Excerpts from Gary Bauer’s Campaign for Working Families End of Day Report, today, (posted with permission):
As Barack Obama prepares to deliver his sixth State of the Union address, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the state of Obama’s America is not well at all. Just consider these figures:
• Only 28% of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction.
• 71% are dissatisfied with the state of the economy.
• Just 31% of Americans think the country is better off than in 2009, when Obama took office.
• When asked how they would described the country, 60% said “divided” or “troubled,” while 21% said “deteriorating” and 14% said “broken.” Only 3% offered that America today is “strong.”
As America begins the sixth year of Obama occupying the Oval Office, “hope and change” have given way to despair and decline.
Setting The Tone — More Division . . .
Obama and his aides have already made it clear that they are prepared to bypass Congress. This morning the White House made good on that threat by announcing that Obama was unilaterally raising the minimum wage paid to federal contract workers to $10.10 an hour — a 39% raise — and indexing it for inflation.
Obama will highlight this action in his speech tonight and then call for Congress to raise the minimum wage for everyone else. Of course the left is applauding this move. But it means that taxpayers will now have to pay more for those same services. Contractors bidding on future projects will have to factor those higher costs into their bids and will raise prices as a result.
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) blasted Obama’s move saying, “The president just unilaterally, without Congress … made government that much more expensive. We all have to pay for it.” Rep. Steve King (R-IA) labeled Obama’s action “a constitutional violation,” adding, “We have a minimum wage. Congress has set it. …we’ve never had a president with that level of audacity and that level of contempt for his own oath of office.”
Speaking Of Obamacare…
There is good reason for Obama and his Democrat allies to avoid Obamacare. Last week a Fox News poll recorded record opposition to the law. Fifty-nine percent of voters said they opposed the law, including 30% of self-identified Democrats and 64% of independents, while just 36% supported it.
And there is plenty for people not to like. Here are a few of the latest Obamacare blunders making headlines:
• Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), who is retiring this year, suggested that Obamacare is in danger of entering the dreaded death spiral. “I don’t think we’re going to get enough young people signing up to make this bill work as it was intended to financially,” Moran said. “I just don’t know how we’re going to do it frankly. If we had a solution I’d be telling the president right now.”
• As a result of Obamacare’s growing problems, Moody’s downgraded the health insurance sector last week.
• One of Obamacare’s major selling points was that it would to help tackle the problem of too many uninsured Americans. But it is making the problem worse in California. And the Wall Street Journal recently reported that “Only 11% of consumers who bought new coverage under the law were previously uninsured.”
• Target announced that it is cancelling health insurance plans for part-time workers, forcing them into the Obamacare exchanges to take advantage of the taxpayer-funded subsidizes. Target isn’t the first company to do this and more are expected to do the same.
• Some parents are finding that Obamacare won’t cover their children.
Conservative Opposition To Immigration Bill Growing
. . . Amid growing reports that GOP leaders are preparing to embrace amnesty, the editors of National Review are now on record urging House Republicans to avoid committing an “unforced error” by taking up the controversial issue.
A major reason cited to stay away from this trap is lack of trust in Obama, who “refuses to enforce key provisions of his own health-care law, let alone provisions of immigration law he finds uncongenial.”
Ed. Note: Bold typeface is our emphasis. The entire CFWF newsletter is always worthwhile and available here.
