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But you’re in trouble if you were counting on Democrat promises coming true. Democrats constantly tout the immediate benefits of their government-run health care experiment, and chief among them is allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ plans after graduating from college. Here’s Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY):

Then, at the same time, the positives are going to start weighing in… If you're up to 26 years old you can stay on your parents' health coverage. My daughter is graduating from law school. We told her the day after she graduates she's on her own. She has a job in September, but she was fretting what does she do for the four months? Does she buy health insurance for $1200 a month? Well, she called me up at midnight after the bill passed and said, “Dad, I'm covered.”

Good for her that the Schumer family doesn’t get its insurance through Congress, or she’d be out of luck. Democrats have been asserting that their government-run health care experiment would let adults under ... more

After promising that his stimulus would stem unemployment at 8% (it failed), that government-run health care will reduce costs (they’ll rise) and that his financial reform plan would end too-big-to-fail (hardly), Americans are rightly concerned that there is a growing credibility gap between Obama’s lofty promises and the disastrous  results. So, when asked about the President’s Deficit Commission, voters are no fools – they see it as a clear backdoor to raising taxes to pay for more bloated government binge spending. A Rasmussen poll conducted this week shows that Americans are wise to Obama’s Show-Me-The-VAT Commission:

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 51% of Adults believe the commission is more likely to propose tax increases than spending cuts. Just 22% say the commission is more likely to call for spending cuts instead. . . Only 30% think Congress is at least somewhat likely to actually make the spending cuts the deficit commission proposes, while ... more

Last night, Republicans won huge concessions against bailouts for Wall Street despite Obama’s and Reid’s best efforts to continue their partisan political theater. But now that floor debate has begun on the Obama-Dodd bill, the Republican fight will now turn to protecting Main Street from the excessive bureaucracy the Obama-Dodd bill would create. Even Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) said on Fox News this morning he’s concerned about the added layers of bureaucracy that would be imposed on small, community banks:

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) expressed this same concern yesterday, saying that the current bill would “extend too far and adversely impact Main Street businesses that use third party financing to help customers pay for their products or services.” Doug Tippens, a community banker in Oklahoma, gave credence to Warner’s and Nelson’s concerns:

So why would Oklahoma bankers oppose the financial reform bill pending in the Senate? Simple: As presently drafted, the bill ... more

At a fiscal summit yesterday, Paul Volcker and former President Bill Clinton – both close White House confidants – expressed their support for the Value-Added Tax as a worthy solution to continue fueling Obama’s binge spending. As Reuters reports, Clinton's and Volcker’s comments added to the curious chatter amongst Obama allies praising the VAT as the way of the future.

The idea of a European-style value-added tax got qualified backing on Wednesday from two prominent figures: former President Bill Clinton and former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Both Clinton and Volcker, who is an outside adviser to President Barack Obama, told a private forum on fiscal issues that they saw benefits for the United States from a VAT, a tax on goods at each stage of production.

The VAT is a regressive form of taxation that would be a clear violation of Obama’s pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $250,000 a year “a single dime.” But as White House gurus subtly prep the ... more

The Wall Street Journal reports today that local auto dealerships are trying to put the brakes on provisions in the Obama-Dodd Wall Street bill that would drive up the cost of auto financing and force them to comply with more cumbersome regulations. After Obama already decimated local auto dealers last year in order to bail out GM and Chrysler, the industry fears that the regulations he wants now could be a deathblow to businesses that are an integral part of the health of Main Streets in towns big and small across the country.

"It's dangerous and it's aiming at the wrong people," said Ed Tonkin, chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association. "It's using a sledgehammer to go after a gnat, and we're not that gnat." . . . Auto dealers say they simply are connecting the car buyer with another firm, such as a bank or finance company, and those lending the money should be subject to federal regulation. The dealers also argue they didn't cause the financial crisis and ... more

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer took to the White House blog yesterday to attack “a favorite talking point among opponents of reform.” He is outrageously disputing the obvious fact that dramatic cuts for Medicare Advantage payments will result in dramatic cuts in benefits for the program.  His claim is based on a quote in a Bloomberg story from the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, who said during a conference call with investors that “reduced payments won’t keep the company’s products from competing with Medicare insurance offered directly from the government.”

If Pfeiffer had kept reading that Bloomberg story, he’d see why Medicare Advantage beneficiaries are so angry with the cuts, regardless of what an insurance company CEO is saying in a pep talk with his investors.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in a March 19 analysis of the health-care legislation, did estimate that enrollment in the private plans would drop to about 9.1 million by 2019, a 17 ... more

Reuters reports that Obama’s Budget Chief Peter Orszag told Obama’s “Show Me The Vat” Commission today that the U.S.’s deficits would cause problems in the future:

Orszag warned that huge deficits could cause the market to lose confidence in a government's creditworthiness. Out-of-control deficits could also “require increased borrowing abroad which will mortgage our future income to foreign creditors.”

If Orszag believes this is the case, why did he write a budget for Obama that sets record levels of deficit and debt that could lead to these consequences?  As we’ve pointed out before, China already owns $800 billion of our debt and as a result of Obama’s binge spending we will spend more this year on debt service than any other top rated country (except the U.K.) As Obama’s binge spending continues, the situation will only become worse as foreign investors become increasingly worried about our debt and as a result interest rates on our debt will increase as demand falls.

Yesterday, we highlighted Sen. Max Baucus’ comment that the so-called “Bank Tax” is all but inevitable. However, the facts keep getting in the way of the Democrats’ claim that the tax is necessary to recoup losses from TARP. Today, we’re reminded that the Treasury is making a record profit from the money that it lent to Wall Street:

"Two-thirds of the TARP investment from banks has already been repaid with a large profit to the taxpayer," said Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable. "TARP was a positive boost to the economy and the government, and taxpayers are seeing a positive return on their investment." The Federal Reserve reported last week that it had transferred a record $47.4 billion in profits to the Treasury in 2009 from its Wall Street rescue operations — up 50 percent from 2008.

So, where are these losses from the TARP program coming from? Despite GM’s profoundly misleading commercials touting that they have repaid their government loan, they ... more

Politico’s Laura Rozen is reporting on the latest White House “public relations blitz,” designed to reassure worried Jewish leaders that President Obama’s year long public confrontation with Israel does in fact have a purpose:

The White House is engaged in an aggressive effort to reassure Jewish leaders that the tense relationship between the Obama administration and the Israeli government that has played out in public in the last few months does not signify any fundamental change in U.S. policy… [A]dministration officials have mounted what amounts to a public relations blitz trying to rectify what they have come to believe is largely a perception problem that Obama is being unreasonably tough or even hostile to Israel — not a substantive disagreement over its Middle East policies.

Their real policy actions are in conflict with their misleading rhetoric to the American Jewish community, as was the case last week in a speech delivered by President Obama’s National Security advisor ... more

The President likes to maintain that his stimulus plan enjoys broad support amongst economic experts. But a recent poll of economists casts doubt on that assertion. As CNN Money reports, The National Association Of Business Economics conducted its quarterly survey of its members and found that a clear majority saw no effect on employment at their companies due to the President’s stimulus binge spending.

About 73% of those surveyed said employment at their company is neither higher nor lower as a result of the $787 billion Recovery Act. . . That sentiment is shared for the recently passed $17.7 billion jobs bill that calls for tax breaks for businesses that hire and additional infrastructure spending. More than two-thirds of those polled believe the measure won't affect payrolls, while 30% expect it to boost hiring "moderately."

As we have shown before billions of dollars from the stimulus were wasted on union cronies and wasteful pork projects. And despite the President’s promise ... more