http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/02/14/way-more-than-smidgen-voters-say-irs-corrupt/Way more than a smidgen: Voters say IRS corrupt
Chris Stirewalt
Published February 14, 2014
FoxNews.com
WAY MORE THAN A SMIDGEN: VOTERS SAY IRS CORRUPT
Vulnerable Democrats facing an onslaught of conservative cash this cycle are calling for the IRS to crack down on nonprofit groups expressing political views. The Senate Democrats seeking the crackdown were quick to say that the heavy hand of the tax agency should fall on “either side,” but they pretty clearly are thinking about the conservative groups currently pummeling them for passing and preserving ObamaCare. And if the new rules sought by Obama Democrats were to work anything like the non-codified targeting that went on at the agency in the last two election cycles, liberal groups would have little to fear. Seventeen percent of the groups targeted for extra scrutiny may have been left-leaning, but when it came to actual audits, 100 percent of the targets were conservative. Despite that track record, the official line from Democrats remains that what happened at the IRS was neither corrupt nor politically motivated, but rather the result of unclear rules Team Obama is now in the process of rewriting. But what do you think?
They smell a rat - On Super Bowl Sunday, President Obama famously told Bill O’Reilly that there was “not even a smidgen of corruption” in the targeting. But a new Fox News poll found 64 percent of voters, including a bare majority of Democrats, thought the targeting was corrupt. Nine months after the scandal first went public, 71 percent still want Congress to continue investigating.
OBAMACARE REMORSE: BAITED, SWITCHED AND UPSET
A new Fox News poll finds 55 percent of voters wish ObamaCare had never passed. Fifty-one-percent of voters said the law would be bad for the country in the long run. Overall, 64 percent of voters believed the law wouldn’t have passed in 2010 if Americans knew what they know today. Some 56 percent of respondents said the health law is more about the government “controlling our lives” than about “helping individual Americans get the health care they want.”
MOODY’S: OBAMACARE CHANGES WILL HIKE PRICES
The Hill: “A leading credit rating agency is panning two proposed changes to ObamaCare’s implementation as negative for health insurance companies. Moody’s Investors Service said Thursday that requiring insures to expand their provider networks and allowing patients to keep non-compliant health plans for an additional two years could harm insurers and raise prices on the exchanges. The firm also characterized this week’s second, partial delay of the employer mandate as frustrating and logistically complicated for the insurance industry.”
No pay, no policy – Insurance industry officials tell Fox News that between 10 percent and 25 percent of ObamaCare enrollees have not paid their premiums, and thus, do not really have coverage. Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry has more.
Endangered Dems dig for ‘copper’ plan - WSJ: “Some backers of the 2010 health-care law are pushing to create a new kind of insurance coverage that the measure essentially had ruled out: policies offering lower premiums but significantly higher out-of-pocket costs than those now available. The plans, dubbed ‘copper’ because they would offer a lower level of coverage than the ‘gold,’ ‘silver’ and ‘bronze’ options on the government-run health-care exchanges, would be a departure from the minimum level of coverage that is one of… [ObamaCare’s] core principles…Sens. Mark Begich of Alaska and Mark Warner of Virginia, both Democrats facing close re-election races this year, are sponsoring legislation that would allow people to buy copper plans on the exchanges. Moreover, insurance-industry officials have been talking up the idea with federal officials, though it is unclear whether the administration could make the change through regulations.”
Happy talk - President Obama will try to pep up House Democrats at their winter retreat today as his party faces a bleak election year in the lower chamber. While Obama has pledged to hold 18 more fundraisers for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, his signature law and veering implementation of it have left the party grasping for ways to discuss the unwieldy scheme of regulations, entitlements, taxes and welfare. After the speech, Obama heads west for a golf weekend in California. – Watch Fox: Chief Congressional Correspondent Mike Emanuel is on the scene.
Trolling for enrollments - First lady Michelle Obama used the White House email account for a mass message with a cryptic subject line worthy of a diet-pill vendor: “I need you to see this:” Inside was a plea for Americans to voluntarily comply with her husband’s signature law before fines kick in.
Never mind - Washington Examiner columnist David Freddoso looks back at the “read the bill” mania that surrounded the passage of ObamaCare. In hindsight, he argues, there was no reason for the furor: “At this point, it probably would not have mattered even if members of Congress had read Obamacare. It isn’t actually a written law - it becomes the law whenever Obama decides, and with whatever changes he chooses.”
