Yup, it’s that time. With the polls opening Tuesday morning, there’s not a lot of politicking that can go national and have anyone halfway care about it. So they’ve got to get your attention via political smears.
Let’s start with the challenger. Huffington Post just released an article detailing how the United Auto Workers and other automotive unions plan to file ethics complaints against Mitt Romney for (allegedly) failing to disclose profits from the auto bailout.
While that could be a big deal, why is it happening now as opposed to earlier? Well, it’s right before the election, number one. And number two, Mitt Romney is a consistent critic of the auto bailout. So to tie him, even just in the minds of swing voters, that he may have profited from a bailout he opposed, makes him appear wishy-washy.
Now, how did they get to this conclusion? Because Romney and his wife have investments in a hedge fund that has a stake in Delphi Automotive, which received a bailout. They also want to show that all of their documented investments are listed as “more than $1 million,” which is the barest minimum required by the law.
So of course, HuffPo timed it out to coincide with the final moments of the election for maximum effect. Which isn’t suspicious at all.
But there’s plenty bullshit to go around. The Drudge Report linked to an article and presented as fact a story that says you’ll have to provide all of your health information to the IRS as a result of a “new Obamacare tax form.”
At least, that’s how they wrote the headline. What they’re doing is blowing up what it actually is. Saying “personal identifying health information” is far more sinister than what it is: “Proof of insurance.”
Which is apart of the individual mandate of the ACA — that the US Supreme Court, including Bush appointee Chief Justice Roberts, upheld as a tax. So with it being a tax, you’ve got to file it with the IRS. But the article makes it seem like random bureaucrats in the IRS are going to find out that you have cancer, or after a weekend in TJ, had to get treated for Chlamydia, which is far from the truth.
At a minimum — and I’m quoting the article — you’re giving: “the name and health insurance identification number of the taxpayer; the name and tax identification number of the health insurance company; the number of months the taxpayer was covered by this insurance plan; and whether or not the plan was purchased in one of Obamacare’s ‘exchanges.’”
(Don’t know why they put that last thing in quotes; it’s not like the exchanges are, y’know, in doubt.)
You do this sort of thing already. It’s just for your car. And, with the way this operates, the DMV knows more about what’s going on with your car than the IRS will know about your body. They just know you’re covered. That’s all.
But it really shouldn’t be surprising that this is a scare tactic — the article, again presented as nonbiased fact by Drudge Report, was written by Americans For Tax Reform. Which is an organization run by Grover Norquist, who’s put up a ton of money to vote President Obama out of office.
If you’re undecided at this point — that’s not a bad thing, mind you — I would suggest to simply turn off the news. Romney’s got hedge funds everywhere and sometimes money goes back and forth on something that he politically said something counter to. It’s happened before. It’s happening now. It will happen again.
And there is literally nothing in this Drudge-promoted story that says anything you didn’t know already. They just rephrased it with scary language.