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NEW CALLS TO REPEAL HEALTH CARE LAW AFTER OBAMA ADMIN DELAYS EMPLOYER MANDATE
MONICA CROWLEY: It's certainly not a coincidence. This thing is dropping faster than the Titanic. The White House understands you've got top democrats who actually wrote this monstrosity, like Max Baucus and Jay Rockefeller, saying that this thing is a train wreck. It's so complex as to be incomprehensible. They know this thing is totally unworkable, and now they're hearing from businesses. This is what we've been talking about for four plus years now. Businesses are cutting hours, they're laying off workers. There are higher taxes coming, higher premiums already in place, and none of this is ready to go. The state exchanges aren't ready to go. All of this is collapsing underneath its own weight and absurdity. So they realize now that they've got to put off the real horrors, so they decide to put it off till when? Until after the midterm elections. How convenient.
JONATHAN HOENIG: It's bad for businesses. It's also terrible for workers, too. That's why businesses big and small-to Monica's point-are warning about the effects of ObamaCare, warning of the cost. That's hurt workers, whether it's Walmart, Darden Restaurants, Regal Entertainment. You've had tons of companies that have already either cut hours or cut employees. In fact, a recent survey from Gallup showed that 41 percent of small businesses said they were having a hiring freeze altogether. This has helped no one but power-hungry politicians in DC, and it's failing by design: centralized planning and government force. It's no wonder, as Baucus has said, it's a train wreck.
WAYNE ROGERS: We knew this! This is old news, guys. We knew this was a dumb idea. We knew it from the start: You've got 2,200 page of garbage. It stacks up to be something over eight feet high. There's 20,000 pages of regulations. You know this was a dumb law to start with. It never should have been passed. For example, for it to go past the Supreme Court, which is sheer idiocy, that John Roberts had to write an opinion which called it a tax because he couldn't' figure out any other way to get it through. The whole thing is a bad idea. They should start all over.
CHRISTIAN DORSEY: This so-called "employer mandate" applies to fewer than 1 percent of the firms in the country that collectively employ about a million people. So this is not about the impact on all businesses. This is about a very small sliver who has been complaining since day one about the regulatory burden of compliance, and the administration has said "you know what, we'll make it simpler for you. We'll yield to you yet again because you complain, yet again." This doesn't speak to the broader issue of healthcare reform or businesses in general.
NEW WORRIES GROWING NSA SCANDAL COULD IMPACT U.S. ECONOMY
MONICA CROWLEY: Nobody is shocked that anybody is spying on anybody, certainly not the United States. Friends spy on friends, allies spy on allies. We certainly are spying on our enemies. Everybody knows this. This is the way the world has worked since spying technology-you said since Get Smart-- so none of this is a surprise. All of this huffing and puffing from the EU and the socialist in France, Hollande-this is all nonsense. This is because their pride is hurt because after the Snowden revelations it became public. They figure they have to huff and puff and attempt to try to do something to penalize the U.S. In the short term it might actually hurt us a little bit, but not over the long term. They need us more than we need them.
WAYNE ROGERS: The EU wants new trade with us. They want it, they need it, they have to have it. Look at Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece-they've got disastrous economies there. They need this much more than anything else. I agree this is all nonsense and puffery. I mean it would be more exciting if we learned Andrea Merkel was having an affair with John Kerry. That would be real news. That's the same level as this kind of thing. This will go away fast; it will not interrupt any of the discussions that we'll have going forward. The EU wants it, we want it-it will work.
JONATHAN HOENIG: If they boycott us it's to their own detriment. Trade helps everyone involved, and to the extent the EU cuts it off I think they're shooting themselves in the foot. The United States is still the most prosperous, the most individualistic, the most capitalist country on earth. Where I think it does hurt us, however, is in terms of our reputation on the world stage. We've already lost that by all the bailouts. We've already lost our reputation as the world's defender of capitalism, and we're losing it as the world's defender of freedom and individual rights. We don't need trade talks, we just need to practice what we preach: protection of free trade, and protection of individual rights.
CHRISTIAN DORSEY: The way this international game works is all your spying needs to be kept in secret. Once it becomes public, then it becomes an issues and it forces the people who are spied upon to thump their chest and say this is an outrage, but really this is going to have no impact on the trade negotiations. There may be some nominal delay of a few weeks, but ultimately the U.S. and Europe-our economies are integrally linked, and there's no way there's going to be any diminishing of cooperation between the two areas.
REPORT: STATE DEPARTMENT SPENDS $630K TO GET PEOPLE TO "LIKE" ITS FACEBOOK PAGE
WAYNE ROGERS: Here we are again-another budget blunder by the federal government. They've got too much money, too many people. You've got to take the whole thing away from them. It's just awful. They spent $630,000 on Facebook stuff, to promote it. It's crazy.
MONICA CROWLEY: Let's remember whose State Department this was when this was happening and money was being burned: Hillary Rodham Clinton's State Department. Yet Hillary gets a pass on all of this. I don't think so. I think they had to do this because who voluntarily is going to say "oh I'm liking now on Facebook. I like Justin Bieber, and oh I like the State Department, too. They are super awesome!" Nobody would do that!
JONATHAN HOENIG: Just as trying to appease the Muslim street the last 10 years hasn't done anything to make Americans safer, I don't think trying to get likes on Facebook among the online world would do anything to increase America's prestige. We don't want to be liked, we actually want to be respected. What's needed isn't a better marketing campaign, but some actual leadership and demonstration of American principals throughout the world.
CHRISTIAN DORSEY: There is a way to justify this-and that is if it creates a community of people who are actually engaged in following the information that comes out of the State Department. Now the point of the report is it didn't work. In that case, it's money that wasn't well spent. But if it had created that engaged community it would have been a huge bargain. So the issue is not the money, the issue is that it didn't work.
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