The great bait-and-switch of Obamacare (“you can keep your plan and your doctor”) was intentionally orchestrated by the architects of the legislation. There were thousands of policies offered nationwide that were good and even very good but now they can’t be sustained under the new Obamacare policy requirements. These regulations are so narrow that it intentionally made obsolete or non-compliant the vast majority of health care policies in that were currently in existence, thereby requiring the insurers to cancel those offerings.
There are 10 essential benefits to Obamacare that every policy now must have. Most of them are routine and were likely found in some form on the vast majority of plans pre-Obamacare. Forbes recently compiled a list of these required items:
1) Ambulatory patient services – Care you receive without being admitted to a hospital, such as at a doctor’s office, clinic or same-day (“outpatient”) surgery center. Also included in this category are home health services and hospice care (note: some plans may limit coverage to no more than 45 days).
2) Emergency services – Care you receive for conditions that could lead to serious disability or death if not immediately treated, such as accidents or sudden illness. Typically, this is a trip to the emergency room, and includes transport by ambulance. You cannot be penalized for going out-of-network or for not having prior authorization.
3) Hospitalization – Care you receive as a hospital patient, including care from doctors, nurses and other hospital staff, laboratory and other tests, medications you receive during your hospital stay, and room and board. Hospitalization coverage also includes surgeries, transplants and care received in a skilled nursing facility, such as a nursing home that specializes in the care of the elderly (note: some plans may limit skilled nursing facility coverage to no more than 45 days).
4) Laboratory services – Testing provided to help a doctor diagnose an injury, illness or condition, or to monitor the effectiveness of a particular treatment. Some preventive screenings, such as breast cancer screenings and prostrate exams, are provided free of charge.
5) Maternity and newborn care – Care that women receive during pregnancy (prenatal care), throughout labor, delivery and post-delivery, and care for newborn babies.
6) Mental health services and addiction treatment – Inpatient and outpatient care provided to evaluate, diagnose and treat a mental health condition or substance abuse disorder (note: some plans may limit coverage to 20 days each year).
7) Rehabilitative Services and devices – Rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices to help you gain or recover mental and physical skills lost to injury, disability or a chronic condition. Plans have to provide 30 visits each year for either physical or occupational therapy, or visits to the chiropractor. Plans must also cover 30 visits for speech therapy as well as 30 visits for cardiac or pulmonary rehab.
8) Pediatric Services – Care provided to infants and children, including well-child visits and recommended vaccines and immunizations. Dental and vision care must be offered to children younger than 19. This includes two routine dental exams, an eye exam and corrective lenses each year.
9) Prescription drugs – Medications that are prescribed by a doctor to treat an illness or condition. Examples include prescription antibiotics to treat an infection or medication used to treat an ongoing condition, such as high cholesterol. At least one prescription drug must be covered for each category and classification of federally approved drugs.
10) Preventive and wellness services and chronic disease treatment – Preventive care, such as physicals, immunizations and cancer screenings designed to prevent or detect certain medical conditions. Also, care for chronic conditions, such as asthma and diabetes.
The bulk of this list consists of items that were not necessarily mandatory on any insurance plan, but were fairly common in some form or another. For instance, maternity care might have been an add-on some plans, included on others, but was relatively common in the industry. However, there are two items in particular on this list which are recent healthcare innovations not widely found. Therefore, their inclusion as criteria for assessing whether a health plan was “good” or “not good” rendered most current insurance plans incomplete — and therefore obsolete — for Obamacare. They are 1) “rehabilitative and habilitative care” and 2) “pediatric services”.
On the matter of rehabilitative and habilitative services, the new Obamacare essential makes a distinction between Rehabilitative Services (which help to recover lost capacities) and Habilitative Services (which “help people acquire, maintain, or improve skills and functioning for daily living”). Statereforum.org, a site devoted to health reform implementation, concurs that Habilitative services — a word not readily familiar to many people — are “a set of benefits not traditionally covered by private health insurance”.
When Health and Human Services made their final decisions this past November on the 10 Essentials for health plans, it “recognized that many health plans across the country do not recognize habilitative services as a distinct group of services. HHS proposed a flexible policy that allows states to define habilitative services if their benchmark plan fails to do so”. In the Federal Register published on November 26, 2013, it was specifically noted that this flexibility “will provide a valuable opportunity for states to lead the development of policy in this area and welcome comments on this proposed approach to providing habilitative services”. In other words, HHS created an benefit requirement that most insurance plans didn’t cover and isn’t even uniformly defined in the industry. Because nearly all plans lacked this “essential item”, most existing health insurance plans have been declared non-compliant.
With regard to pediatric services, it has typically been a matter in the healthcare industry that dental and vision coverage — particularly for children — are not to be included as part of a health insurance policy. Those that do have almost always have it as an add-on where you get services elsewhere, and only a few of the largest companies even bothered to offer it. This “must have” was never a part of a normal healthcare environment, and by making this one of the compliance items, it too has rendered nearly all plans incompatible with Obamacare regulations.
It has become clear that few existing health insurance policies pass the Obamacare litmus test. This carefully engineered attack on the “bad apple” health care industry was to induce a large-scale shift of citizens onto the exchanges (to pay for Obamacare) after their insurance was inevitably canceled. “If you like your plan you can keep it”, was a hollow promise all along. With the website calamity, Obamacare has utterly backfired — but the citizens are left holding the bag of higher costs, canceled plans, and an uncertain future. There is a sense of irony that the Obamacare “benefits” have done nothing to benefit anyone.
Right before the government shutdown, Detroit received a pledge for a $320 million federal “aid package”. The Obama Administration wants to make it perfectly clear: this is not a bailout. That word is too toxic during this time of fiscal instability in Washington. This is relief. A stimulus. It is a hand-up, not a hand-out, and, as the NY Times reports, this will not be the only federal infusion that Detroit receives to get back on its feet.
Some questions immediately come to mind:
1) Various news agencies reported that the funds are being scraped together mainly from agencies such as TARP, FEMA, Homeland Security, and HUD. Who authorized this aid package?
2) Much of the funds are for projects that are similar to projects already funded by alternative sources, such as the Ford, Kresge, and Knight Foundations. The funds will not be used in anyway with regard to debt structuring. Why are federal funds duplicating projects already in motion?
3) Detroit already receives 71 federal grants for operation and it still couldn’t manage to avoid bankruptcy. Clearly, Detroit has been malfunctioning for years even with government intervention, so Why are we propping up this city even more?
4) What is to prevent other cities who are struggling financially for reasons to call for aid? After the aid to Detroit was announced, at least one Congressman, Jerry McNerney, went on the offensive. He wrote to the White House asking why aid was not extended to Stockton, California, a city which declared bankruptcy last year, “and suffers from many of the same problems as Detroit”. Will this type of federal aid package for cities become a slippery slope? Will it be a pick-and-chose/reward scenario? How about a carrot dangled to cities?
A recent WSJ article on the aid noted that with federal money comes strings. “Grants from the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Departments will require the city to pay prevailing union wages, which will jack up costs. Prevailing wage is an economic compensation theory that requires municipalities to pay more-than-market wages. The end result of paying prevailing wages means that Detroit will get less with their our money. Even now, prevailing wage theory is hotly contested in NYC, a form of unionism for those workers who are non-unionized. Isn’t this type of overpayment what helped get Detroit into the mess it is in in the first place?
Furthermore, this cash fund may impact pension reforms that city manager Kevyn Orr is trying to accomplish. The pension managers insist that pensions are only underfunded by $634 million, while Orr is arguing closer to $3 billion. Part of pension restructuring and cost savings proposed by Orr were expected to be re-diverted toward blight abatement. With the arrival of this federal aid package — much of which is supposedly for the blight problem — you can expect that pensioners will argue that their pensions do not need, or need less of, the chopping block. That is a pity, as it undermines real pension reform so badly needed in Detroit.
What Kevyn Orr really needs to do to forge a path of prosperity in Detroit is to completely fund the pension system according to what the pension managers say they need ($634 million vs $3 billion), in exchange for complete government removal from the pension system; Impose a switch from a defined benefit model to a defined contribution model and be done with it. Let the pension heads grapple and manage their own funds now. Such a bold fiscal move would give Detriot a much more solid path to economic revitalization than any aid package can do.
There was no emergency that necessitated the use of federal funds being injected into the city of Detroit. No Katrina. No Sandy — only decades of fiscal irresponsibility, corruption, mismanagement. This “non-bailout” only undermines the task of this city, and potentially others, to make hard decisions about money, taxes, pensions, and budgets. It is a band-aid where a tourniquet (or maybe an amputation?) is needed. In a city rife with every kind of unimaginable fiduciary irresponsibility, the idea that the city of Detroit should be entitled to receive any more federal tax dollars is wholeheartedly repugnant.
The idea of “disparate impact” is a poisonous cancer that has taken root as an important concept in the business world. If we do not end it soon, it will continue to grow, extorting huge sums from innocent companies, creating an enormous economic burden on society, and allowing the tort bar to run amok.
Under disparate impact, there are many areas in business where charges of “discrimination”, often regarding race, could and are being made every day. Employment and mortgage origination are two of the most prevalent. The law requires – as it should -that for a company to be guilty of such discrimination, there must be an intent to discriminate.But government agencies have found a way to overrule that requirement by developing the concept of “disparate impact”. Disparate impact is the concept that allows for a showing that if a protected class of citizens has a statistically lesser representation with respect to a business (hiring, mortgages originated, etc.) it may be implied that the business has intentionally discriminated. This is clearly irrational, since there may be many economic, societal, and local reasons for the statistic. But disparate impact puts the burden to show lack of discrimination on the employer – guilty until proven innocent. In fact, in order for an employer to defend himself against such a charge, he would have to show that the “offending rule or practice” was a “business necessity”.
Though I find this concept outrageous, the federal and state governments and their agencies seem to love it. I therefore believe that they should be equally adamant in applying the concept in the public sector.
The IRS scandal has shown the clear practice of targeting conservative groups applying for 501c4 status. Under disparate impact theory, the charge of intentional discrimination would apply because there is no “business necessity” in the clearly statistically significant discrimination policy the IRS has employed. The Obama administration, having complete control and responsibility for the Department of the Treasury and its Internal Revenue Service.is therefore guilty of intentional discrimination. In particular, President Obama’s specific response, that there has been no evidence that anyone directed anyone to intentionally target conservatives, does not insulate him from being actually guilty.
The current administration has been keen on applying disparate impact theory to a number of private companies, and appears intent on ramping up the practice. For example, Obama’s labor secretary nominee, Thomas Perez, has been particularly lucrative in this regard. In June, National Review Online (NRO) covered some of Perez’s more recent cases, noting that Perez “has applied that theory vigorously to force large settlements from financial companies even in cases where there was no evidence of actual racial discrimination”. In other words, employers can be sought after for violating the law whether or not they intended to do wrong.
The White House in general, and Perez in particular, like disparate impact theory because it, as NRO notes, it “sets a very low bar for proving discrimination. Under it, prosecutors need not prove intent, merely that minorities have suffered a disparate impact from some action”. And this is a person Obama intends to add to his Presidential Cabinet.
If disparate impact can be applied to the private sector, it should also — in the spirit of fairness and equality, of course — be applied to the IRS. Numbers have been abused, and particular groups have been adversely singled out and subject to excessive, burdensome, and overreaching scrutiny; of this we are certain. The targeting of conservatives was a concerted effort to slow down or dissuade the creation of their tax-exempt groups. Even if the White House did not give a direct order (which remains to be seen), it doesn’t really matter anyway under disparate impact theory. Intent needs not to be proved in court; merely the act of discrimination is enough.
Based on the White House’s unmitigated belief of their ability to use disparate impact against companies for questionable practices, the rule should be applied to the IRS for its questionable practices as well. Since the IRS falls directly under the purview of the Executive Branch, why is the President of the United States therefore not directly responsible and culpable for the IRS abuse?
Eye-opening words of HHS Secretary Sebelius yesterday:
“This is no longer a political debate; this is what we call the law,” Sebelius told a group that includes Democrats and Republicans, elected officials, political appointees and bureaucrats. “It was passed and signed three years ago. It was upheld by the Supreme Court a year ago. The president was re-elected. This is the law of the land.”
Except when it is not.
If this is the law of the land, why is our President of the United States picking and choosing the parts of law that he wants to implement and/or delay?
Just this morning, Forbes is reporting “that another costly provision of the health law—its caps on out-of-pocket insurance costs—will be delayed for one more year”.
Before that, “there was the announcement, buried in the Federal Register, that the administration would delay enforcement of a number of key eligibility requirements for the law’s health insurance subsidies, relying on the “honor system” instead”
And for starters in April 2012, there was a delay of Obamacare’s Medicare cuts until after the election.
Oh, and don’t forget the security flaws and delays recently revealed. Deadlines for security safeguard have been missed, and the date to implement that system has been moved to September 30 (one day before the exchanges open).
Here’s the problem. Sebelius and the Obama Administration want to use the argument “It’s the law of the land!” when they are criticizing Republicans for questioning Obamacare. At the same time, they are not followign the “law of the land” when they are moving deadlines, delaying implementation of the law, and using the honor system.
Michael McConnell wrote an excellent piece last month in the WSJ entitled ” Obama Suspends the Law: Like King James II, the president decides not to enforce laws he doesn’t like. That’s an abuse of power”
He points out the simple fact that “Article II, Section 3, of the Constitution states that the president “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.” This is a duty, not a discretionary power. While the president does have substantial discretion about how to enforce a law, he has no discretion about whether to do so”.
Indeed. When Obama decides to pick and choose the parts of the law he wishes to execute, he is not upholding “the law of the land”.
Is Obama using Obamacare to set up a series of precedents for which he easily dispenses with troubling or inconvenient laws or statutes, in order to expand his Presidential powers?
There are many reasons why Americans should continue to be wary of Obamacare. These include:
Fiscal — Staggering costs of the system, rising costs of premiums, etc
Medical — Not being able to keep your doctor or healthplans as promised. Concerns about rationing, death panels, etc.
Personal — Your information is, at this time, not secure, and is overseen by unregulated “navigators” (think TSA)
Operational — Obamacare was signed into law in March 2010. It was expected to be fully implemented January 1, 2014. Yet in those almost four years, Americans have seen delays, missed deadlines, cost changes, and more. If Obamacare can’t even be implemented without substantial missteps along the way, what confidence does the public have that it will run efficiently and properly?
Constitutional — Obama is ignoring deadlines contained in the law and delaying parts that are problematic
Americans will have varying opinions as to which of these concerns above is most acute. However, the Constitutional aspect might very well be the most troublesome. Invoking the “law of the land” when chastising your political opponents, while simulataneously ignoring the “law of the land” is the height of executive hubris. An expansion of power by the Executive Branch undermines our entire American system of government.
Senator Barack Obama at Woodrow Wilson Center on Terrorism, 8/1/07:
“This Administration puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide…I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our Freedom”.
“That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens, no more National Security letters to spy on American citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient”
Faithful devotees on the Left continue to peddle the notion that Social Security is not in crisis, that it doesn’t contribute to the deficit, and there is no need for reform. However, reading through this year’s just-released Social Security Trustees report, the annual “State of the SSA”, we find that the Trustees tell a different narrative — one that is grim indeed. The following primer pulls directly from the report and then explains the statement in layman’s terms. It is copied text from summary of the entire report.
What it actually says:
“Social Security’s total expenditures have exceeded non-interest income of its combined trust funds since 2010, and the Trustees estimate that Social Security cost will exceed non-interest income throughout the 75-year projection period”.
What it means:
Non-interest income includes payroll taxes, taxes on scheduled benefits, and general fund transfers. Expenditures (payouts to beneficiaries) have exceeded (been more than) income (taxes collected ) since 2010. Social Security has not been paying for itself for the last three years. Anyone telling you otherwise is patently false.
What it actually says:
“The deficit of non-interest income relative to cost was about $49 billion in 2010, $45 billion in 2011, and $55 billion in 2012”.
What it means:
Again, right here the report describes that there is a deficit occurring and provides a tangible figure for each year. It directly contradicts the notion the idea that Social Security is PAYGO. It is not.
What it actually says:
“The Trustees project that this cash-flow deficit will average about $75 billion between 2013 and 2018 before rising steeply as income growth slows to the sustainable trend rate after the economic recovery is complete and the number of beneficiaries continues to grow at a substantially faster rate than the number of covered workers”
What it means:
The deficit is only going to worsen by about 30% over the next 5 years to $75 billion a year. Then the deficit is going to RISE STEEPLY because even more people will be claiming benefits than those working and paying into the system.
What it actually says:
Redemption of trust fund asset reserves by the General Fund of the Treasury will provide the resources needed to offset Social Security’s annual aggregate cash-flow deficits.
What it means:
The Government is using Trust Fund Asset Reserves by the General Fund of the Treasury NOW — and has been for three years — to meet its Social Security obligations. What the Left fails to understand or deliberately doesn’t explain is that we are already borrowing from reserves (think using savings) just to meet basic program costs.
What it actually says:
“Since the cash-flow deficit will be less than interest earnings through 2020, reserves of the combined trust funds measured in current dollars will continue to grow, but not by enough to prevent the ratio of reserves to one year’s projected cost (the combined trust fund ratio) from declining. (This ratio peaked in 2008, declined through 2012, and is expected to decline steadily in future years.)”
What it means:
Remember, we are talking about the reserves now. The reserve amount (savings) will still grow slowly even after paying the Social Security deficit, until about 2020. This is how the Left claims that there is a Social Security “surplus”. They count the Social Security Trust Fund (deficit) + Trust Fund Asset Reserves (savings) = surplus. That is not a true surplus. That is fuzzy math.
What it actually says:
“After 2020, Treasury will redeem trust fund asset reserves to the extent that program cost exceeds tax revenue and interest earnings until depletion of total trust fund reserves in 2033, the same year projected in last year’s Trustees Report”.
What it means:
By 2020 (that’s 7 years from now) the Social Security Trust Fund deficit amount will grow and finally outpace any growth (surplus) in the Trust Fund Asset Reserves (savings). This outpacing will continue until 2033: that’s the year that the Social Security Trustees project a depletion of total trust fund reserves (the savings account runs out!). Yet because this projection date, 2033, was also in last year’s report, the Left can dismissively remark that there are “relatively few changes or surprises” in this year’s report — so that no one bothers to actually read it.
What it actually says: “Thereafter, tax income would be sufficient to pay about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2087”.
What it means:
Even though you’ve faithfully paid in, you’ll only be able to get back 75% of the money. One-fourth of it gone. Poof. That means the Trust Fund Asset Reserves (savings) will have been propping up the Social Security Trust Fund a full 25% by 2033, and that Social Security will have been under-funded for 23 years by that time.
What to do about it?
Well, the very first paragraph of the Social Security Trustees report urges action:
‘Neither Medicare nor Social Security can sustain projected long-run programs in full under currently scheduled financing, and legislative changes are necessary to avoid disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers. If lawmakers take action sooner rather than later, more options and more time will be available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare. Earlier action will also help elected officials minimize adverse impacts on vulnerable populations, including lower-income workers and people already dependent on program benefits”
So, despite what the media and the Left tell you, Social Security is not fully funded. There is no surplus. Its current modus operandi takes the benefits being paid today and uses them to pay their current beneficiary obligations (instead of being held in trust like its original intent). It also borrows from reserves (savings) in order to meet just those basic current obligations.
The Trustee Summary concludes,
“Lawmakers should address the financial challenges facing Social Security and Medicare as soon as possible. Taking action sooner rather than later will leave more options and more time available to phase in changes so that the public has adequate time to prepare.”
It is signed by the Trustees:
Jacob J. Lew, Secretary of the Treasury, and Managing Trustee of the Trust Funds. Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Trustee. Charles P. Blahous III, Trustee. Seth D. Harris, Acting Secretary of Labor, and Trustee. Carolyn W. Colvin, Acting Commissioner of Social Security, and Trustee. Robert D. Reischauer, Trustee.
Therefore, the next time someone claims that Social Security is not in a crisis, is solvent, is able to meet all of its obligations, and/or is running a surplus, show them the Trustees report about the real situation — in the Trustees own words.
How does Obama go from being the smartest person ever to be elected President to learning about important stuff going on by watching the news?
One of the key components of Tea Party ideology is the championing for smaller government. As the IRS scandal targeting the Tea Party, Conservatives, and pro-Israel Jews continues to fester, a quick glance at the various figures involved in the wrongdoing have resorted to finger pointing and the blame game. According to Obama and others officials themselves, we have an answer: “Not Me” did it.
“The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued”.
“During interviews with Determinations Unit specialists and managers, we could not specifically determine who had been involved in creating the criteria. EO [Exempt Organization] function officials later clarified that the expanded criteria were a compilation of various Determinations Unit specialists’ responses on how they were identifying Tea Party cases”
Former IRS offical Doug Shulman testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that he was “dismayed and saddened” when he learned about the IG report, and suggested that the IRS is burdened.
“Given the challenges the agency faces, it does its job in an admirable way the great majority of the time. Men and women of the IRS are hardworking, honest public servants. While the inspector general’s report did not indicate that there was any political motivation involved, the actions outlined in the report have justifiably led to questions about the fairness of the approach taken here. The effect has been bad for the agency and bad for the American taxpayer.”
Yet those same (nameless) hardworking, honest public servants are the ones that Shulman blames for the activity. He said, “I agree that this is an issue that when someone spotted it, they should have run up the chain, and they didn’t.
Recent IRS head Steven Miller concurred during his testimony that “I’m not going to disagree with your characterization at all of bad management here.”
So, where is the accountability within the levels of the IRS? Ultimately, the IRS falls under U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is part of the Executive Branch. But you wouldn’t know it talking to this Administration.
When the IRS scandal was erupting, Jay Carney and Obama both stated publicly (Jay on Friday, May 10, and Obama on Monday, May 13) that the IRS was an “independent agency”. This is patently untrue.
The Federalist Society reminds us that there are two types of agencies: One is an “independent agency” which is not part of an Executive Branch department (thinks Boards and Commissions). They are headed by a Cabinet Secretary and are “independent of presidential control, usually because the president’s power to dismiss the agency head or a member is limited”.
The other type of agency is the one kind that the IRS falls under. It is headed by a Senate-confirmed Presidential appointee, and is directly part of the Department of Treasury (in the same way that Federal Bureau of Investigation is part of the Department of Justice). The particular IRS Commissioner position was created in 1997, (26 USC 7803), and the confirmed appointee serves a five-year term.
Our President is counting on either ignorance from the general public ,or else he does not understand how his own government operates. “Not Me” is in charge.
The President and those with whom he has surrounded himself have not been leaders. They have abrogated the basic responsibilities of leadership by refusing to take ownership of the problem and deal with it. It is short on accountability and long on blame. Rich Lowry aptly noted this week that the corruption in our administration” is the distortion of our form of government by sidestepping democratic procedures and accountability and vesting authority in bureaucrats”.
The greatest irony in this debacle is that the Tea Party has been vindicated. It concern about a government-too-big has proven to be unequivocally and terrifyingly true.
A fresh Op-Ed this morning by IRS head Steven Miller reveals the lengths to which the IRS and the White House are going to spin the on-going scandal.
“The agency was simply trying to manage the explosive growth in applications for 501(c)(4) status that started pouring in to the IRS in 2010. The Internal Revenue Service recognizes that we should have done a better job of handling the influx of applications by advocacy groups,” Miller wrote.
We saw the shoots of this line of thinking yesterday both from David Plouffe and Nancy Pelosi. Trying to suggest that all these groups that have sprung from the Citizen’s United ruling clogged up the IRS, who was then somehow reduced to scrutinizing groups in order to manage this problem. If only Citizen’s United could be overturned!
David Plouffe, former WH Adviser observed on Twitter “What IRS did dumb and wrong. Impt to note GOP groups flourished last 2 elections, overwhelming Ds. And they will use this to raise more $.”
“We need accountability at the IRS, of course, as to how this happened. But we’ve really got to overturn Citizens United which has exacerbated the situation. So I’ve called for DISCLOSE, that’s a dare, disclose… I’ve been calling for it for over a year, disclose, who are these people? Transparency, amend the constitution to overturn Citizens United, reform the political system, let’s take money down as far as possible. Public financing of campaigns, clean campaigns and empowerment of people because people feel very left out of the loop“.
However, the organizations who were subject to additional scrutiny were applying for either 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 or others, as revealed in this timeline put out by the WSJ on May 13th. but the apologists are counting on citizens to not know the different. By focusing on the 501(c)4 side of it, they can focus on calling out and blaming Citizens United.
Now back to Steven Miller. Further down his Op-Ed, he writes
“Mistakes were made, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan motivation,” he wrote. “We are — and will continue to be — dedicated to reviewing all applications for tax-exempt status in an impartial manner.”
Except, of course, when it comes to the Barack H Obama Foundation.
I have not found this elsewhere, so you’re seeing it here first.
Let’s go back to May 8, 2011, right in the thick of the IRS targeting activity. The NY Post writes a revealing piece about the Barack H Obama Foundation, run by Obama’s half-brother Malik:
“President Obama’s half-brother runs an off-the-books American charity that claims to support poor Kenyans — but it lies about its federal status and no one knows how it spends its money.” … “Malik started his charity the year his brother ran for president. The foundation claims to be a tax-exempt, federally recognized nonprofit. It is not. Nor are there any filings of its expenditures, which the IRS requires of larger charities. Alton Ray Baysden, a former State Department employee at whose Virginia home the charity was founded in 2008, admitted the organization has not even applied for tax-exempt status”
Oh and incidentally, the National Legal and Policy Center, a Washington, DC, watchdog group, made a formal complaint to the IRS and US Post Office about the Foundation that prior week in the beginning of May 2011.
The result? This sunlight on the foundation means that the The Barack H Obama Foundation hurriedly applied for and received tax exempt status in an unprecedented 30 days. The letter of their approval is currently available on the foundations’ website.It was signed Lois Lerner, the senior IRS in the middle of this scandal, of all people. On top of it, the status was made retroactive to December 2008.
With all the reports coming in fast and furiously from different news agencies, here’s a pieced-together timeline of events. The information below is a timeline of events taken from numerous media outlets with their links provided.
Early 2010: WSJ: The report [Inspector General’s report due out this week] indicates that in 2010 and 2011, some IRS workers weren’t just singling out groups because their names contained certain words, as IRS officials suggested on Friday [May 12], but appeared to be probing for indications of political interests or leanings.
March 2010: Washington Post: The IRS targeted We the People, Take Back the Country, and 9/12, a group founded by political commentator Glenn Beck, starting around March 2010, according to a TIGTA timeline provided to congressional staff.
Also in 2010: Jewish Press: the passionately pro-Israel organization Z STREET filed a lawsuit against the IRS, claiming it had been told by an IRS agent that because the organization was “connected to Israel,” its application for tax-exempt status would receive additional scrutiny. This admission was made in response to a query about the lengthy reveiw of Z STREET’s tax exempt status application.
In addition, the IRS agent told a Z STREET representative that the applications of some of those Israel-related organizations have been assigned to “a special unit in the D.C. office to determine whether the organization’s activities contradict the Administration’s public policies”
March 2011:
WaPo: The report is being prepared at the request of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which asked in March 2011 for an audit of the IRS’s tax-exempt unit amid complaints from conservative groups who were seeking tax-exempt status.
Mid 2011:
WSJ: The investigation also revealed that a high-ranking IRS official knew as early as mid-2011 that conservative groups were being inappropriately targeted—nearly a year before then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told a congressional committee the agency wasn’t targeting conservative groups.
June 2011 WSJ: According to the report, by June 2011 some IRS specialists were probing applications using the following criteria: “issues include government spending, government debt or taxes; education of the public by advocacy/lobbying to ‘make America a better place to live’; statements in the case file criticize how the country is being run.”
June 29, 2011 AP: 2011: Lois G. Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt organizations, said last week that the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias.
But on June 29, 2011, Lerner learned at a meeting that groups were being targeted, according to the watchdog’s report. At the meeting, she was told that groups with “Tea Party,” `’Patriot” or “9/12 Project” in their names were being flagged for additional and often burdensome scrutiny, the report says.
July 2011 WaPo The IRS switched to more generic search criteria in July 2011 due to concerns from senior agency officials, the timeline said.
and
WSJ The report’s timeline indicates that the criteria were changed to be more neutral in July 2011 after Ms. Lerner “raised concerns.” The criteria for heightened scrutiny continued to evolve over the next year or so, even as complaints from tea-party groups—and questions from GOP lawmakers—mounted over IRS inquiries to various groups about their activities.
Late 2011 – Mid 2012 WaPo: The IRS made no mention of targeting conservative groups in five separate responses to congressional inquiries between Nov. 18, 2011, and June 15, 2012, according to the TIGTA timeline.
January 2012 Reuters But then [instruction] changed again in January 2012 to cover “political action type organizations involved in limiting/expanding government, educating on the constitution and bill of rights, social economic reform/movement,” according to the findings contained in a Treasury Department watchdog report”
March 2,2012 NRO reports on the American Center for Law and Justice’s (ACLJ) interaction with tea party groups which had been receiving missives from the IRS to find out more about their activities
March 2012 WSJ The IRS also said the report reflects that “IRS senior leadership was not aware of this level of specific details” at the time of a March 2012 hearing where Mr. Shulman denied any targeting of conservative groups. Mr. Shulman, who no longer works for the IRS, declined to comment”
April – May 2012 WSJ Letters from Ms. Lerner in April and May 2012 responding to questions by Republican lawmakers made no mention of the problems that had surfaced in the IRS unit.
According to the draft report, on April 24 and 25 of last year, officials in Ms. Lerner’s office were reviewing “troubling questions” that had been asked of organizations, including “the names of donors.”
Ms. Lerner’s April 26 {2012} letter to Mr. Issa, the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said that “there are instances where donor information may be needed…such as when the application presents possible issues of…private benefit.”
May 2012 Reuters The criteria for scrutiny were revised again to cover a variety of tax-exempt groups “with indicators of significant amounts of political campaign intervention (raising questions as to exempt purpose and/or excess private benefit),” according to a TIGTA timeline included in the findings.
Other Factoids:
WaPo: Lerner said that about 75 groups were selected for extra inquiry — including, in some cases, improper requests for the names of donors, but added that the targeting was not driven by partisan motives.
AP: The report also said that the IRS asked “unnecessary questions” of conservative groups, according to the aide.The IRS’ Lerner said that about 300 groups were singled out for additional review, with about one-quarter scrutinized because they had “tea party” or “patriot” somewhere in their applications. She said 150 of the cases have been closed and no group had its tax-exempt status revoked, though some withdrew their applications.
The Anatomy of an IRS Process:
The Richmond Tea Party has been blogging about their interactions with the IRS since they began their IRS status request on December 28, 2009. Included in their reporting has dates and document links. You can read the overview here: and the chronicles of the Richmond Tea Party here
As more information comes out, I will update this timeline accordingly.
UPDATE: David Plouffe, former WH advisor, suggests: “What IRS did dumb and wrong. Impt to note GOP groups flourished last 2 elections, overwhelming Ds. And they will use this to raise more $” REALLY?s
FLASHBACK: Obama jokes in 2009 about the IRS auditing people — and a thoughtful responsive essay in the WSJ and a chilling prophecy: Should the IRS come to be seen as just a bunch of enforcers for whoever is in political power, the result would be an enormous loss of legitimacy for the tax system.” Indeed.
During the State of the Union last week, Obama issued a call to raise the minimum wage once again. He cried forth, “Tonight, let’s declare that in the wealthiest nation on Earth, no one who works full-time should have to live in poverty, and raise the federal minimum wage to $9.00 an hour”. What he fails to comprehend or deliberately ignores is that the impact of such a policy on small businesses — the backbone of our economy — would be devastating. Higher wages inhibits a business’s ability to grow and invest. (more…)
