White House official fired over anonymous tweets

WASHINGTON — A senior White House official who was helping negotiate nuclear issues with Iran has been fired after being unmasked as the acidic voice behind a Twitter account known for its insults of public figures at the White House and on Capitol Hill, a government official said on Tuesday.

Jofi Joseph was director of nuclear non-proliferation on the White House National Security Council staff, but for more than two years sent hundreds of anonymous and abrasive tweets using the handle @NatSecWonk.

He was fired last week after he was caught, the official said.

A White House official confirmed Joseph no longer worked there, but would not comment on personnel matters. The firing was first reported by the website Daily Beast.

In his Twitter biography, now removed from the social networking site, Joseph described himself as a “keen observer of the foreign policy and national security scene” who “unapologetically says what everyone else only thinks.”

As the widely followed @NatSecWonk, Joseph speculated anonymously about the political motives and career moves of administration officials he worked with. They included Ben Rhodes, President Barack Obama’s spokesman on national security issues.

This month, Joseph tweeted that Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state, “had few policy goals and no wins” in the Middle East. He agreed with Republican Representative Darrell Issa, who has relentlessly pursued Clinton for administration actions after last year’s attack on the U.S. diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya.

“Look, Issa is an ass, but he’s on to something here with the @HillaryClinton whitewash of accountability for Benghazi,” he tweeted.

He also sniped at U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power’s use of Twitter. “Can someone again brief @AmbassadorPower that Bashar Assad likely doesn’t follow her Twitter feed?” he recently wrote.

Joseph did not respond to phone and email requests for comment, but he told the website Politico he regretted his tweets.

“What started out as an intended parody account of DC culture developed over time into a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments. I bear complete responsibility for this affair and I sincerely apologize to everyone I insulted,” Joseph said in an email to Politico.

He also targeted journalists, including Daily Beast reporter Josh Rogin who broke the story of his firing. “Just a hunch, but I have the sense lots of people would like to punch @joshrogin in the face,” he said earlier this month.

source: interaksyon.com

US grants married gay couples federal tax benefits

WASHINGTON -- All legally wed gay couples, no matter which state they live in, are entitled to the same US federal tax benefits as married heterosexual couples, the Obama administration said on Thursday.

The US Treasury ruling, following a landmark Supreme Court decision in June, means that whether a married gay couple lives in New York, which recognizes gay marriage, or Oklahoma, which does not, federal tax benefits and responsibilities apply.

The Supreme Court on June 26 invalidated a key portion of a 1996 federal law, known as the Defense of Marriage Act, which had defined marriage as between a man and a woman.

There was some uncertainty after the Supreme Court ruling about how the tax status of gay married couples would be treated in dozens of states that have laws against gay marriage.

"Today's ruling provides certainty and clear, coherent tax filing guidance for all legally married same-sex couples nationwide. It provides access to benefits, responsibilities and protections under federal tax law that all Americans deserve," Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said.

There are about 130,000 same-sex married couples in the United States, according to estimates from the Census Bureau.

Gay rights backers said the ruling could prompt same-sex couples in states where gay marriage is not legal to travel to states where it is recognized to wed.

"We will see many more couples from the more than 30 states without marriage equality come to New York," said Nathan Schaeffer, executive director of the Empire State Pride Agenda.

Retroactive

Under the ruling, effective September 16, gay married couples may file amended tax returns to change their filing status going back to tax years 2010, 2011 and 2012 to seek possible tax refunds, the Treasury Department said in a statement.

A Supreme Court ruling in June made California the 13th of the 50 US states to recognize gay marriage. The District of Columbia also recognizes gay marriage. Thirty-five US states have laws on their books restricting marriage to a man and a woman.

"With today's ruling, committed and loving gay and lesbian married couples will now be treated equally under our nation's federal tax laws, regardless of what state they call home," said Human Rights Campaign president Chad Griffin.

The ruling means legally married same-sex couples may choose to file their federal taxes as married filing jointly or married filing separately.

Marriage status under federal tax law brings both benefits and penalties. On the plus side, legally married spouses are exempted from the federal estate tax. On the other hand, some gay couples above a certain income threshold may face the "marriage penalty" that some heterosexual couples confront.

An anti-gay marriage group denounced the ruling.

"The Obama administration is intent on forcing same-sex 'marriage' on an unwilling public," said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage.

State issues

While the ruling brings clarity to federal tax returns, it could cause confusion for state returns filed by gay married couples in states that do not recognize their marriages.

In 24 of the states that do not recognize gay marriage, the law requires taxpayers to refer to federal tax returns, setting up a clash between state and federal authorities, the Tax Foundation, a conservative leaning think tank said in a report.

"Today's ruling will likely create administrative headaches for state taxing authorities in states that do not recognize same-sex marriages, because most state income tax regimes begin with federal taxable income as the starting point," Marvin Kirsner, a tax attorney at Greenberg Traurig, wrote in an email.

"States are going to have to issue guidance and I do think political opposition will arise," said Elizabeth Malm, an economist at the Tax Foundation, a free market think tank.

Growing public support

President Barack Obama and many of his fellow Democrats back gay marriage, but the number of supporters in both parties has been increasing in recent years. Republicans were parties to the Supreme Court lawsuit over the Defense of Marriage Act, but were mostly quiet after the court ruled.

A spokesman for John Boehner, the Republican speaker of the US House of Representatives, said he had no comment on the latest ruling announced by the Treasury Department.

Separately on Thursday, the US Department of Health and Human Services said same-sex spouses would have access to coverage in the nursing home where their spouse lives under privately run Medicare health insurance plans.

Other government agencies are expected to make announcements soon to square their policies with the Supreme Court ruling.

For example, the Social Security and Veterans administrations have statutes that turn to state law in defining marriage. Gay marriage backers are awaiting clarification from those agencies on treatment of legally married gay couples.

source: interaksyon.com

Small Firms’ Offer of Plan Choices Under Health Law Delayed

WASHINGTON — Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees — a major selling point for the health care legislation.

The law calls for a new insurance marketplace specifically for small businesses, starting next year. But in most states, employers will not be able to get what Congress intended: the option to provide workers with a choice of health plans. They will instead be limited to a single plan. 

The choice option, already available to many big businesses, was supposed to become available to small employers in January. But administration officials said they would delay it until 2015 in the 33 states where the federal government will be running insurance markets known as exchanges. And they will delay the requirement for other states as well. 

The promise of affordable health insurance for small businesses was portrayed as a major advantage of the new health care law, mentioned often by White House officials and Democratic leaders in Congress as they fought opponents of the legislation. 

Supporters of the law said they were disappointed by the turn of events. 

The delay will “prolong and exacerbate health care costs that are crippling 29 million small businesses,” said Senator Mary L. Landrieu, Democrat of Louisiana and the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. 

In the weeks leading up to the passage of the health care legislation in 2010, Ms. Landrieu provided crucial support for the measure, after securing changes to help small businesses. 

The administration cited “operational challenges” as a reason for the delay. As a result, it said, most small employers buying insurance through an exchange will offer a single health plan to their workers next year. 

Health insurance availability and cost are huge concerns for small businesses. They have less bargaining power than large companies and generally pay higher prices for insurance, if they can afford it at all. 

The 2010 law stipulates that each state will have a Small Business Health Options Program, or SHOP exchange, to help employers compare health plans and enroll their employees. 

One of the most important tasks of the exchange is to simplify the collection and payment of monthly premiums. An employer can pay a lump sum to the exchange, which will then distribute the money to each insurance company covering its employees. 

The Obama administration told employers in 2011 that the small business exchange would “enable you to offer your employees a choice of qualified health plans from several insurers, much as large employers can.” In addition, it said, the exchange would “consolidate billing so you can offer workers a choice without the hassle of contracting with multiple insurers.” 

Exchanges are scheduled to start enrolling people on Oct. 1, for coverage that begins in January. However, the administration said that the government and insurers needed “additional time to prepare for an employee choice model” of the type envisioned in the law signed three years ago by President Obama. 

D. Michael Roach, who owns a women’s clothing store in Portland, Ore., said the delay was “a real mistake.” 

“It will limit the attractiveness of exchanges to small business,” he said. “We would like to see different insurance carriers available to each of our 12 employees, who range in age from 21 to 62. You would have more competition, more downward pressure on rates, and employees would be more likely to get exactly what they wanted.”

John C. Arensmeyer, the chief executive of Small Business Majority, an advocacy group, said that the delay of “employee choice” was “a major letdown for small business owners and their employees.” 

“The vast majority of small employers want their employees to be able to choose among multiple insurance carriers,” Mr. Arensmeyer said. 

Small Business Majority supported Mr. Obama’s health care law. 

That support was invaluable to Democrats who pushed the bill through Congress. Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who was speaker at the time, cited the group’s research as evidence that “small businesses will benefit from health insurance reform.” 

However, in recent weeks, insurance companies urged the administration to delay the employee choice option. 

“Experience with Massachusetts has demonstrated that employee choice models are extremely cumbersome to establish and operate,” the health insurer Aetna said in a letter to the administration in December. 

Insurers said that the administration was partly responsible for the delay because it did not provide detailed guidance or final rules for the small-business exchange until last month. 

Businesses with up to 100 employees will be able to buy insurance in the exchanges. In 2014 and 2015, states can limit participation to businesses with 50 or fewer employees. Companies with fewer than 25 workers may be able to obtain tax credits for up to two years of coverage bought through an exchange. 

States can open the exchanges to large employers in 2017. 

A few states running their own exchanges, including California and Connecticut, said they planned to offer an employee choice option next year, though it was not required by the federal government. 

A stated goal of the 2010 law was to increase “consumer choice” and stimulate competition among insurers. 

The law makes it easier for consumers to compare health plans by defining four standard levels of coverage, ranging from the least to the most generous. The law says an employer can pick a level of coverage and then allow employees to choose among all the health plans available at that level. 

source: nytimes.com

Obama set to nominate Hagel as defense secretary

WASHINGTON DC - US President Barack Obama is poised to nominate Chuck Hagel as his new defense secretary on Monday, but Republicans are signaling a fierce confirmation fight even though he is one of their own.

Obama has decided he wants the 66-year-old former Republican senator to succeed Leon Panetta at the Pentagon and will make his announcement on Monday, an administration source told AFP, confirming US media reports.

Obama is also expected to announce who he has chosen to replace David Petraeus at the helm of the CIA, with acting director Michael Morell and counter-terrorism adviser John Brennan seen as the frontrunners, CNN said.

Despite the fact that Hagel is a fellow Republican, party heavyweights scenting blood in bitterly-divided Washington have accused him of hostility toward Israel and naivety on Iran, auguring a tough nomination process ahead.

The top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, praised Hagel when he left his Nebraska seat in 2009 for his "clear voice and stature on national security and foreign policy," but his tone was markedly different on Sunday.

"He ought to be given a fair hearing like any other nominee, and he will be," McConnell told ABC. "I'm going to wait and see how the hearings go and whether Chuck's views square with the job he would be nominated to do."

But over on CNN, leading Republican Senator Lindsey Graham did not shy away from a full-frontal attack, saying Hagel would be "the most antagonistic defense secretary towards the state of Israel in our nation's history.

"Not only has he said you should directly negotiate with Iran, sanctions won't work, that Israel must negotiate with Hamas, an organization, terrorist group, that lobs thousands of rockets into Israel.

"He also was one of 12 senators who refused to sign a letter to the European Union trying to designate Hezbollah as a terrorist organization," Graham said.

Hagel would be an "in-your-face" and "incredibly controversial choice" by Obama that would probably represent a "bridge too far" for him and a lot of other Republicans, he said, before adding that the hearings would provide the expected nominee with a chance to "set some of this straight."

Hagel, a decorated Vietnam veteran, is known for a fiercely independent streak and a tendency to speak bluntly. Some Republicans have never forgiven him for his outspoken criticism of ex-president George W. Bush's handling of the Iraq war.

If confirmed by the Senate as Pentagon chief, Hagel will have to manage major cuts to military spending while wrapping up the US war effort in Afghanistan and preparing for worst-case scenarios in Iran or Syria.

Administration appointments are often tense affairs in the United States as the confirmation hearings provide senators with opportunities to turn away unwanted candidates or score cheap political points, or both.

Unyielding opposition from Graham and two other top Republicans, senators Kelly Ayotte and John McCain, last month derailed the ambition of US envoy to the United Nations Susan Rice to become the next secretary of state.

Rice, a longtime member of Obama's inner circle, had been a favorite to succeed Hillary Clinton as the nation's top diplomat.

But her role as administration defender over the attack that killed the US ambassador to Libya in Benghazi on September 11 drew her into a furious row with Republicans keen to dent Obama after his re-election victory.

Rice folded her bid on December 13 and asked Obama not to pick her. A week later the president nominated Senator John Kerry, who is expected to face little Republican resistance, not least because his Senate seat in Massachusetts will now be up for grabs.

Seen as having come off second-best against Obama in the New Year fight over the "fiscal cliff," after being forced to agree to tax hikes on the richest Americans, Republicans appear to be girding for another fight.

However, it is unusual for presidential nominees for cabinet posts to be voted down by the Senate, and Obama's Democrats currently hold the potentially decisive majority in the upper house.

Should Republicans choose to use an obstructive tactic known as the filibuster to prevent the matter from being brought to a vote, Obama would only need to woo a handful of their number to see his nominee confirmed.

source: interaksyon.com

The One Housing Solution Left: Mass Mortgage Refinancing

MORE than four million Americans have lost their homes since the housing bubble began bursting six years ago. An additional 3.5 million homeowners are in the foreclosure process or are so delinquent on payments that they will be soon. With 13.5 million homeowners underwater — they owe more than their home is now worth — the odds are high that many millions more will lose their homes.

Housing remains the biggest impediment to economic recovery, yet Washington seems paralyzed. While the Obama administration’s housing policies have fallen short, Mitt Romney hasn’t offered any meaningful new proposals to aid distressed or underwater homeowners.

Late last month, the top regulator overseeing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac blocked a plan backed by the Obama administration to let the companies forgive some of the mortgage debt owed by stressed homeowners. While half a million homeowners could be helped with a principal writedown, the regulator, Edward J. DeMarco, argued (we believe incorrectly) that helping some homeowners might cause others who are paying on their loans to stop so that they also could get their mortgages reduced.

With principal writedown no longer an option, the government needs to find a new way to facilitate mass mortgage refinancings. With rates at record lows, refinancing would allow homeowners to significantly reduce their monthly payments, freeing up money to spend on other things. A mass refinancing program would work like a potent tax cut.

Refinancing would also significantly reduce the chance of default for underwater homeowners. With fewer losses from past loans burdening their balance sheets, lenders could make more new loans, and communities plagued by mass foreclosures might see relief from blight.

Well over half of all American homeowners with mortgages are paying rates that would appear to make them excellent candidates to refinance. Many of those with stable jobs, good credit scores and even a modest amount of home equity have already done so, taking out 30-year loans at rates around 3.5 percent, some of the lowest rates since the 1950s. But many others can’t refinance because the collapse in house prices has wiped out their home equity.

Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, has proposed a remedy. Under his plan, called Rebuilding American Homeownership, underwater homeowners who are current on their payments and meet other requirements would have the option to refinance to either lower their monthly payments or pay down their loans and rebuild equity.

A government-financed trust would be used to buy the mortgages of homeowners who had refinanced at an interest rate that was about 2 percentage points more than the record-low Treasury rates at which the government borrows. This would generate enough interest income to cover the costs of any defaults, administration of the trust and other expenses. Families would have three years to refinance; after that, the trust would stop buying loans and eventually wind itself down as homeowners repaid their loans.

Homeowners would see lower mortgage payments and rebuild equity more quickly. Taxpayers would get their money back, with interest, and would gain further as a stronger economy lifted tax revenues. Banks and other mortgage investors would get potentially troubled loans off their books. Some banks won’t like losing the large amounts of interest income they are earning on their current mortgages, but if the refinancing market were working properly these loans would have been refinanced long ago.

If the program was very successful, we envisage that two million outstanding loans could be placed in a Rebuilding American Homeownership trust at its peak. If the average mortgage balance was $150,000, then at the peak there would be $300 billion outstanding.

The federal government could finance the plan directly, through the Federal Housing Administration, or indirectly, through the Federal Home Loan Banks, which offer government-backed credit. Or the Federal Reserve could underwrite the plan; the central bank’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, recently talked about the Fed’s doing something akin to the Bank of England’s new Funding for Lending program, which offers incentives to banks to increase lending to households and nonfinancial businesses.

Opponents of additional borrowing or Fed lending will say that a program like this is an unacceptable risk, but the greater risk is to do nothing and let the housing market continue to hold back the economy.

Mr. Merkley’s plan resembles the Obama administration’s Home Affordable Refinance Plan, or HARP, which was designed to help underwater homeowners refinance loans backed by Fannie and Freddie. It has made possible 1.4 million refinancings, far fewer than the goal set in 2009 of 3 million to 4 million. The administration has made some improvements to HARP and proposed others. But the Merkley plan has the potential to go further, reaching the 20 million households with mortgages that aren’t backed by Fannie or Freddie.

The Merkley plan has a successful precedent in the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, established in 1933. It swept more than a million Americans out of foreclosure and into the long-term, stable mortgages that would become the hallmark of the middle class during the 1950s and ’60s. It’s time to revive this idea.

Since the Great Recession began almost five years ago, housing has been at the heart of our economic woes. If we do nothing, the problem will eventually resolve itself, but only with significant pain and a long wait. Mr. Merkley’s plan would speed the healing.

source: nytimes.com