Orszag strikes out as Social Security goes bankrupt

Before he came to Obama's Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag used to work for the Congressional Budget Office. While there, Orszag warned that Social Security would start running deficits in 2019 unless the system is reformed. Orszag was off by about 3,285 days. The New York Times is reporting that as of today, Social Security is officially producing red ink.

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.

With the Obama Administration having done nothing to help create jobs, somewhere near 20% of the country is estimated to be unemployed or underemployed. Those people are paying little to nothing to the Social Security Administration, which has rapidly accelerated its collapse. Turns out you actually need people to be productive in order to tax them. And with the economy already teetering on top of massive debt and a $1 trillion health care bill on the way, Social Security recipients will find there isn't very much money left to go around. The program could go bust any day at this point.

The same CBO that miscalculated Social Security's red ink by nine years also claimed the health care bill would reduce the deficit. Its former oracle, Orszag, now has the president's ear on all budget matters.

Obama's abortion executive order is completely useless

Last night, ObamaCare passed the House of Representatives for the final time after the president persuaded Bart Stupak's pro-life Democrats to vote yes. Obama wooed Stupak with an executive order that will supposedly prevent taxpayer money from funding abortions. Unsurprisingly, the president hasn't signed the order yet, and it's just as well because it's total bunk. The text has been released already and the entire document is a big loophole.

The order would supposedly require insurance plans in the newly-created federal exchange to be segregated from private ones that provide abortions. This would prevent abortions from being funded by any public money. But the text never specifically establishes this segregation. Here's what it says instead:

"I hereby direct the Director of OMB and the Secretary of HHS to develop, within 180 days of the date of this Executive Order, a model set of segregation guidelines for state health insurance commissioners to use when determining whether exchange plans are complying with the Act's segregation requirements, established in Section 1303 of the Act, for enrollees receiving Federal financial assistance."

In other words, the executive order doesn't segregate the funds. It just asks OMB Director Peter Orszag and Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to figure it out. Sebelius is stridently pro-choice and gained notoriety when she defended radical abortionist George Tiller in her home state of Kansas.

It would have been very easy for the president to simply type, "Under absolutely no circumstances shall federal funds be used for abortions except in the cases of rape and incest, and where the life of the mother is threatened." Instead we get this:

The Act maintains current Hyde Amendment restrictions governing abortion policy and extends those restrictions to the newly-created health insurance exchanges.

In other words, if the Hyde Amendment is ever overturned -- certainly a possibility given how pro-abortion Obama is -- then this act enables federal funds galore to be used for abortions. When Massachusetts implemented its universal health care plan, abortions ultimately ended up being covered thanks to the bill's loose language. It will only be so long before the same thing happens here.

And of course, at the end of the document, we have the usual closing print that concludes all executive orders.

(c) This Executive Order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity against the United States, its departments, agencies, entities, officers, employees or agents, or any other person.

The executive order isn't the law of the land. No executive order ever has been the law of the land. Bart Stupak held out for months on the principle that siphoning federal funds to abortion doctors is wrong. He wanted specific legal protections in ObamaCare to this effect. Instead he got a loosely-worded executive order that becomes irrelevant if the law is changed or if the president decides he doesn't like it anymore. When Stupak's deal was struck yesterday, the House Pro-Choice Caucus stayed silent. Later every one of them voted in favor of the bill. They understand what eluded Bart Stupak: this ultimately means nothing.

Peter Orszag says federal employees aren't overpaid

Peter Orszag, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, defended federal employees' salaries yesterday.

"I think the key thing to remember about that is the federal workforce is more highly educated than the private workforce," Orszag said. "Roughly a third of the private workforce has a college degree, for example, [while] well over 50 percent of the federal workforce [does]."

Orszag also noted that "as people gain more experience, pay tends to increase," and the federal government has a highly experienced workforce. "Basically the entire delta between private sector and public sector federal government average pay can be explained by education and experience," he said.

Orszag was responding to a spate of newspaper articles showing that government workers made more than private sector employees. But his analysis is dishonest, as this report from USA Today shows.

Overall, federal workers earned an average salary of $67,691 in 2008 for occupations that exist both in government and the private sector, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The average pay for the same mix of jobs in the private sector was $60,046 in 2008, the most recent data available.

These salary figures do not include the value of health, pension and other benefits, which averaged $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 vs. $9,882 per private worker, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis.

For the same jobs with the same education level, government workers still take in almost $8,000 more than private sector workers. And that disparity is actually much higher if you take into account benefits. And as anyone who knows anyone who works for the government will tell you, public sector workers are promoted quickly even if they're doing very little work. Right now the government is looking is to hire up to 100,000 new employees, even as most businesses are laying people off and cutting salaries. And with Obama looking to expand the government as far as possible, that number could rise even higher.

Obama Administration sets in stone a massive power grab

Today Barack Obama's budget director Peter Orszag made official an unprecedented White House power grab.

From the White House blog:

"There have been other advancements, from providing online access to White House staff financial reports and salaries, adopting a tough new state secrets policy, reversing an executive order that previously limited access to presidential records, and web-casting White House meetings and conferences."

Obama's state secrets policy, established by Attorney General Eric Holder in the midst of a lawsuit over Bush's warrantless wiretapping program back in June, has nothing to do with transparency. The policy dictates that nobody can sue Obama's government over sensitive issues related to national security. Of course, what constitutes a sensitive issue related to national security is also left up to Obama's government. It's a breathtaking power grab that goes well beyond anything George W. Bush ever wanted, and Holder came under fire from both the right and the left at the time. Now this is apparently official policy, despite Obama's pledge to run "the most open and transparent administration in American history." File it in the stuffed "Broken Promises" folder.