Washington, DC - Ways and Means Republicans today sent Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Peter Orszag a letter voicing their concern about the Administration’s collection and interpretation of data on jobs they attribute to stimulus.  Of particular concern to the Republican Members was the Administration’s decision to quietly change how it counted “stimulus jobs” and the… Read more

Although Democrats think their health-care legislation faces smooth sailing to implementation, there is a rock dead ahead -- a constitutional challenge to the legislation's core. Democrats who assume it is constitutional to make it mandatory for Americans to purchase health insurance should answer some questions: Would it be constitutional for the government to legislate compulsory… Read more

In releasing a new study concocted by the same people who said the unemployment rate would never exceed 8 percent if stimulus was passed (at 10 percent it currently stands 25 percent higher), Christina Romer, the chair of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, said the Democrats' bill had a “truly stunning and important effect” on jobs and that “it has done exactly what we have… Read more

Yesterday, leaders of the nation’s largest unions pointedly told the President that his plan to tax health care benefits for the first time was a bad idea. This morning, in a column printed by the Washington Post, Fortune magazine’s senior editor at large Allan Sloan, noted that upon closer inspection “you come away far less impressed” with the tax.  Why?  Primarily, because “the… Read more

Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released data showing the nation lost 85,000 jobs in December and the unemployment rate remained at 10 percent.  Of note, especially for the millions of Americans without work, tomorrow marks the first birthday of the Romer/Bernstein report.  The now infamous document contains the Administration’s prediction that the 2009 stimulus law would “create… Read more

PRESIDENT OBAMA is a great admirer of the Mayo Clinic. Time and again he has extolled it as an outstanding model of health care excellence and efficiency. “Look at what the Mayo Clinic is able to do,’’ the president proclaimed at a rally in September. “It’s got the best quality and the lowest cost of just about any system in the country. . . . We want to help the whole country learn from… Read more

WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress. The built-in "marriage penalty" in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could… Read more

C-SPAN Challenges Congress to Open Health Care Talks to TV Coverage The head of C-SPAN has implored Congress to open up the last leg of health care reform negotiations to the public, as top Democrats lay plans to hash out the final product among themselves. C-SPAN CEO Brian Lamb wrote to leaders in the House and Senate Dec. 30 urging them to open "all important… Read more

Today the Ranking Members of the House Education and Labor, Energy and Commerce, and Ways and Means Committees sent the following letter to Speaker Pelosi urging open and fully bipartisan negotiations on reconciling the House and Senate health care bills. A signed copy of the letter can be viewed here.   January 5, 2010 The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the House H-232, U.S.… Read more

Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI) today released an analysis of major tax provisions passed by the Democrat-controlled House showing a net tax increase on American families and employers of at least $1.171 trillion over the next decade.  The table below provides a list of the tax bills, gross increase and decrease in taxes through 2019, the net total of job-killing tax hikes… Read more