Updates
Later, 12:02 pm: update on the ObamaCare links below. Six out of ten doctors will retire early because of ObamaCare. That's sixty percent. Once ObamaCare is fully in place, your health care will be a lot like your "Frequent Flyer Miles." You will have lots of insurance (on paper) but no appointments will be available. Sort of like Frequent Flyer Miles with a lot of blackout dates. Cue up Connie Francis. Wow, I can't believe how one president can screw up a country in such a short time; it's gonna take a decade to undo all that he has done. If we're fortunate enough that it can be undone at all.
Later, 11:46 pm: it looks like Yahoo!Finance/CNBC get their stories from the same place I do, the Wall Street Journal. The ObamaCare links below, to the WSJ, are now the top stories at Yahoo!Finance/CNBC. I won't link because the link is dynamic and will change by tomorrow. But it is rather humorous that readers of the blog are getting the links before they become headline stories at Yahoo!Finance/CBC. And no advertising. What a deal.
Original Post
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Two huge "page-3" stories, both worth reading in today's Wall Street Journal, on page 3 of Section A.
First, airlines dispute planned air-controller cuts; FAA says sequester forces employee furloughs, while industry argues passengers are being used as political pawns.
Flashback: President Reagan fires controllers; airline industry did not collapse; August 5, 1981; 11,345 controllers fired.
Then, this story: US Marine general officer expects Marine Corps to shrink due to sequester; don't be fooled; that's been in the works for some time; this provides excuse; the Nobel-peace-prize President has learned to love the drone; US Marines not needed for "drone warfare."
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Piece-by-piece, ObamaCare is being dismantled: buried deep in the newspaper, and it won't even be reported anywhere else, the Senate (symbolically) voted overwhelmingly (79-20) to pay for ObamaCare with a new tax on medical devices.
The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday night to repeal a tax on medical-device sales, despite the fact that the levy helps finance the health-care overhaul.
The vote was largely symbolic, but the 79-20 tally signals strong opposition to the 2.3% tax on device sales that went into effect Jan. 1. Even though the levy is meant to help foot the bill for the signature legislative achievement of President Barack Obama's first term, 33 Democrats as well as independent Sen. Angus King of Maine joined Republican senators in voting to repeal the tax.
The vote came as an amendment to the Senate Democrats' fiscal year 2014 budget, a partisan tax-and-spending blueprint that stands no chance of passing the GOP-controlled House. Still, the solid bipartisan support shows growing momentum for repealing the tax, which lawmakers have argued hurts U.S. competitiveness and costs highly paid jobs.And this was an easy tax for Americans to accept. Wait until Congress gets an earful from constituents when their health care premiums double.
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Op-ed: Obama's energy security trap --
What's the best way for President Obama to revive interest in a costly green-energy program? Try a little Republican return-on-investment.
Mr. Obama sojourned recently to Illinois to devote an entire speech to the Energy Security Trust, a proposal he first floated in last month's State of the Union. The president wants to divert $2 billion of federal oil and gas royalties to a dedicated fund for research on post-fossil-fuel vehicles. He presents the fund as a win-win-win-win-win. The technology to emerge from the research will "break this cycle of spiking gas prices." The plan is "nonpartisan." It will strengthen "national security." It won't add "a dime to our deficit." It is about "saving money" and "saving the environment."
Actually, it is mostly about setting up the GOP to abandon the position it has taken on energy after the president's string of taxpayer-funded bankruptcies, from Solyndra to A123 Systems. Using the carrot of federal drilling and the stick of "bipartisanship," Mr. Obama sees a neat way to squeeze yet more subsidy money from a bleeding budget. More important, he sees a way to get GOP buy-in for his green agenda, and to blunt GOP opposition for future energy failures connected to his grants and subsidies. All that political upside for a mere $2 billion.Wow, it echoes exactly what was posted earlier.
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Bakken still selling at a premium to WTI: at Clearbrook, MN, drillers are getting 50 cents more for Bakken than the WTI posted-crawler price.
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Both oil and the markets are up today. CVX flirting with a new high; quite a run. SRE near its high. EPD, too, could another high, after hitting a 52-week high earlier this week. ENB near it's all-time high. BRK-B, ditto.
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