The Week Just Passed: Time for the Senate to Act on Jobs

IRS Agrees with Rodney on Volunteer Emergency Responders

New ‘Watchdog’ Report Adds to Health Law’s Security Concerns

House Passes Common-Sense Health Exchange Security Measure

Disappointing: President Missing Another Budget Deadline

“The Costs of U.S. Retreat”

“How Al Qaeda Terrorized Its Way Back in Iraq”

Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates new book

The Week Just Passed: Time for the Senate to Act on Jobs

“Congress returned to the headlines this week with debates over a suggested hike in the minimum wage and an extension of long-term unemployment benefits.  While these discussions are important on some level, they miss the larger issue we should be discussing: Congress and the President should be working fulltime on restoring a healthy economy that encourages businesses – large and small – to hire.

“Here’s why: while the ‘official’ unemployment rate has been dropping in recent months, there is another important measurement that remains disturbingly negative.

“The ‘labor-force participation rate’ includes all Americans 16 or older who either have a job or have actively sought one in the past four weeks. Those who have not pursued work in the past four weeks are no longer counted as 'unemployed' — they just disappear from the government’s job numbers.

“Today, the labor-force participation rate is near its lowest point since the Jimmy Carter Administration 35 years ago, and has been in steady decline since the recent recession began a few years back.

“As of today, the percentage of people working or actively seeking a job is only 63 percent.  In human terms, there are now 91.5 million Americans who are not in the labor force.  Yes, some of this drop-off can be explained by retirements of ‘baby-boomers’ and other factors.  But frustration in the job market – people who want jobs but have given up looking - is clearly playing a major role. 

“Stagnant job growth, business-choking regulations and skyrocketing health care costs are not what hardworking Americans deserve.  As we start this New Year, the President, the House and the Senate should be focusing on solutions to put people back to work and spur economic growth.

“We’ve passed dozens of bills in the House that continue to await action in the Senate that would help improve the hiring climate and stimulate higher wages and job creation.  It’s time for the Senate to do their job so Americans can have a job!”

Rodney Frelinghuysen

IRS Agrees with Rodney on Volunteer Emergency Responders

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has informed Rodney that the service hours of “bona fide” volunteer firefighters and other emergency personnel will not be counted under the President’s new healthcare law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA).  Rodney received a letter today from Alastair Fitzpayne, the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Legislative Affairs, who wrote, “…the forthcoming final regulations generally will not require volunteer hours of bona fide volunteer firefighters and volunteer emergency medical personnel at government entities or tax exempt organizations to be counted when determining an employer’s full-time employees…”

“I welcome the news that pending IRS regulations will apparently not force volunteer fire departments, first aid squads and EMS organizations to provide health insurance coverage for their volunteer members,” Rodney said.  “This is a huge win for our first responder organizations, these dedicated individual volunteers and for the taxpayers!”

Under the legislative requirements of the ACA, fire departments and emergency squads feared that they would have to provide health insurance for volunteers working more than 30 hours a week. The ACA stipulates that the ‘employer mandate’ must apply to organizations that have at least 50 employees, which can include multiple fire houses within one community. 

In December, Frelinghuysen wrote to Acting Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Commissioner Danny Werfel, “I am deeply concerned that subjecting fire departments and municipalities to this provision will result in services being reduced or eliminated.” He followed up this week with a letter to the new Commissioner of the IRS, John Koskinen.

Assistant Secretary Fitzpayne indicated that the final federal regulations in this area should be issued “very shortly” and that these regulations “should provide timely guidance for the volunteer emergency responder community.”

New ‘Watchdog’ Report Adds to Health Law’s Security Concerns

A new report from the Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General underscores the reality of security concerns surrounding the health law’s exchanges. Marketwatch reports: “The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services aren’t taking enough precautions to ferret out fraud in electronic health record use as medical providers continue to migrate from conventional paper documents. … The inspector general further reported that CMS needs to guide contractors on detecting electronic records fraud and it should have contractors use audit logs.”

The House Energy and Commerce Committee’s ongoing investigation into the new health law’s balky rollout has raised serious concerns regarding the security of the exchanges. Because the exchanges were not fully built prior to October 1 (and are still incomplete today), open enrollment began before HHS conducted a full Security Control Assessment. This lack of complete security testing led to a memo written to CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner explaining, “From a security perspective, the aspects of the system that were not tested due to the ongoing development, exposed a level of uncertainty that can be deemed as a high risk…”

Read more about the Energy and Commerce Committee’s investigationhere.

House Passes Common-Sense Health Exchange Security Measure

In response to the security “high risk” posed by healthcare.gov, the House this morning approved legislation designed to protect consumers.  H.R. 3811, the Health Exchange Security and Transparency Act,would require HHS to notify Americans within two business days if any of their personally identifiable information has been compromised on the exchanges.

“With respect to security, the President’s healthcare.gov website can be considered slip-shod, at best, and risky, at worst,” Rodney said.  “Americans deserve to know if and when a new health care exchange has put their personal information at risk.  The Administration has said it will notify individuals in case of a breach. However, this legislation requires notification by law if an individual’s personally identifiable information is compromised.”

Disappointing: President Missing Another Budget Deadline

President Obama declared in a November radio address, budgets “expose what our priorities are as a country for all to see.”

Once again this year, the budget will be difficult for “all to see” on time.  The White House indicated this week that its annual budget, required to be submitted to Congress no later than the first Monday in February, will be weeks late.

With this year’s potential failure, five of the Obama Administration’s last six budgets will have been submitted late, including last year’s FY2014 proposal which was sent to Congress 65 days late.

Recommended Reading: “Americans want to forget about Iraq and Syria, especially since President Obama walked back from his bombing threat in September, but Syria and Iraq haven't forgotten America. The contagion from Syria's civil war is spilling across borders in ways that are already requiring U.S. involvement and may eventually cost American lives.” Read the editorial in the Monday Wall Street Journal, “The Costs of U.S. Retreat, Al Qaeda revives in Iraq and Syria's contagion spreads to Lebanon” here.

Recommended Reading: Max Boot, writing in the Monday Wall Street Journal, “How Al Qaeda Terrorized Its Way Back in Iraq.”

Noted: Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates new book, “Duty: Memorirs of a Secretary at War” received Page 1 coverage in theWashington Post and Wall Street Journal.  But it was buried in the back pages of the New York Times.  What does that tell us?

Washington Post: “Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama’s leadership in ‘Duty’” by Bob Woodward.

Wall Street Journal: “The Quiet Fury of Robert Gates. Bush and Obama's secretary of defense had to wage war in Iraq, Afghanistan—and today's Washington.  Excerpts by Robert Gates.

New York Times: Thom Shanker wrote, “Bipartisan Critic Turns His Gaze Toward Obama