Though Healthcare.gov doesn't open for business until November 15, the spin for the second open enrollment period for ObamaCare has already begun. More than a year after the disastrous rollout of the federal Exchange, which our insurance-salesman-in-chief, President Obama, said users would have a shopping experience similar to Kayak, Orbitz, or Amazon, the administration agencies overseeing the website are already downplaying expectations: Read more here...
2. The Costs of Common Core Testing - by Logan Albright
Common Core educational standards, like all recent attempts to expand federal control of the education system, rely heavily on standardized testing in their efforts to improve the competitiveness of American students. It seems that bureaucrats on educational boards are capable of no more creative idea than that repeatedly drilling facts into children’s heads and then testing them to within an inch of their life is the only way to improve educational outcomes.
The theory itself is grossly flawed and ignores entirely the myriad ways in which children learn and succeed, but the federal fixation on testing persists, and now we’re all going to have to pay a price for it. I speak not only of the price to the students’ sanity, to the teachers’ flexibility, and to parents’ peace of mind, all of which have been written about extensively, but the purely fiscal cost to state governments as well. Read more here...
3. The United States Gets a Failing Grade in Tax Competitiveness - by Robert Mariani
The economy is trying to pull itself out of a deep rut, and many voices are asking the same question: what can the government do to help? For real, sustainable growth, the answer is that the government needs to loosen its grip on the economy.
The Tax Foundation has recently published a report that analyzes the tax policy of the thirty-four Organisation for Economic Development (OECD) member countries, which are more or less all of the advanced economies in the world. The results are jarring. The United States ranks 32 out of 34 in terms of the competitiveness of our taxation – only Portugal and the Socialist-led France rank lower than we do. The main factor in in this embarrassment is our bush league corporate tax rate. The Tax Foundation makes it clear: “The United States provides a good example of an uncompetitive tax code… The largest factors behind the United States’ score are that the U.S. has the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world and that it is one of the six remaining countries in the OECD with a worldwide system of taxation.” Read more here...
4. CDC's Inability to Deal with Ebola Isn't for a Lack of Funding - by Jason Pye
A progressive organization is out with a new issue ad blaming congressional Republicans for the Ebola outbreak. In the disgusting minute-long ad, titled "Republican Cuts Kill," the Agenda Project Action Fund uses clips of Republicans, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KY), urging more spending cuts to the federal budget. It also features footage of Obama administration officials discussing budget cuts and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Disease Control's (CDC) purported inability to deal with viral outbreaks.
Unsurprisingly, however, the ad is wholly misleading. The ad -- meant to play on Americans' fears about Ebola -- makes note of the $446 million budget cut to the NIH funding, but the agency saw its budget increase by nearly 23 percent, adjusted for inflation, between FY 2000 and FY 2013. Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, points out that "[b]etween 2000 and 2014, CDC outlays almost doubled in 2014 constant dollars, from $3.5 billion to $6.8 billion." Read more here...
5. The CDC's Mission Creep: A Dangerous and Wasteful Distraction - by Josh Withrow
As Ebola and other emerging diseases continue to dominate our headlines, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to be America's front line of defense against the outbreak of a devastating epidemic. However, the agency has stumbled, and an examination of its activities reveal an institution often more focused upon advancing progressive social priorities and nanny-state interventions than simply performing well at its one intended job. Read more here...
6. Matt Kibbe Discusses the Midterm Elections - via C-SPAN
FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe was on CSPAN's Washington Journal to discuss the 2014 elections. Watch here...
7. Here's How Harry Reid and his Crony Pals in the Senate Could Cause a $15 Billion Tax Hike - by Jason Pye
Inaction in the Senate on the Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (H.R. 3086) could cost Americans nearly $15 billion each year, according to a new study from the American Action Forum.
The Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act (PITFA), which makes permanent the existing moratorium on taxation of Internet access by all levels of government, cleared the House of Representatives on a voice vote in July (FreedomWorks planned to key vote "Yes" on this bill), but it has been stalled in the Senate. Supporters of the so-called "Marketplace Fairness Act" -- the Internet sales tax measure predominately backed by traditional, brick-and-mortar retailers -- are making a big push in the Senate to attach the measure to the PITFA. Read more here...
8. What the "Official" Jobs Numbers Aren't Telling You - by Logan Albright
Early this month, the Pew Research Center released its News IQ Quiz, in order to survey the general public’s level of knowledge about current events. This provided no end of fun for commentators, gleefully mocking the average American’s ignorance, as if knowing the minimum wage or the Chair of the Federal Reserve has any relevance to most people’s lives, when many are still struggling to find jobs and feed their families.
It’s true that many people have a lot to learn about what’s going on in the world these days, but of particular interest was one survey question regarding the unemployment rate. When asked about the national unemployment rate as reported by the government, only a third of people said it was close to 6 percent, 27 percent said close to 9 percent, and 18 percent said close to 12 percent. Read more here...
In Liberty,
Jackie Bodnar
Director of Communications, FreedomWorks
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