."
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And, the New York Times sell their wares in America?

Journalistic whores in every sense.

Sarah Palin might think she could get elected President in 2012, but few Americans agree. Only 28% of voters in the country think that Palin is capable of defeating Barack Obama while 60% think she is not and 12% aren't sure.

What might be most troubling for Palin within those numbers is that less than half of Republicans think she's capable of beating Obama- 48% think she would be able to, 37% think she would not be able to, and 15% have no opinion. Republicans continue overwhelmingly to like Palin- 67% have a favorable opinion of her- but a pretty large number of them have serious electability concerns about her.

Many GOP voters who admire Palin may be left having to decide whether it's more important to them to defeat Barack Obama or to help advance her political career and that may prove to be too high a hurdle for her to overcome.
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As I have said all along, her candidacy epends upon the economy and Obama's poll numbers after the first of the year

“It is more the view of reality rather than policy” that the treaty will not be ratified in the next month, Kyl said, arguing that if Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) provided him with three weeks to debate the treaty, it could be finished. “He has made it clear he has a different agenda in mind,” Kyl said, pointing to Reid’s decision to pursue other legislation during the lame duck, including a repeal of the military’s ban on openly gay service members and the DREAM Act immigration bill.

“Harry Reid, the leader of the Senate, can bring up the START treaty any time he wants to. But he has a different agenda,” Kyl
said.
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Of course, Harry Reid can call up the START Treaty anytime he wants but he wants pay back to the Latinos who supplied him with his re-election in November.

A 2009 American government cable released Sunday by the WikiLeaks website quotes Defense Minister Ehud Barak as telling visiting American officials that a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities was viable until the end of 2010, but after that "any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage."
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And, what message does this send to Iran?

They are free to develop their nuclear weapon capability because Obama has not acted.