Archive for the ‘Obama’ Category

Trump blames Obama for ‘ignoring’ Russia’s interference in …

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GOP may keep some Obama tax increases to save health bill …

Senate Republican leaders considered keeping one of former President Barack Obama's big tax increases on wealthier Americans and using the money to fatten proposed subsidies for the poor in a bid Thursday to placate moderate GOP lawmakers and salvage their struggling health care bill.

With a core priority tottering, top Republicans also assessed an amendment pushed by conservatives to let insurers offer plans with low premiums and scant benefits. To do so, a company would also have to sell a policy that abides by the consumer-friendly coverage requirements in Obama's 2010 statute, which the GOP is struggling to repeal.

Both proposals were encountering internal Republican opposition, and it was uncertain either would survive. But the effort underscored how Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., needed to mollify both wings of his divided party if he's to rescue one of his and President Donald Trump's foremost campaign promises.

McConnell postponed a vote on an initial version Tuesday, forced by conservative and moderate GOP senators prepared to block it.

By Friday, McConnell wants to add changes to the bill that would assure its passage after Congress' week-long July 4 recess. For him to prevail, no more than two of the 52 GOP senators can oppose the measure.

But as senators charged out the Capitol's doors Thursday to begin their break, there were no overt indications that GOP leaders had resolved their problems.

"We're kind of at a stalemate right now, I'd say," said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who with Ohio GOP Sen. Robert Portman and others want to forestall reductions the measure would make in Medicaid. Discussions about easing those cuts were continuing, but progress so far was "not enough for me," said Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev.

The Medicaid program for low-income and disabled people has grown dramatically in their states and others, but the Republican bill would cut it, with reductions growing over time.

Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said that while GOP leaders might have a package in hand Friday, "I'm not confident that's going to, kind of, solve everybody's concerns."

Vice President Mike Pence met in the Capitol on Thursday with Capito, Heller and other GOP dissidents, including Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Texas' Ted Cruz.

The Senate bill would repeal most of the tax boosts Obama levied, around $700 billion over the coming decade. They were aimed largely at high earners and the medical industry and helped finance his expansion of coverage to about 20 million people.

Under a proposal by Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., the bill would retain Obama's 3.8 percent tax increase on investments by higher earners. Keeping that increase would save $172 billion over 10 years, and moderates want to use it to make the health care subsidies their bill would provide more generous.

Democrats say the GOP bill is mostly a tax cut for the rich. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office has said the Senate measure would raise out-of-pocket health care costs for many low earners while producing 22 million more uninsured people by 2026.

Corker said he was "very confident" that leaders would address the issue in the updated bill. He said cutting upper-income taxes and increasing health care costs for the poor "is not an equation that works."

"Obviously we'd like to get rid of all" of Obama's tax boosts, said No. 3 Senate GOP leader John Thune of South Dakota. "But if it takes something like that to get our members on board to move this process forward, I think we have to consider that."

Conservatives said they opposed the idea, along with the chairmen of Congress' two tax-writing committees: Senate Finance chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and House Ways and Means chairman Kevin Brady, R-Texas.

Obama's health law enacted an additional 3.8 percent tax on investment income for married couples making more than $250,000 a year and individuals making more than $125,000.

Also in play was the proposal by Cruz to let insurers offer skimpier policies, which conservatives say would lower premiums.

Moderates oppose that, especially if it lets insurers raise premiums on people with pre-existing medical problems. No. 2 GOP leader John Cornyn of Texas suggested the proposal might not survive because Senate rules won't allow it on the bill.

The leader of the conservative House Freedom Caucus suggested the Senate bill would be doomed if it excluded something like Cruz's plan or House-approved provisions letting insurers charge higher prices to people with serious diseases. Many expect the House to try for quick passage of any health care bill the Senate approves, foregoing potential problems of negotiating a bicameral compromise.

"Is failure an option? Absolutely not," said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. "Is failure on the doorstep knocking? Absolutely. So we've got to make sure we don't answer that door."

Republicans also said party leaders agreed to add $45 billion for battling opioids abuse to their bill. They were also considering a proposal by conservatives to let people use tax-advantaged health savings accounts to pay health care premiums.

Associated Press writers Erica Werner, Mary Clare Jalonick, Kevin Freking and Stephen Ohlemacher contributed to this report.

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GOP may keep some Obama tax increases to save health bill ...

OPINION: How About Never, Mr. Obama – Fox Nation

By The Washington Examiner

Former President Barack Obama took a private jet from Hawaii last week to Bali, Indonesia, where he and his family are staying in a $2,500-a-night suite for a week, and making time for whitewater rafting.

Good for him.

Some people are criticizing the former president for his lavish vacations, and it's true that there is something more than a little galling about his living the high life after his malign eight years governing the rest of us. But we'd actually like Obama to take even more vacations indeed, a complete and unceasing absence from the political stage.

Whether he deserves a break is less important than the fact that America desperately deserves a break from him. We urge him to spend more time with his family, and to set aside completely his tiring, tiresome, indecorous and arrogant efforts to hang around as a political scold.

With disregard for precedent and disdain for decorum, Obama has refused to bow out of the political fray after leaving office. Again and again, he has deliberately acted to make government more difficult and success more unlikely for President Trump. This has included buddy-buddy visits and high-fives with foreign leaders who gave Trump a cold shoulder. It was his sad impression of the Dixie Chicks, traveling overseas to preen and signal that he was better than the man his country chose as his successor.

This week, despite all the charms of Hawaii, Indonesia, Michelle and his daughters, Obama took time out to pen a long essay on the healthcare bill being considered by the Senate. Perhaps his four years in the Senate and eight years in the White House left him with little confidence in Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. Perhaps he thought MSNBC, the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic, NPR, CNN and every other liberal outlet lacked the intellectual firepower to take on Sens. Mitch McConnell and John Barrasso.

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OPINION: How About Never, Mr. Obama - Fox Nation

Obama Photographer Reminds America What Presidents Should Be …

Shortly after President Donald Trump tweeted out a video of him violently pummeling a person with the CNN logo for a head, a throwback photo has emerged showing former President Barack Obama raising his own fist in a friendly fist bump with a healthcare worker.

Fighting for a good cause:healthcare, former White House photographer Pete Souza captioned the photo on Sunday that shows Obama greeting several smiling men and women.

The no-doubt jab at Trumps provocative video, which has been interpreted by someas possibly endorsing violence against the media, came as Senate Republicans continue to grapple with repealing and replacing Obamas Affordable Care Act.

It also came amid a new round of criticism over Trumps incendiary posts on Twitter, with him earlier using the social media platform toattack Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinskisphysical appearance and intelligence.

With millions of people at risk of losing health care coverage,Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) spoke out on the presidents comments on Sunday, urging Americans to ignore Trumps tweets and focus on whats important.

Our focus cannot be on the tweet. Our focus has to be on that kitchen table family paying $20,000, $30,000 and $40,000 for their premiums, wondering how theyre going to make ends meet, he said on NBCs Meet The Press.

I get so frustrated when we get focused on tweets, he continued. We need to think about these families with this incredible human need.

This, of course, isnt the first time Souza has taken aim at Trump.

The accomplished photojournalist, who also served as former President Ronald Reagans official photographer, has frequently trolled Trump by digging up his photo archive to compare the current presidents actions to his predecessor.

The photos have focused on Trumps famous NATO shove, what handholding looks like between the president and first lady, as well as how a president can demonstrate respect towards women.

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Obama Photographer Reminds America What Presidents Should Be ...

Court Blocks EPA Effort to Suspend Obama-Era Methane Rule – New York Times

In upholding green groups efforts to end the E.P.A.s 90-day stay over parts of the regulation, the appeals court ruled that the agencys decision was unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious. The agency, it said, did not have authority under the Clean Air Act to block the rule.

Americans overwhelmingly believe that global warming is happening, and that carbon emissions should be scaled back. But fewer are sure that it will harm them personally.

E.P.A.s stay, in other words, is essentially an order delaying the rules effective date, and this court has held that such orders are tantamount to amending or revoking a rule, Judges David Tatel and Robert Wilkins wrote. The third member of the three-judge panel, Janice Rogers Brown, dissented. The judges said the agency would have to undertake a new rule-making process to undo the regulation.

The methane rule was part of a broad suite of climate regulations enacted by former President Barack Obama. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.

Oil and gas companies have argued that the rule requiring them to report and fix any methane leaks in their equipment is an unnecessary burden because many oil-producing states already have their own regulations. The E.P.A. announced on June 5 that it was suspending enforcement of the rule, arguing that the industry had not had enough opportunity to comment. The court rejected that argument.

The courts decision ends the continued pollution by the oil and gas industry thats been illegally allowed by Pruitt, said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, one of the plaintiffs in the case.

Reid Porter, a spokesman for the American Petroleum Institute, said that standards set in 2012 are already reducing methane emissions. A stay is needed to allow for regulatory certainty as E.P.A. continues the formal process to review the rule making, he said in a statement.

An E.P.A. spokeswoman said the agency was reviewing the opinion and would weigh its options.

Mondays decision does not mean the methane rule cannot be reversed. But to do so, the E.P.A. will have to write a new rule to unwind it and must comply with the Obama-era regulation in the meantime.

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Court Blocks EPA Effort to Suspend Obama-Era Methane Rule - New York Times