However, by Sunday August 14, Obama's three day average approval of the president's job performance had dropped to 39 percent, while 54 percent disapprove.
Both figures are the worst numbers of his presidency.
Monday, August 15, 2011
Obama’s Approval Rating Hits Record Low
President Obama’s job approval rating for the first 10 days of August was 4 percentage points lower than it was in the first week of July, significantly less of a drop than the 19-point decline in Gallup's Economic Confidence Index over the same period.
However, by Sunday August 14, Obama's three day average approval of the president's job performance had dropped to 39 percent, while 54 percent disapprove.
Both figures are the worst numbers of his presidency.
However, by Sunday August 14, Obama's three day average approval of the president's job performance had dropped to 39 percent, while 54 percent disapprove.
Both figures are the worst numbers of his presidency.
Austin Chronicle: The Perry Trap
Governor Rick Perry may be new on the national stage, but he's old news in Austin. Over the two decades of his political career, The Austin Chronicle has charted his rise to power.
The Chronicle collected their most insightful stories about Perry's political career – and it hasn't all been secession talk and laser-sighted pistols. The Chronicle's writers have examined his links to big business and big donors, his indiscriminate use of the death penalty, how he's flirted (or bedded down) with every conservative movement from the Religious Right to the Tea Party, and loads more.
Read about Gov. Perry's accomplishments in The Austin Chronicle.
Krugman: The Texas Unmiracle
By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: August 11, 2011 @ The NYTimes
If [Perry] wins the Republican nomination, his campaign will probably center on a more secular theme: the alleged economic miracle in Texas, which, it’s often asserted, sailed through the Great Recession almost unscathed thanks to conservative economic policies. And Mr. Perry will claim that he can restore prosperity to America by applying the same policies at a national level.So what you need to know is that the Texas miracle is a myth, and more broadly that Texan experience offers no useful lessons on how to restore national full employment.
It’s true that Texas entered recession a bit later than the rest of America, mainly because the state’s still energy-heavy economy was buoyed by high oil prices through the first half of 2008.
Also, Texas was spared the worst of the housing crisis, partly because it turns out to have surprisingly strict [state government] regulation of mortgage lending. (emphasis added)
Despite all that, however, from mid-2008 onward unemployment soared in Texas, just as it did almost everywhere else.
In June 2011, the Texas unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. That was less than unemployment in collapsed-bubble states like California and Florida, but it was slightly higher than the unemployment rate in New York, and significantly higher than the rate in Massachusetts. By the way, one in four Texans lacks health insurance, the highest proportion in the nation, thanks largely to the state’s small-government approach. Meanwhile, Massachusetts has near-universal coverage thanks to health reform very similar to the “job-killing” Affordable Care Act.
So where does the notion of a Texas miracle come from? Mainly from widespread misunderstanding of the economic effects of population growth.
Republican's Want To Repeal Health Insurance Reforms
Updated August 15, 2011 @ 12:37amTexas Gov. Rick Perry (R) thinks Texas should be able to opt out of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
In an interview with the Daily Beast’s Andrew Romano, Perry claims that Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional:
The Constitution says that “the Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes… to provide for the… general Welfare of the United States.” But I noticed that when you quoted this section on page 116, you left “general welfare” out and put an ellipsis in its place. Progressives would say that “general welfare” includes things like Social Security or Medicare—that it gives the government the flexibility to tackle more than just the basic responsibilities laid out explicitly in our founding document. What does “general welfare” mean to you?
[PERRY:] I don’t think our founding fathers when they were putting the term “general welfare” in there were thinking about a federally operated program of pensions nor a federally operated program of health care. What they clearly said was that those were issues that the states need to address. Not the federal government. I stand very clear on that. From my perspective, the states could substantially better operate those programs if that’s what those states decided to do.
So in your view those things fall outside of general welfare. But what falls inside of it? What did the Founders mean by “general welfare”?
[PERRY:] I don’t know if I’m going to sit here and parse down to what the Founding Fathers thought general welfare meant.
But you just said what you thought they didn’t mean by general welfare. So isn’t it fair to ask what they did mean? It’s in the Constitution.
[Silence.]
The Constitution gives Congress the power to “to lay and collect taxes” and to “provide for the…general welfare of the United States.” No plausible interpretation of the words “general welfare” does not include programs that ensure that all Americans can live their entire lives secure in the understanding that retirement will not force them into poverty and untreated sickness.
The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted 245 to 189 Wednesday to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 passed by the last Congress and signed into law by President Obama less than one year ago.
Three blue dog Democrats joined the 242 Republicans in voting to repeal health care reform -- Rep. Boren (Oklahoma), Rep. McIntyre (North Carolina) and Rep. Ross (Arkansas).
Before the final vote, Rep. Rob Andrews (D-New Jersey) proposed that the bill be amended to not go into effect until a majority of Congress gave up their taxpayer paid health insurance ($700 a month of which is paid by American taxpayers). Eight Republicans have already done this, but the other 234 Republicans have decided to keep their taxpayer paid health insurance.
Original Post Tuesday January 18, 2011 @ 9:59am
A government study released today shows that up to 50 percent of Americans under age 65 have some type of preexisting health condition. The study predicts that 30 percent of currently healthy Americans will likely develop a preexisting condition over the next eight years.
Under the Affordable Care Act of 2010 -- the president's signature health care reform legislation -- policies set to be in place by 2014, these 129 million Americans can receive health coverage despite their previous conditions; if the new law is repealed, millions could risk losing health care or being forced to pay more.
An estimated twenty-seven percent of working-age Texans, or more than 6.1 million people living in Texas, were uninsured in 2010. That's the highest rate in the nation and the second-highest number to California's 7 million people. Under Medicaid expansion provisions of the act, an estimated 2.5 million additional Texans would qualify for health insurance.
But Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has been a staunch opponent of health care reform and his administration has indicated a willingness to opt out of the Medicaid expansion. For Texas hospitals, which absorbed $4.6 billion in unpaid bills and charity care in 2010, that's a problem, Hawkins said.
 cagle.com |
The AP today delivered an awkward fact-check that effectively dismantles the GOP's central argument against the the Affordable Care legislation kills jobs.
The Republican repeal bill, if passed by the Sentate and signed by Pres. Obama, would add roughly $230 billion to the deficit by 2021 and leave about 54 million non-elderly Americans uninsured by 2019, according to CBO projections.
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