It's amazing how little Obama's agency heads claim to know when they are asked to explain the administration's policies.  How do such bobbleheads get confirmed in the first place? 

Why did Marilyn Tavenner, recently confirmed director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, tell a bald-faced lie when a House committee asked her about the negative effects of the new health care law?

Republicans from the House Energy and Commerce Committee grilled Tavenner on what she called "isolated cases" of employers cutting back on work hours to avoid penalties due to ObamaCare kicking in on January 1, 2014.

The blatant reality that there are millions more than just a few workers adversely affected by the new health care law shows just how duplicitous administration officials are.

Take for instance news coming out of Tavenner's former county of residence in Chesterfield, Virginia.  Fox Business's Elizabeth MacDonald reports the complaints are "rolling in" from schools, local government, and unions across the country.

Virginia's Chesterfield County Public Schools and the Chesterfield County government have set 28 hours as the maximum work week for school and other government workers who are not full-time. A school district memo says "this legislation has the potential for serious financial implications for the school division." [snip]

On top of that, cities across the nation are discovering that the extra expense from health reform will trigger layoffs and cutbacks in city services like public works, city jails, government workers in nursing homes, parks and libraries if they don't push government workers down to part-time status (see below). [snip]

A record high 28.1 million workers are now part-time, though the recession officially ended four years ago. Since the 2008-09 recession, part-time employment rose by 2.8 million (almost all of the gain was involuntary). Full-time work fell by 9.4 million from 2007 through 2010, the Census Bureau says. During that time, the ratio of part-timers rose to 20%, vs. 13% in 1968, and 17% in 1980. The economy has created just 130,000 full-time positions so far in 2013, versus 557,000 part-time jobs.

Tavenner didn't let all these facts sidetrack her during the Committee hearing.  She stuck with her talking point even after Rep. Morgan Griffith noted a Washington Post article reporting that as many as 10,000 Commonwealth of Virginia employees were having their hours cut.  "You wouldn't consider the Commonwealth of Virginia an isolated incident, would you?" Griffith asked.  Tavenner called Griffith's example one such "isolated incident."

Can Tavenner even read?  Is she related to the other talking mule Susan Rice?  Why didn't a House member shake things up and ask Tavenner if being a liar was a requirement of working for Obama?  Or how about asking her who came up with the term "isolated incident"?  Is that like a "phony scandal"?

Read more M. Catharine Evans at Potter Williams Report.