Phairness Doctrine

A quick analogy about this lie about President Obama's Medicare "theft": Let's say you gave me $40 to fill up your car with gas, and your car holds 10 gallons.  I find two gas stations across the street from each other, one selling gas for $3 a gallon, and the other for $4 a gallon.  Instead of spending $4 a gallon and using all the money, I pay $3 a gallon and spend $30, then take the leftover $10 and buy you a gas card to be used later. Your car got filled up, but I didn't spend the whole $40 doing it.  Did I just steal $10 from you?  Or, did I fill up your car and give you even more gas than was expected? This is what Obama's Medicare plan is doing.  They've found ways to cut spending in Medicare ($3 instead of $4) and are using the savings to provide more benefits.  Things like free annual wellness exams, free flu shots and free screenings for things like bone mass, cervical cancer, mammograms, diabetes, cholesterol, and prostrate cancer (se...

I cannot sit idly by and let a blatant lie be told over and over again by Romney, Ryan, Priebus, etc. and allowed to be spread by the mainstream media. The lie being:  President Obama has "stolen" $716 billion from Medicare in order to pay for "Obamacare".  Or, put another way, Obama has "cut Medicare" by $716 billion, the implication being that Medicare benefits have been cut.  They have not. (quick point: Obama is not a dictator and could not do anything to Medicare without it being passed by Congress, but that being said...) The $716 billion number to which Romney & Co. refer is the amount the CBO has determined the elimination of the Affordable Care Act would add to Medicare costs between 2013 and 2022.  So, if the ACA were to be repealed, Medicare costs would go up by $716 billion. But, the "cut to Medicare" isn't a cut to Medicare benefits.  One more time:  The cut to Medicare is not a cut to Medicare BENEFITS.  The "cu...

A few things about this recent outrage over Olympic medal winners paying taxes on their winnings (American athletes are given prize money of $25,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze): 1. This is not a new tax. According to Dara Torres, while   sitting in with Fox & Friends , athletes weren't given prize money for winning medals before 2000, so they weren't taxed. When they started getting paid at the 2000 Olympics, they started paying taxes on the winnings. So, this isn't a new "Obama tax". 2. The numbers cited for the taxes an athlete would pay ($8,986 for gold, $5,385 for silver and $$3,502 for bronze)  are based on the athletes earning over $388,350 a year, which would put them in the highest tax bracket (35%). That's probably not the case for most of these athletes. And, if it is, like for returning athletes who have already made millions in endorsements, paying taxes on their winnings (just like they pay taxes on the...