Office of Management and Budget

Stockman became one of the most controversial OMB directors ever during a tenure that lasted until his resignation during August 1985.

Committed to the doctrine of supply-side economics, he assisted the approval of the "Reagan Budget" (the Gramm-Latta Budget), which Stockman hoped to be a serious curtailment of the "welfare state", gaining a reputation as a tough negotiator with House Speaker Tip O'Neill's Democratic-controlled House of Representatives and Majority Leader Howard Baker's Republican-controlled Senate.

During this period, although only in his early 30s, Stockman became well known to the public during the contentious political wrangling concerning the role of the federal government in American society.

Stockman's influence within the Reagan Administration decreased after the Atlantic Monthly magazine published the famous 18,246 word article, "The Education of David Stockman",[6] in its December 1981 issue, based on lengthy interviews Stockman gave to reporter William Greider. The White House's public relations team thereafter attempted to limit the article's damage to Reagan's perceived fiscal-leadership skills.

Stockman was quoted as referring to Reagan's tax act as: "I mean, Kemp-Roth [Reagan's 1981 tax cut] was always a Trojan horse to bring down the top rate.... It's kind of hard to sell 'trickle down.' So the supply-side formula was the only way to get a tax policy that was really 'trickle down.' Supply-side is 'trickle-down' theory."

[7] Of the budget process during his first year on the job, Mr. Stockman is quoted as saying: "None of us really understands what's going on with all these numbers," which was used as the subtitle of the article.

After Stockman's first year at OMB and after "being taken to the woodshed by the president" due to his candor with Atlantic Monthly's William Greider, Stockman became inspired with the projected trend of increasingly large federal deficits and the rapidly expanding national debt. On 1 August 1985, he resigned OMB and later wrote a memoir of his experience in the Reagan Administration titled The Triumph of Politics: Why the Reagan Revolution Failed (ISBN 0060155604), in which he specifically criticized the failure of congressional Republicans to endorse a reduction of government spending as necessary offsets to the large tax decreases, in order to avoid the creation of large deficits and an increasing national debt.
[edit]

Fiscal legacy

President Jimmy Carter's last signed and executed fiscal year budget results ended with a $79.0 billion budget deficit, ending during the period of David Stockman's and Ronald Reagan's first year in office, on October 1, 1981.[8] The gross federal national debt had just increased to $1.0 trillion during October 1981 ($998 billion on 30 September 1981). By 30 September 1985, four and a half years into the Reagan administration and shortly after Stockman's resignation from the OMB during August 1985, the gross federal debt was $1.8 trillion.[9] Stockman's OMB work within the administration during 1981 until August was dedicated to negotiating with the Senate and House about the next fiscal year's budget, executed later during the autumn of 1985, which resulted in the national debt becoming $2.1 trillion at fiscal year end 30 September 1986.[10]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Stockman#Office_of_Management_and_Budget

Just kidding about the gold and going along with that theme. And I'm sorry, but this man has the destruction of the social safety next and lot of bodies in his closet and is not suffering one bit.

Having lived through those days and seeing what the Reagan policies did across the board, I can't give him a pass. Call me unfair, but what was done to people still puts all of them in the dog house for me, anyway.

YMMV, and that's okay with me.

Just remember that people who are out to hurt others can gain nothing of value from their actions, all they can do is create misery.

Misery is easy to create. It's the tool of the maliciously lazy.

Happiness takes work, it is the reward for a a life being well lived.

~ Anon.

Their interest begins early in life:



They have special interests:



As they age, they read better:



They hold the place for you:



They assist students reading:



And show you when it's time to quit:

I know people who are below retirement age, past retirement age and those with children this will be helping. For many of these people, it's the difference between life and death. Obama has kept his promise to the ones who are not covered in media. This is a silent revolution taking place in their lives and those who care for them.

The Obama Hate Machine



NEW FROM BILL PRESS: THE BOOK THE KOCH BROTHERS DON’T WANT YOU TO READ.

In Toxic Talk, Bill Press exposed the ways in which the extreme right-wing media has done an end run around the American voting populace by exerting a disproportionate control over open political debate. In The Obama Hate Machine, Press returns to show how the Right has taken rhetoric to slanderous new levels in attacking the nation's forty-fourth president.

But presidents have always been attacked like this, right? Wrong. As the author shows, while presidents and presidential candidates routinely have been subject to personal attacks, the outright disdain Obama's extremist opponents have for the facts has inspired an insidious brand of character assassination unique in contemporary politics.

Obama was born in Kenya... Obama sympathizes with Muslim terrorists... Obama is a communist who wants to institute death panels and touch off class warfare... The extent to which these unfounded assertions have taken hold in the American mindset shows just how ruthless, destructive, and all-powerful the right-wing machine hijacked by extremists in the media and fueled by corporate coffers has become. The author reveals how corporate interests such as the infamous Koch Brothers continue to steer political coverage away from fact-based dialogue into the realm of hysteria. Bill Press also observes this phenomenon is not limited to the airwaves and provides an Hate Obama Book Club list, calling out the scores of anti-Obama tomes and even some from the Left that have helped drag politics even deeper into the mud.

In his characteristic on-the-mark arguments sure to appeal to anyone on the Left or in the Center, Press shows how the peculiar nature of Obama-hating subverts issue-driven debate and threatens not only the outcome of the 2012 election but the future of the American democratic system.

http://www.billpressshow.com/obama-hate-machine/

Full video here at C-SPAN:

http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/304985-1#

HHS finalizes rule guaranteeing 100 percent funding for new Medicaid beneficiaries

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced a final rule with a request for comments that provides, effective January 1, 2014, the federal government will pay 100 percent of the cost of certain newly eligible adult Medicaid beneficiaries. These payments will be in effect through 2016, phasing down to a permanent 90 percent matching rate by 2020. The Affordable Care Act authorizes states to expand Medicaid to adult Americans under age 65 with income of up to 133 percent of the federal poverty level (approximately $15,000 for a single adult in 2012) and provides unprecedented federal funding for these states.

“This is a great deal for states and great news for Americans,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said. “Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, more Americans will have access to health coverage and the federal government will cover a vast majority of the cost. Treating people who don’t have insurance coverage raises health care costs for hospitals, people with insurance, and state budgets.”

Today’s final rule provides important information to states that expand Medicaid. It describes the simple and accurate method states will use to claim the matching rate that is available for Medicaid expenditures of individuals with incomes up to 133 percent of poverty and who are defined as “newly eligible” and are enrolled in the new eligibility group. The system is set up to make eligibility determinations as simple and accurate as possible for state programs.

Under the Affordable Care Act, states that cover the new adult group in Medicaid will have 100 percent of the costs of newly eligible Americans paid for by the federal government in 2014, 2015, and 2016. The federal government’s contribution is then phased-down gradually to 90 percent by 2020, and remains there permanently. For states that had coverage expansions in effect prior to enactment of the Affordable Care Act, the rule also provides information about the availability of an increased FMAP for certain adults who are not newly eligible.

The rule builds on several years of work that HHS has done to support and provide flexibility to states’ Medicaid programs ahead of the 2014 expansion, including:

* 90 percent matching rate for states to improve eligibility and enrollment systems;

* More resources and flexibility for states to test innovative ways of delivering care through Medicaid;

* More collaboration with states on audits that track down fraud; and

* Specifically outlining ways states can make Medicaid improvements without going through a waiver process.

For more information on the improvements made to Medicaid, please visit:

http://www.medicaid.gov/State-Resource-Center/Events-and-Announcements/Downloads/MMF_Jan-Dec-2012_FINAL.PDF

For the full text of today’s final rule, please go to:

http://www.ofr.gov/inspection.aspx

http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2013pres/03/20130329a.html

This is a huge relief to those who would not be covered for conditions no one can afford. I will be passing this good news along to those who have loved ones dependent on Medicaid.

This is what the GOP wanted to slash and are doing in every state that they control. It will save the lives of many people we may never meet, but they are our fellow sojourners.

Thanks to ProSense for finding this story and letting me post it here. She posted it in GD, where you can see it here:

HHS finalizes rule guaranteeing 100 percent funding for new Medicaid beneficiaries

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=2584523

Pope Francis' first Mass as Pontiff - in full

Also found this one from PBS:



Watch the complete Inaugural Mass of Pope Francis

Another one:



Pope Francis celebrates mass at St. Anne Parish

And a last one, I think:



Pope Francis Holy Mass conclusion of the Conclave

Hope those who understand this better will enjoy them. I'll take some time to see them during the week. Enjoy Easter if I don't hear from any of you.

EDIT:

Excuse me, I don't know what the order of these events were. Here are some more videos:



Pope Francis - Mass of Inauguration

Another, I don't know how these may have progressed. It seems like this event may have taken most of the daylight. I don't know what a Homily is in this context:



Pope Francis - Homily at Mass of Inauguration

The same search results shows this youtube channel, which appears to be official, but I don't know if it is. Any opinion on the validity of what they are offering is appreciated.

http://www.youtube.com/user/mhfm1?v=ENWYRPkA7Ao&feature=pyv&ad=7367214752&kw=catholic%20masses

I only mention it because the theme is quite different from the videos, AFAIK, with Fatima, etc. It comes up first in search results.