JOHN BOEHNER

We've been working on this internally from a number of different perspectives.  One that has [us] the most concerned is the $3,000 penalty that kicks in when an employee's portion of a premium exceeds 9.5% of Household Income.  We wanted to start to estimate what our potential liability will be after 2014 with regard to the 9.5% of Household Income provision, assuming all things being equal to where we are today.  To do this, we pulled Household Income data for all 421 of our Castle trading areas, and used this to approximate the Household Income of team member households.  (Most often our employees are reflective of the neighborhoods where we do business.)  We then applied weighted averages to the different plans to determine approximately how many team members would have their premium amount exceed 9.5% of household income. In present form, this provision alone would lead to approximate increased costs equal to over 55% of what we earn annually in net income (based on past 4-year average).  Effectively cutting our net income in half would have [a] devastating impact on the business - cutting future expansion and more job creation at least in half.  Sadly, it makes it difficult to justify growing where jobs are needed most - in lower income areas.

Even those employers who do offer health insurance could be penalized, according to a study published last month by Mercer, a global consulting firm.  Under the new law, health insurance premiums charged by employers to employees must not exceed 9.5% of their household income.  As many as 38% of employers may be at risk of violating the unaffordable coverage provision, the study concluded. . . The irony is that in the name of expanding health care coverage the administration is making it harder than ever for unskilled workers to get started in the workforce.  Clearly, the new health care bill enacted in March will have negative effects on the employment of low-skill workers. No employer, whether Wall Street or Walmart, should be required to offer health insurance to workers, just as they are not required to offer auto and home insurance - or is that next?  But the employers of low-skill part-time workers in the restaurant and retail sectors will see the most distortions due to the new mandate. With 15 million Americans out of work, and millions more discouraged job seekers withdrawn from the labor force, Congress and the administration should focus on getting people back to work.  Instead, with the health care bill, Washington is condemning more unskilled Americans to the ranks of the unemployed.

The Obama administration continues to argue that its massive federal-spending campaign is essential to economic recovery.  Yet the latest GDP report from the U.S. Department of Commerce shows that the 3.2 percent first-quarter economic growth rate got no help from government spending....What's more, over the last three quarters of a mild V-shaped recovery, with an average quarterly rebound of 3.7 percent, government spending actually exerted a small net drag (-0.03%) on growth.  Turns out that all those entitlement transfers of income borrowed and taxed from Peter to pay Paul have made no direct contribution to the nation's production of goods and services.

Washington Democrats have no coherent agenda to create jobs, and no interest in doing anything but continue to spend money we don't have on ‘stimulus' programs that don't work.  Our economy will ultimately recover, but it will do so because of the hard work and entrepreneurship of the American people, not more wasteful Washington spending.  Republicans have proposed better solutions to cut spending now and help put people back to work.

“Eighteen states have said they will not administer a stopgap program to provide insurance coverage to people whose preexisting conditions have left them uninsured, forcing the federal government to do the work. The states' decisions increase the challenge the government faces as it sets out to translate the far-reaching health-care legislation into action, and they hint at the complexities to come… Some governors said they were unwilling to take on the task because it appears that Congress has allocated too little money.” (Washington Post, “18 states refuse to run insurance polls for those with preexisting conditions,” 5/4/2010)

With European budget deficits worsening, investors are now worried that - like American homeowners who borrowed too much in the last decade - some countries may have a hard time paying off their debts....Some even worry that the next debt crisis may materialize closer to home - in the United Kingdom or even the United States, where budget deficits and debt burdens are growing. Both countries are now issuing debt at reasonable levels of 4 percent. The long run of cheap financing may be coming to an end, though, even for the most creditworthy countries.

This year, 43 cents out of every dollar we're going to have to borrow, and they're just piling this debt on the backs of our kids and our grandkids.  I think it's time for the Democrats here in Washington to begin to stand up and be honest with the American people.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans do not believe the $787 billion stimulus package the president passed last year has helped create jobs, according to a new Pew Research Poll.  Sixty-two percent of those polled said the stimulus hasn't contributed to job creation while 33 percent said the package has.

[O]fficials from Washington to Massachusetts are blasting a $92 million ‘Cadillac'-style renovation of the sprawling IRS center in Andover, calling the use of federal stimulus dollars to collect more taxes a ‘boondoggle' that won't even bring long-term jobs to the area.... The IRS received $80,469,000 in stimulus funds for ‘green' upgrades to the 400,000 square-foot complex, more cash than any other federal building in New England, according to documents from the U.S. General Services Administration, the agency that oversees federal buildings. The IRS already had $11.4 million on hand for the work, a GSA spokeswoman said.

The state program offering rebates on energy-efficient appliances ran out of money just two hours after it began yesterday, prompting officials to declare the $5.5 million effort a success, but frustrating would-be participants who faced jammed phone lines and website error messages...Nationwide, $300 million in stimulus money was set aside for the program, which is intended to boost the economy and promote energy conservation.  In some states that offered rebates before Massachusetts, the money was also claimed quickly. For many people, however, the experience was anything but simple. Most who tried to log on to the state website shortly after 10 a.m. were greeted with an ominous message - ‘Forbidden: Access is denied' - and phone calls resulted in busy signals.  ‘It's disappointing, what can you say?' Louis Cicolari of Clinton said after being stymied by the downed website.

[C]ontractor Lockheed Martin was paid $454,000 to manage a call center for the program - but only handled a pitiful 133 calls out of 900,000 placed.  Lockheed also developed the Web site - the one that crashed - and collected more than $800,000 in all for its work distributing the dough.  That's before we even get to the $5.4 million in ‘free' money (actually borrowed stimulus funds) given to consumers who may have planned to buy that dishwasher even without it.   Hello? This is why people throw Tea Parties! It's also what passes for a wise investment of taxpayer dollars. How scary.