From My Way: White House putting off release of budget update (emphasis mine):

The White House is being forced to acknowledge the wide gap between its once-upbeat predictions about the economy and today’s bleak landscape.

The administration’s annual midsummer budget update is sure to show higher deficits and unemployment and slower growth than projected in President Barack Obama’s budget in February and update in May, and that could complicate his efforts to get his signature health care and global-warming proposals through Congress.

The release of the update – usually scheduled for mid-July – has been put off until the middle of next month, giving rise to speculation the White House is delaying the bad news at least until Congress leaves town on its August 7 summer recess.

The administration is pressing for votes before then on its $1 trillion health care initiative, which lawmakers are arguing over how to finance.

The White House budget director, Peter Orszag, said on Sunday that the administration believes the “chances are high” of getting a health care bill by then. But new analyses showing runaway costs are jeopardizing Senate passage.

“Instead of a dream, this routine report could be a nightmare,” Tony Fratto, a former Treasury Department official and White House spokesman under President George W. Bush, said of the delayed budget update. “There are some things that can’t be escaped.”

Trouble in paradise?

Any member of either Congressional chamber voting in favor of health care reform prior to the release of the White House budget data abdicates responsibility and common sense, and the negligence involved profound to the point of defying any form of logic. The correct recourse to such behavior, bordering in this author’s opinion on criminal, is the removal of the offending thief.

The Hill reports that Healthcare marathon may hit wall this week:

If President Obama’s analogy — that reforming healthcare is a long race — holds true, this week might just be Heartbreak Hill.

Beginning on Monday, Obama will find out if congressional Democrats have the wherewithal to push ahead with their — and his — ambitious goal of crossing the healthcare finish line before August, or whether they have to stop and stretch before limping across at a later date.

It’ll be close.

In the House, Democratic leaders are still grappling with severe cramps caused by two different groups: their vulnerable freshman members and the conservative Blue Dog Democrats.

Twenty freshman Democrats, led by Rep. Jared Polis (Colo.), have threatened a revolt against the $544 billion worth of tax increases spelled out in the House bill — one of the two revenue pillars holding up the Democrats’ promise of producing a “deficit-neutral” healthcare bill that is expected to cost more than $1 trillion.

The Ways and Means Committee completed its markup of the tax portion of the bill last week, meaning that if the freshmen aren’t satisfied with the result, close to two dozen votes could be at risk.

So far, all indications point to House leaders sticking with their plan to pay for half of their bill through a sliding surtax on the income of Americans in the top tax brackets — a plan the White House has blessed but for which the Senate has not indicated an appetite.

Beyond that, the biggest threat to the August goal — if not successful passage of the bill altogether — is coming from fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats, who have banded together in opposition to everything from Medicare reimbursement rates to an automatic public plan, and have hinted at bolting on the idea of taxes of any kind.

The will of these Democrats, and the power of their leaders to cut deals with them, will be on full display starting on Monday, when the critical Energy and Commerce Committee continues its markup of major portions of the House bill.

Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has vowed to finish his markup by midweek as promised. But the Blue Dogs have said they have enough votes to kill the bill in committee if changes aren’t realized. And on issues where the committee lacks jurisdiction, such as the tax portion, Blue Dogs have warned that there are enough votes to kill the bill on the floor as well.

Light up the phone lines and send those emails to your Representative and Senator.

And they better pay attention. As the Washington post reports: Poll Shows Obama Slipping on Key Issues, Approval Rating on Health Care Falls Below 50 Percent

Heading into a critical period in the debate over health-care reform, public approval of President Obama’s stewardship on the issue has dropped below the 50 percent threshold for the first time, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Obama’s approval ratings on other front-burner issues, such as the economy and the federal budget deficit, have also slipped over the summer, as rising concern about spending and continuing worries about the economy combine to challenge his administration. Barely more than half approve of the way he is handling unemployment, which now tops 10 percent in 15 states and the District.

The president’s overall approval rating remains higher than his marks on particular domestic issues, with 59 percent giving him positive reviews and 37 percent disapproving. But this is the first time in his presidency that Obama has fallen under 60 percent in Post-ABC polling, and the rating is six percentage points lower than it was a month ago.

Obama has taken on a series of major problems during his young presidency, but he faces a particularly difficult fight over his effort to encourage Congress to pass an overhaul of the nation’s health-care system.

Wondering why liberals are rushing through health care reform? Time is the enemy of liberalism. The more of it we have, the less chance they have of passing destructive, socialized, deficit growing legislation. Only conservative democrats capable of level-headed thinking can save us from the disaster of Obamacare. The longer this bill is debated, the worse it begins to look and the odds of getting real health care reform increases.

Michelle Malkin on Obama’s slipping poll numbers.

Also, check out Michelle’s Democrats reverse Obama on auto dealerships. Looks like not all Democrats are a rubber stamp for Obama and his policies. Poll numbers do count. Go figure.

The truth is out: Glimpse of Obamacare future: 83 million would lose private coverage. Like I said, the smell gets worse as time passes.

Right Pundits: Dude, Where’s My Budget?

More: Even The NYT Won’t Avoid The Truth – Socialized Healthcare Stinks

Glenn Reynold’s warns via Advertising Age:

ANOTHER REASON FOR THE RUSH: Advertising Age: Obama Wants to Avoid Health-Care-Reform Ad War. “If supporters of health-care legislation seem like they’re in a hurry to get a bill passed, it might be because they’re hoping to avoid a costly ad war they would stand a good chance of losing. . . . If a health-care bill isn’t passed before the August recess, that opens the door for opponents to appeal to the public.”

Like the filthy and uneducated masses should have anything to say about what is best for us. Sounds like the elites disrespect for us unedumakated gun tottin’, bible clutching nitwits uncloaks itself.

The Wall Street Journal on how the AMA betrays doctors by backing ObamaCare (emphasis mine):

What’s Up, Docs? The AMA signs its members up to be civil servants.

Everyone supports “health reform” as an abstract goal, but that mile-wide consensus is an inch deep when it comes to substance. Increasingly, however, most of the major health industry lobbies seem prepared to concede the mile — as long they get their inch.

The latest example is the American Medical Association’s unqualified endorsement Thursday of the health bill patched together by House Democrats. In a letter to Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel, the doctors group lays on its “appreciation and support” pretty thick, and pledges to “work with the House committees and leadership to build support.” The so-called tri-committee plan is also the most left-leaning out there, funding its new coverage for the uninsured in part by cutting payments to doctors and hospitals in Medicare and Medicaid.

But lobbyists don’t lobby for less revenue for their members, and Democrats seem to have procured the AMA’s bouquet with what the AMA letter says is the promise of “fundamental Medicare reforms, including repeal of the sustainable growth rate,” or SGR. The SGR is a formula that Congress created in 1997 as a form of fiscal triage, mandating automatic cuts in physician payments if entitlement spending rises too steeply. Next year, they’re scheduled to drop by 21.5%.

President Barack Obama speaks about health care on Friday in the Diplomatic Room of the White House.

Doctors despise the SGR, and understandably so. Medicare’s administered prices are already 20% to 30% lower than those of private insurers, and then Congress threatens to arbitrarily pay even less for the medical goods and services it wants to buy. However, Washington always swoops in with an 11th-hour reprieve that defers the pain to another year, given that even deeper cuts would cause many doctors to stop treating Medicare patients. But this only makes the distortions worse, creating an uncertain business climate and forcing some doctors to compensate by shifting costs onto their private patients or making up in volume what they lose on margin in Medicare.

Yes, ending this incoherent farce is a great idea. But the AMA is essentially saying that if doctors get paid more, all else is negotiable. Other industry lobbies such as the insurers and drug makers have made the same calculation, putting their short-term self-interest — usually ensuring that government programs remain generous (enough) — ahead of the long-run threats. It can’t last.

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