4 Myths About The Spending Cuts

The political bickering over the automatic spending cuts has done little but cloud the public's understanding of what's going on and why.

So we'll try to set the record straight on at least a few oft-repeated misconceptions.

Myth 1 - Obama is to blame for the spending cuts: No. In fact, both sides got behind the idea and time has been wasted playing the blame game.

The so-called sequester was part of the deal to resolve the ugly debt ceiling fight that had dominated Washington for months in 2011.

The idea to include the measure first came from the administration, according to Bob Woodward's book The Price of Politics. But both chambers of Congress agreed to it by passing the Budget Control Act in August 2011, and President Obama signed it into law.

Since then neither party has made a serious effort to meaningfully negotiate a sequester replacement with their colleagues across the aisle.

Myth 2 - The world will be noticeably different right away: It really won't.

The sequestration order started the ball rolling on the across-the-board cuts federal agencies must make.

But it will take a little while for those cuts to be executed. And once they are -- assuming Congress does nothing to override them -- the ramifications will be felt over months, not a few weeks.

For instance, hundreds of thousands of federal workers will be furloughed -- but the duration and timing of those furloughs will vary. Some will start in April. Others over the summer.

And general public awareness of the cuts is likely to be delayed and uneven, since not everyone will be directly or even indirectly affected by every cut.

Myth 3 - It's not hard to cut $85 billion: That would be a fair point to make if the $85 billion were really being pulled from funding across all parts of the $3.5 trillion federal budget.

And it would be an even fairer point if the cuts were made strategically so as not to undercut what's working efficiently, and gratuitously dinging economic growth in the process.

But that's not how the sequester works.

The $85 billion in funding is being cut mostly from the smallest part of the budget pie -- discretionary spending, which has already been subject to lower spending caps in the past two years.

And it must be cut from funding over seven months -- March 1 to Sept. 30 -- as opposed to a full 12 months' of funding for the fiscal year. That means the percentage cuts to programs will need to be steeper.

To make matters worse, agencies will have little discretion about what gets cut since the sequester mandates that the cuts be made by the same percentage to every non-exempt area. Efficient programs will be axed right along with bloated or duplicative ones.

"The sequester mechanism was drafted in order to prevent flexibility by imposing the cuts all the way down to the program, project and activity level. The point was to make sequester so unpalatable that it would force Congress to address difficult choices," budget expert Charles Konigsberg said.

Well, clearly that hasn't worked so far.

Myth 4 - The cuts will hurt the economy badly, or they won't be a big deal: The economy will be affected. Just how badly no one can say with certainty.

The baseline assumption: The spending cuts, if kept in place all year, will reduce economic growth for 2013 by 0.6 percentage points and reduce the number of full-time jobs created by 750,000, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Even counting the cuts in combination with the tax increases approved in the fiscal cliff deal and expiration of the payroll tax cut, the CBO estimates the economy would still grow at an inflation-adjusted 1.4% this year.

That's hardly recession territory. But it's tepid growth for what is supposed to be an economic recovery.

And some worry the consequences of the cuts may be worse than expected because of the knock-on effects that aren't always taken into account.

Obamacare: Where Are we Now?

Obama’s health care law passed 2 years ago, but where are we now?: It seems that the right of President Barack Obama's health care reform has been controversial fodder for Republican smears and allegations of the century. And he seems to be. Today marks the second anniversary of the House narrowly compression on health care reform, where the Supreme Court will consider next week, before making a decision on the legality of this summer.

This law was quickly challenged by the attorneys general of states, while Republicans have promised Congress' repeal and replace "it. The new rules also galvanized Tea Party, which has been credited with changing political landscape, and drove home the Republican swing elections in 2010 mid-term. But since then, public demonstrations have died down, partly because the most controversial aspects of the law will not take effect until 2014. A popular part of the Consumer Protection Act were deliberately front-loading.

Despite the recent Gallup poll showed that Americans are divided by whether they think that the law on public health, should be abolished. Only one in seven respondents of another poll said that they have experienced something positive law. Recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) finds that the ratio of 5 million people risk losing their employer-based insurance between 2019 and 2022. CBO also found that less than 2 million uninsured Americans would obtain coverage by 2016 than previously thought and that the law will also be a bit cheaper than the original estimate.

With an argument in the Supreme Court is about to begin, we'll make sense of what is going on health wise. Here is a brief overview of what happened in force and what to expect in the future, with the help of research from the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Already in force

The most popular consumer protection-oriented part of the law will come into force on the first, and it is no accident. The President knows that he needs to create public support for the law, before you deploy the most controversial measures.

Insurance companies are already considering new rules that prevent them from installing "limited lifetime" of the benefits of one of their paying customers. They can not refuse to cover children of pre-existing conditions or plans to start children with their parents until they reach 26 years. (About 2.5 million young people were the plans of their parents in accordance with the latter characteristic, according to the Obama administration.)

Older people who have reached the Medicare Part D prescription coverage gap has received additional money for drugs, small businesses that offer their employees the right to participate in new tax breaks, as well as about 50,000 adults with pre-existing conditions who have been denied coverage in the past, came to the a new high risk pool established by law. (And in 2014 the insurance companies will not be able to deny coverage to sick children.)

Hoping for John Boehner, as the light? Your portfolio may take a hit with the new 10 percent tax on tanning in a solarium, a law introduced in. But the other, the most important services will see savings, with some families receiving preventive care like exams, which should be offered free for those on Medicaid .

Some plans have not changed significantly since the law passed are "grandfathered" and may avoid some of these new changes.

That coming this year

We already have an idea, with disagreements over the attack on Rush Limbaugh statement Georgetown Law students Sandra Fluke free birth control, but this coming August plans must provide women with no contraceptive quotas. It is part of a list of preventive services, such as cholesterol screening, the law says must be provided without cost sharing. Once a religious group protesting President Obama said, religious educational institutions, such as Catholic hospitals have one more year until 2013 in accordance with its mandate. The administration says the insurer will go directly to the customer to provide contraception, so that the religious employer not to do so.

Depending on your insurance company, you can just enjoy a little extra money. For the first time this year, some insurance plans that spend more than 20 percent of insurance premiums for their clients for medical expenses such as marketing will need to send cash rebates to customers. This rule is aimed at encouraging insurers to keep premiums, punishing them if they do not reduce their costs.

One of the most popular components of the Health Act (as voted by the Kaiser Family Foundation tracking) is set take effect this fall, when the health plans to publish a form that is easy to understand description of its advantages, so that customers can comparison shop.

Other groups that could see higher bills: the pharmaceutical industry will have to pay extra this year, and the law begins to cut payments to hospitals without the need for rehospitalization of patients Medicaid.

What's next on the road

In 2013, Americans who earn more than $ 200,000 a year can expect higher taxes, as well as manufacturers of medical devices whose products are faced with a new 2.3 percent tax.

But all the main points deployed in 2014, when Medicaid will be expanded to encompass the majority of people with low income (defined as a family of four was $ 30,657 or less per year) to 65. Employers with more than 50 people will be fined if they do not provide health insurance to their employees, and those who are not eligible for Medicaid Extended, but do not offer insurance for their work exchange may buy insurance from the state. (The federal government has provided millions of grants to states to implement these exchanges in the areas of health, though some expressed doubts that they will be ready for entry in 2014). People who live for up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level receive grants or tax cuts to buy insurance from trade.

Insurance companies can not deny to any person who is ill and will not be allowed to charge higher premiums based on gender of the customer. The Act also establishes guidelines for that insurance should cover, and introduces new taxes on the industry.

Last modified on tax "luxury" health plans, which will come into force in 2018. Insurers that offer plans costing $ 10,200 or more will face the tax.

Romney's Muddled Illinois Message

Romney's Muddled Illinois Message: The Illinois showdown between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum could mark a turning point in a race that refuses to die.

That is, if anyone could get excited about it. The contest lacks just one thing: any sense of drama.

By every conceivable measure, Romney should carry the primary on Tuesday, perhaps by a more comfortable margin than he had in Michigan and Ohio. Romney has greatly outspent the former Pennsylvania senator, as usual, and is up 45 to 30 percent among likely voters in the latest Public Policy Polling survey. Even if Santorum somehow pulls off a popular-vote upset, he will trail in the delegate count because once again he didn’t manage to file a full slate.

The last-minute fisticuffs has left both men without a positive message. Romney ripped Santorum as an “economic lightweight,” prompting Santorum to call him a “big-government heavyweight” and “Wall Street financier” who would be Tweedledum to Barack Obama’s Tweedledee. Worse, in punching back on the campaign trail Monday, Santorum said, “I don’t care what the unemployment rate’s going to be. Doesn’t matter to me.”

Romney is on track to beat Santorum on Tuesday, but his negative, math-driven campaign is sparking little enthusiasm in Illinois. Howard Kurtz on how the GOP race has become an insider’s debate.

While he was trying to make the larger point that presidents don’t create jobs, businesses do, Santorum was being as clumsy as his rival had been in declaring “I don’t care about the very poor.” And the Democrats have it on tape.

Maybe it’s fatigue, but both men’s performances seem to be deteriorating as the campaign grinds on. No wonder Illinois Republicans sound soporific.

“There just doesn’t yet seem to be the interest,” former Gov. Jim Edgar, who is sitting out the race, told The New York Times.

“He’s not overwhelming,” former House Republican leader Bob Michel told Politico. about Romney, the candidate he's supporting. Michel asked: “What’s the spark? What’s the thing that gets him off and running? No one knows.”

The Romney camp will play up an Illinois victory as further evidence that their man is compiling an insurmountable delegate lead and Santorum has no chance of catching him. But the relentless focus on math has obscured Romney’s message and turned the GOP race into something of an insider’s debate about party rules, proportional representation, and the possibility of a deadlocked convention. Santorum has played along, saying the odds of a brokered convention are increasing. And that—what will happen in the back rooms of Tampa in late August—is at this stage a conversation mainly of interest to political junkies.

Romney remains ultra-cautious on the issues. In an interview Sunday on Fox News—he continues to avoid all other Sunday shows—Romney accused President Obama of “failed leadership” in Afghanistan. But when asked if he would favor a speedier withdrawal, Romney said:

“Well, the timing of withdrawal is going to be dependent about what you hear from the conditions on the ground. That you understand by speaking with commanders, as well as, of course, the people of Afghanistan and their ability to maintain their sovereignty and to have the capacity—to have a military that can stand up to the challenges they face.” Speaking with commanders? How, exactly, does that differ from Obama’s policy?

Santorum, for his part, still seems to be targeting his message at very conservative and religious voters after his misstep in Puerto Rico. There Romney trounced him after Santorum said the commonwealth would have to adopt English as the official language if it became a state. He is now talking about a crackdown on pornography, and when asked on MSNBC’s Morning Joe whether contraception had become a distraction for his campaign, Santorum responded forcefully about religious liberty and passed up chances to move on to other subjects.

The result is that the Illinois race seems frozen in Romney’s favor. In the PPP poll, Romney triples Santorum’s following among “somewhat conservative” voters, 60 percent to 20 percent. And Santorum is up by only 8 percent among Tea Party followers and 10 percent among evangelicals, margins too modest to offset his weaknesses elsewhere.

The relentless focus on math has obscured Romney’s message and turned the GOP race into something of an insider’s debate about party rules.

Newt Gingrich, for his part, recently accused Obama of “crushing Christianity and Judaism.” But he is back at 12 percent in the PPP survey, drawing far less media attention after failing to win Alabama or Mississippi last week.

Ironically, Romney might benefit more if Illinois were closer, because journalists tend to get exercised over squeakers and steer clear of blowouts. The media market has already priced Romney’s expected Illinois victory into his political stock, leaving little possibility of a surprise bump.

After Saturday’s Louisiana primary, where Santorum leads by 4 points in one poll, the contest moves to what should be friendlier terrain for Romney: Maryland, D.C., and Wisconsin on April 3, followed by New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Delaware on April 24 (plus Santorum’s home state of Pennsylvania).

Santorum has won 10 states, a significant accomplishment for his underfunded campaign. But if Illinois renders the same verdict as the previous two Midwestern states where Santorum fell short, it will amount to another missed opportunity for him to change the dynamic of the race.

Brazen Robbery Of Supreme Court Judge

Justice Breyer robbed at West Indies vacation home: Justice Stephen Breyer was robbed last week by a machete-wielding intruder at his vacation home in the West Indies, a Supreme Court spokeswoman said Monday.

The 73-year-old Breyer, wife Joanna and guests were confronted by the robber around 9 p.m. EST Thursday in the home Breyer owns on the Caribbean island of Nevis, spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said. The intruder took about $1,000 in cash and no one was hurt, Arberg said.

She said the robbery was reported to local authorities, but she did not know if an arrest has been made.

Breyer reported on his most recent annual disclosure in June that property he owns on Nevis is worth between $100,000 and $250,000.

The last time a justice was the victim of a crime was in 2004, when a group of young men assaulted Justice David Souter as he jogged on a city street. Souter suffered minor injuries.

In 1996, a man snatched Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's purse while she was out walking with her husband and daughter near their home in Washington. Ginsburg was not hurt.

The justices return from a nearly month-long recess for a closed-door conference on Friday. They will next meet in public on February 21.