Category Archives: Politicians

Barack Obama, Health Care, Medical Costs, Obamacare, White House

MONEY WOES: Obamacare premiums will cost $536 per taxpayer household

October 27, 2016 ejistook

The average 25% Obamacare premium hikes next year are only the tip of an iceberg. Each taxpaying household will bear an average cost of $536 even if they’re not enrolled in Obamacare.

The White House pooh-poohs higher premiums by saying that the insured won’t pay the full amount; subsidies will cover part of it. But subsidies come from tax dollars and from borrowing to increase the national debt.

FOX News reports the additional subsidy cost to taxpayers will rise $8.5-billion next year, on top of the 2016 subsidy costs of $43-billion, raising the annual subsidies to $51.5-billion. The country has about 96-million households that pay federal income taxes, so this averages to $536 per household. Each year. On top of the higher premiums for the insured.

Of course, corporate taxes will cover some of the bill–but those taxes are passed along to consumers via higher prices on goods and services.

Obamacare (mis-named as the Affordable Care Act) is a vast collection of federal red tape, regulations and mandates managed by federal bureaucrats and government-paid agents.

The new premium hikes are a double-whammy: They hit those who have Obamacare coverage AND they hit every taxpayer.

Barack Obama, Consumer Products & Services, Consumers, DEA - Department of Energy, Energy, Water

Dishwashers ruined by energy regulations: Prices up $143 but dishes don’t get clean

July 2, 2015 ejistook

Who wants a dishwasher that doesn’t work but costs more than ever?

The Department of Energy is completing a second round of regulations dictating the machines must use less water and less energy.

Prices already rose by $44 a unit with their first round in 2012. But add another $99 to the price from the 2015 regulations, spurred by President Obama’s call to “save the planet” by restricting use of energy. These are the government’s official cost projections; industry says the costs are even higher.

No, you won’t get the money back from lower electric bills. Manufacturers say that would take 20 years–twice as long as most dishwashers last.

The kicker: The new units don’t get things clean because water use is restricted and the energy limits prevent use of high-velocity sprayers.

Dishwashers could use 6.5 gallons per cycle until 2012, when that limit was lowered to 5 gallons. The 2015 Department of Energy (DOE) rules will drop that to 3.1 gallons per cycle.

The 2012 regulation restricted energy usage to 307 kWh (kiloWatthour) per year for a standard washer. The 2015 proposal lowers that to 234 kWh/year.

Manufacturers expect to lay off workers, because who wants to pay more and get less. Similar energy restrictions are in the works for other appliances.

Get ready to work harder as you wash dishes by hand. Unless you have a willing pet to lick your plates clean.

Barack Obama, CEI - Competitive Enterprise Institute, Executive actions, Executive orders, George W. Bush, Regulatory Costs, The Heritage Foundation

What difference does the number of regulations make?

June 7, 2015 ejistook

President Obama loves to say that he’s issued fewer regulations than George W. Bush did. Obama does that to distract and confuse people because it’s both true and extremely misleading. It’s the cost that counts — the economic impact — far more than the number of regulations.

An illustration: One person may have twice as many coins as another person, but if they have four pennies and the other person has two quarters, then the smaller number of coins is clearly more significant.

Obama’s smaller number of regulations have a far bigger and more negative impact on our economy than Bush’s regulations did. As FactCheck.org noted early in 2012, “It’s true (barely) that Bush issued more new regulations than Obama at the same point in their presidencies — but Obama didn’t mention that his cost more.“

More from Competitive Enterprise Institute: https://cei.org/blog/obama-has-issued-more-economically-significant-rules-65-years-bush-did-eight

Barack Obama, Internet, Phone Bills, Waste, Fraud & Abuse, Welfare (Public Assistance), Worldwide Web

First, free Obamaphones. Now, free Internet. Next???

June 4, 2015 ejistook

America’s welfare state keeps growing because Congress allows bureaucrats to expand programs, immune from accountability to voters.

The latest proposal would give free Internet service to tens of millions of people. It would be done by the nonelected commissioners at the Federal Communications Commission.

Millions of people already get free phones through the fraud-ridden FCC program nicknamed “Obamaphones.” Expanding this to the Internet (Call it “Obamanet?”) could add tens of millions of people, thanks to FCC’s loose eligibility criteria.

The cost would be borne by the rest of us through surcharges on our cellphones, landlines and business lines. Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jun/3/ernest-istook-free-internet-service-expansion-of-o/#ixzz3c6rKWtYm

Barack Obama, Crony Capitalism, Electric Bills, EPA - Environmental Protection Agency

Checked your electric bill? It’s skyrocketing!

June 1, 2015 ejistook

Obama's Skyrocket

It’s only just begun. American households are suffering skyrocketing electricity costs thanks to President Barack Obama’s agenda. Already the average household pays an extra $120 a year.

But the worst is yet to come.

Thanks to EPA regulations that have been announced, the U.S. will lose 9 percent of our ability to generate electricity by the year 2030, even while population grows by 54 million people. That is 116% of the current population trying to get by on 91% of our current power.

Supply-and-demand dictates electric rates will climb higher and higher.

What does Obama suggest we do? Spend thousands of dollars per household to buy more energy-efficient appliances. You’ll pay more upfront but then you’ll use fewer kilowatts. But your utility bills will still climb because the cost per kilowatt-hour will be much higher.

Higher electric rates are Obama’s plan, not just an unforeseen consequence:

Barack Obama, Internet, Worldwide Web

Obama gives away America’s control of the Internet

May 29, 2015 ejistook

internet control

President Obama is doing for the Internet what he did for health care: making things worse. His slogan should be “Change you can deceive in.”

Even beyond so-called “Net Neutrality” (which is NOT neutrality) and even beyond censoring the web, Obama’s Internet overhaul includes extortion and shakedowns. Businesses and individuals defend themselves against domains like .sucks, which debuts in June. Obama adds cost, confusion and cronyism to the Internet, just as Obamacare does to our health care system. Obama’s giving away U.S. control of the Internet is on par with Jimmy Carter’s giving away America’s control of the Panama Canal.

Now finding websites will become more complicated. Instead of remembering whether a site ends with .com, .org, .net, .edu, .gov or some other “top-level domain,” users now will face over 1,000 extensions, with another 1,000 on the way.

Barack Obama, Congress, Cost-of-Living, Executive actions, Regulatory Costs, The Heritage Foundation

The big picture: Six years of red tape rising under Obama

May 11, 2015 ejistook

Runaway regulations from the executive branch, aided by vast delegations of power issued by Congress–these are the trends that burden Americans, outlined in the 9th annual “Red Tape Rising” report by The Heritage Foundation.

Highlights of the report by Heritage scholars James Gattuso and Diane Katz include:

The number and cost of government regulations kept climbing in 2014. 27 new major rules in 2014 pushed Obama’s six-year total to 184, “with scores of other rules in the pipeline.” These 184 alone have an annual cost of at least $80-billion
“President Barack Obama has repeatedly demonstrated his willingness to act by regulatory fiat instead of executing laws as passed by Congress.”
But “A great deal of the excessive regulation in the past six years is the result of Congress’ granting broad powers to agencies through passage of vast and vaguely worded legislation.”
The result? “Intensifying Washington’s control over the economy and Americans’ lives.”

The full report: Red Tape Rising: Six Years of Escalating Regulation Under Obama

Barack Obama, Clean Air Act, Electric Bills, Energy, Environment, EPA - Environmental Protection Agency, Propaganda, Regulatory Costs

Propaganda secret: How Obama raises electric bills yet claims he lowers them

June 4, 2014 ejistook

In 2013, President Obama was given the “Lie of The Year” award for claiming that Obamacare would allow people to keep their current health insurance. Now a new statement might win Obama that award for 2014 as well: Obama claims that his new Environmental Protection Agency regulations will lower people’s electric bills.

On June 2, he stated, “Your electricity bills will shrink as these standards spur investment in energy efficiency, cutting waste and, ultimately, we’re going to be saving money for homes and for businesses.”

Yet in 2008 he admitted his agenda was to make electricity rates “skyrocket,” supposedly to save the planet. And the EPA’s own analysis predicts their regulations will raise electric rates an extra 6% to 24% by 2020.

Careful research reveals the carefully-contrived statements Obama is using to leave consumers a totally false impression about the impact of the new EPA regulations.

Read the secrets about the propaganda: Obama’s latest brainwashing whopper — lower electricity bills

Barack Obama, Clean Air Act, Electric Bills, EPA - Environmental Protection Agency

Obama’s EPA plan is like a Three Stooges routine

May 28, 2014 ejistook

President Obama’s latest EPA plans give America only bad choices which all will cause electric bills to skyrocket.

While claiming states will have “fexibility” to reduce carbon dioxide, the limited options are all bad. It’s like a classic Three Stooges routine: The Stooges are given a choice either of being burned at the stake or beheaded. Curly chooses the fire. “After all,” he says, “a hot steak is better than a cold chop.”

The Environmental Protection Agency isn’t offering anything better. They are not targeting something tangible, dirty or visible like soot or carbon particles, which is the purpose of the Clean Air Act. Instead, they want to reduce carbon dioxide, which is not a pollutant. CO2 is invisible whether it’s coming out of a smokestack, exhaled from your lungs, or released by plants at night. Obama’s justification is all about supposed “global warming” and “climate change,” not about pollution.

Watch the Stooges’ “hot steak, cold chop” bit below:

https://youtu.be/OjIWbeZ3KtM?start=121&end=139

Food, Food Police, Michelle Obama, School lunch, Uncategorized

Students complain: ‘First Lady messes up our lunches’

May 20, 2014 ejistook 1 Comment

The food fight over student lunches is personal for First Lady Michelle Obama, and personal for millions of upset school children and their families.

She has told us, “My most important title is mom-in-chief,” and “We can’t just leave it up to the parents.” The First Lady’s attitude is reinforced by the regulators at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, overseeing the federal School Lunch Program. They follow her bidding on extreme makeover of meals, but 1.6-million students have dropped out of the program rather than accept the new menus.

Congress COULD curb Obama on immigration–IF they would

May 15, 2014 ejistook

It is not the Constitution that lets President Obama dictate immigration policy. His power comes from authority that Congress has delegated to the executive branch and which it could take away.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee proposes changing the law so that President Obama’s bureaucrats no longer have exclusive power to enforce immigration laws. Obama’s refusal to enforce immigration laws would mean less if the nation’s 1-million state and local law officers shared enforcement authority with federal officials, says Chairman Robert Goodlatte (R, VA). That would undo a Supreme Court ruling that was based on current law.

Agencies, Food, Food Police, Michelle Obama, School lunch, USDA - US Department of Agriculture

First Lady kidnaps Easter event to push food regulations

April 10, 2014 ejistook

The annual White House Easter Egg Roll has been politicized to re-educate children and parents. Sorry, Peter Cottontail; your event has been kidnapped. And apologies to the churches.

The 30,000 guests were told, “In addition to all of the fun, the day’s activities will encourage children to lead healthy, active lives in support of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! Initiative.” In 2013, Michelle Obama proclaimed the event’s purpose was is “to celebrate nutrition and activity” and “learn about making tasty, healthy food.”

Her philosophy? “We can’t just leave it up to the parents.” That’s what the First Lady proclaimed when her husband signed the Healthy and Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010. That act has sparked student protests across the country for changing the school lunch program to promote items that students refuse to eat. And down-sized portions.

Too much regulation invites corruption

April 3, 2014 ejistook

Massive regulation breeds corruption as people and businesses look for shortcuts and loopholes. Politicians use complexity to “interpret” red tape to favor friends, reward donors, and punish enemies.

Obamacare is a prime example. There were 381,517 words in the Affordable Care Act passed by Congress. But by early 2014 the regulations “interpreting” the law surpassed 11,588,500 words.

Agencies, Barack Obama, Black Leaders, EEOC - Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

EEOC shifts resources away from civil rights to push same-sex & transgender movements

August 28, 2013 ejistook

With support from many African-American leaders, President Obama’s appointees to the EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) are shifting resources–both manpower and budget funds–to enforce new legal rights for the same-sex and transgender movements. Plus to enforce rights claimed by illegal immigrants.

Last weekend’s Lincoln Memorial rally, put together by the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, was more rainbow than black. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. told the crowd, “Our focus has broadened to include the cause of women, of Latinos, of Asian-Americans, of lesbians, of gays, of people with disabilities.”

Obama’s Regulatory Reform is Make-Believe

January 7, 2012 ejistook

This is not make-believe: Government regulation is a growth industry, one of very few in America today.

President Obama often claims he is committed to reforming regulations. But the facts tell a different story. His claims belong in Never-Never Land.

Obama’s minions claim their rule changes will “save U.S. businesses billions of dollars in regulatory burdens.” Yet analysis by the Small Business Administration estimated the cost of compliance with federal regulation (as of 2008) to be a staggering $1.75 trillion annually.

Obama uses endless ploys to deny the facts about his non-imaginary red tape friends.

Due to runaway red tape, companies simply abandon projects that would generate jobs and growth if it weren’t for regulations.

Details from the American Enterprise Institute: Red Tape and Pink Slips: Obama’s Imaginary Regulatory Reform

Americans for Less Regulation