Your Volunteer Fire Department is another thing you may not be able to keep under Obamacare...

The more we find out what is in Obamacare; the more we hate it. 

Via FOX Nation:

Volunteer fire departments all across the U.S. could find themselves out of money and unable to operate unless Congress or the Obama Administration exempts them from the Affordable Care Act.
'I thought the kinks were worked out of Obamacare at the first of the month, Central Florida volunteer firefighter Carl Fabrizi told Sunshine State News.
'Man, oh, man, this could potentially destroy some real good companies in Florida.'
The U.S. Department of Labor takes the term 'volunteer' literally, but the IRS says volunteer firefighters are technically employees if they're on the job more than 30 hours per week, making them subject to Obamacare's employee-mandate rules.
Since the Obamacare law doesn't specifically carve out an exemption for them, fire departments where 50 or more people work – either as volunteers or officially as employees – are expected to provide health insurance for every one of them.
In towns with more than one volunteer fire department, all the staffers will likely be lumped together for tax purposes, pushing many municipalities above the 50-worker threshold.
That could cost departments of life-savers hundreds of thousands of dollars each year. Those that dump their volunteers into the federal insurance exchanges would still have to pay an annual $2,000 fine for each 'employee' after the first 30.

Rathergate Update: Bush Did Volunteer To Go To Vietnam And Mapes Knew

Do you remember when Dan Rather and his producer Mary Mapes put a story on the weekday edition of 60 Minutes using "fake but accurate" TANG documents to try to destroy George W. Bush and get John Kerry elected President? A part of that story was "Did George W. Bush volunteer to go to Vietnam?" Information buried in the independent panel's investigative report indicates he did and Mary Mapes knew it.

From Bernie Goldberg:

Until now, the controversy over the Rather/Mapes story has centered almost entirely on one issue: the legitimacy of the documents – a very important issue, indeed. But it turns out that there was another very important issue, one that goes to the very heart of what the story was about – and one that has gone virtually unnoticed. This is it: Mary Mapes knew before she put the story on the air that George W. Bush, the alleged slacker, had in fact volunteered to go to Vietnam.

Who says? The outside panel CBS brought into to get to the bottom of the so-called “Rathergate” mess says. I recently re-examined the panel’s report after a source, Deep Throat style, told me to “Go to page 130.” When I did, here’s the startling piece of information I found:

Mapes had information prior to the airing of the September 8 [2004] Segment that President Bush, while in the TexANG [Texas Air National Guard] did volunteer for service in Vietnam but was turned down in favor of more experienced pilots. For example, a flight instructor who served in the TexANG with Lieutenant Bush advised Mapes in 1999 that Lieutenant Bush “did want to go to Vietnam but others went first.” Similarly, several others advised Mapes in 1999, and again in 2004 before September 8, that Lieutenant Bush had volunteered to go to Vietnam but did not have enough flight hours to qualify.

Jim DeMint Discusses Flaws of National Service Act

This video is almost 15 minutes long, but it is well worth spending the time to hear Jim DeMint discuss S 277; the National Service Act. He explains why volunteer programs work in private society, but do not work well under government control. He talks about Americans dependence on the government. Over half of Americans are now dependent on the government according to Senator DeMint. This program(if enacted) will become the 14th largest employer in the US. Based on current government bureaucratic inefficiency, we can not expect this program to be well managed or effective. Do we really want more government involvement in our lives?



Hat tip Read My Lipstick Network