Framing the Dialogue

Posts Tagged ‘Congressional budget office’

News Briefs – Volume XIX It’s All About Healthcare Baby

News briefs are a collection of interesting news stories and this edition is all about Obamacare…

Brief 1:  Many seasoned citizens were shocked at AARP’s support of the Obamacare legislation which contained a significant cuts to doctor’s fees and cuts in allowable payments to hospitals.  The fear, of course, is that many provider would simply stop accepting Medicare patienst, a majority of which are the aforementioned senior citizens.  One had to wonder who the AARP, a membership organization, was actually lobbying for?  Just recently the AARP had announced that their employees will see a rise in their health care costs in a statement from an AARP spokesperson;

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My Turn At Bat

Sorry this is not a baseball post.  Those of us living in Pittsburgh with the hapless Pirates; holders of the longest losing streak of all professional sports (17 years and counting) don’t talk about much about professional baseball.  Our president gave his first pitch at a State of the Union speech and apparently did not hit the strike zone.  I confess to not watching as I could not bear to see Ms. Pelosi popping up every 30 seconds, Obama’s use of the words “I” or “me” a gazillion times or his unusual speech pattern whistling his S’s.  The fact that he is on television every 17 hours giving a speech did not weigh in his favor either.  I played tennis on our Wii (I achieved “Pro” status during his speech).

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Harry Reid and the Chamber of Secrets

Harry Reid and the Chamber of SecretsIt seems like the Republicans have failed to stop the Obamacare bill from making its way to the President’s desk to sign sometime early next year.  In a rare occurrence, the Democrats have not been able to peel off one RINO from the Republican party enabling them to call this a bipartisan bill.  Maybe that is because Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has written the legislation in a secret chamber somewhere in Washington.  His amendment was only released to the Senate after he completed the bribes to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson.  The  Wall Street Journal calls this a “Change That Nobody Believes In.”

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Obfuscate (ob – fuh – skeyt)

Obfuscate is defined in as:

“To make so confused or opaque as to be difficult to perceive or understand”

Synonyms: muddle, perplex, cloud

President Obama often starts his remarks with the statement “I want to be very clear” then obfuscates the topic.  (this is a semi-quote from Rush Limbaugh.  Since I was driving I have to rely on my memory as to the exact phrasing.)

Can you give me an example?

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Logan’s Run Healthcare?

“The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength. By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age.

The population continued to climb — and with it the youth percentage.

In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 percent.

In the 1990s, 82.4 percent. In the year 2000 — critical mass.”

                           William F. Nolan & George Clayton Johnson (Introduction to the novel Logan’s Run)

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Trillion (tril – yen)

Trillion is defined as:

“a number represented by 1 followed by 12 zeros or an indefinite but very large number.”

It seems like the folks in Washington, D.C have successfully made the leap from billions of dollars to trillions of dollars.  What amazes me is how little uproar there is from the government funders (AKA taxpayers) as these massive numbers are bandied about.

Can you use it in a sentence?

“The Congressional Budget Office on Friday said that, if the Obama budget unveiled last month were approved, the federal government would run deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion a year over the next decade.”

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