Who Shut Down the Government?
Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government, there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans.
There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going -- except for ObamaCare.
This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the Congressional Record.
As for the House of Representatives' right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have a right to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government activity.
Whether ObamaCare is good, bad or indifferent is a matter of opinion. But it is a matter of fact that members of the House of Representatives have a right to make spending decisions based on their opinion.
ObamaCare is indeed "the law of the land," as its supporters keep saying, and the Supreme Court has upheld its Constitutionality.
But the whole point of having a division of powers within the federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution.
The hundreds of thousands of government workers who have been laid off are not idle because the House of Representatives did not vote enough money to pay their salaries or the other expenses of their agencies -- unless they are in an agency that would administer ObamaCare.
Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who -- if anybody -- "wants to shut down the government." But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare.
The Senate chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not include money for ObamaCare. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he wants a "clean" bill from the House of Representatives, and some in the media keep repeating the word "clean" like a mantra. But what is unclean about not giving Harry Reid everything he wants?
If Senator Reid and President Obama refuse to accept the money required to run the government, because it leaves out the money they want to run ObamaCare, that is their right. But that is also their responsibility.
You cannot blame other people for not giving you everything you want. And it is a fraud to blame them when you refuse to use the money they did vote, even when it is ample to pay for everything else in the government.
When Barack Obama keeps claiming that it is some new outrage for those who control the money to try to change government policy by granting or withholding money, that is simply a bald-faced lie. You can check the history of other examples of "legislation by appropriation" as it used to be called.
Whether legislation by appropriation is a good idea or a bad idea is a matter of opinion. But whether it is both legal and not unprecedented is a matter of fact.
Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.
Even if the debt ceiling is not lifted, that only means that government is not allowed to run up new debt. But that does not mean that it is unable to pay the interest on existing debt.
None of this is rocket science. But unless the Republicans get their side of the story out -- and articulation has never been their strong suit -- the lies will win. More important, the whole country will lose.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Right now 800,000 people in the US are no longer being paid (and there is no guarantee that when the government reopens they will get back pay)
Right now 800,000 people in the US are no longer being paid (and there is no guarantee that when the government reopens they will get back pay)
The president has at least signed ONE bill, saying that federal workers will get back pay.
The two sides did agree on one bill Friday afternoon, for the first time since frantic negotiations over the budget broke down on Monday. The White House announced it would support a House spending bill to provide back-pay for furloughed federal workers.“Federal workers keep the nation safe and secure and provide vital services that support the economic security of American families,” the White House said in a statement. “The administration appreciates that the Congress is acting promptly to move this bipartisan legislation and looks forward to the bill’s swift passage.”
There is a similar story for the FDA and of course the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has also largely stopped. Short-term things can keep going with essential personal, but in the medium-term there will be real effects that will impact the US economy and by extension NZ.
The House GOP have sent the Senate nine different bills to keep essential services like this going, but the Dems won’t even look at them. They’re more concerned about making people suffer so that sympathy is on their side.
In recent days, House Republicans have advanced several bills targeting high-profile areas of the government impacted by the shutdown, such as national parks, veterans’ benefits and the National Institutes of Health.In turn, they have pressed Senate Democrats to take up the measures and ensure that at least some portions of the government can be funded while the two sides search for a broader compromise.Thus far, Senate Democrats and the White House have rejected that approach, pushing back on Republicans to accept a plan to fund the entire government at sequester levels.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
ps, according to Crimes Against Liberty by David Limbaugh, Obamacare wouldn’t have been passed if not for a huge amount of bribery –
----------------------------------------------------------------ObamaCare also earned notoriety because the administration resorted to the crudest kind of political bribery to pass it, marking a shocking violation of Obama’s core campaign promises of transparent government and an end to backroom deals.There was the “Louisiana Purchase,” whereby Obama and his Democrats bought Senator Mary Landrieu’s vote with a promise to send $300 million in additional Medicaid funding to Louisiana. There was the “Cornhusker Kickback,” the administration’s disgraceful bribe of Nebraska senator Ben Nelson with a promise to exempt his state from its share of Medicaid expansion, meaning that the other forty-nine states would subsidize Nebraska’s new Medicaid recipients to the tune of about $45 million over the first decade. Obama, in an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, denied he had been involved in the Nelson deal, which was ultimately dropped from the bill due to public opposition. “Let’s hold on a second, Diane. . . . So let’s just clarify. I didn’t make a bunch of deals.”32 But his aid Rahm Emanuel, when asked about the Cornhusker Kickback, told a different story to CBS’s Katie Couric: “Look, we were involved in the legislation all the way through. . . . We were helpful in getting the bill off the Senate floor.”Then there was Senator Bernie Sanders, who secured $10 billion in new funding for community health centers for Vermont, though he denied it was a “sweetheart deal.” Nebraska’s Senator Nelson and Michigan senator Carl Levin also secured an exemption for non-profit insurers in their respective states from a significant excise tax, which will be borne by the other forty-eight states. Pennsylvania, New York, and Florida received special protections for their Medicare Advantage beneficiaries when the program was making nationwide cuts.34 Senator Chris Dodd received $100 million in funding for a university hospital—not that his vote was ever in doubt. Vermont and Massachusetts will receive federal subsides for their Medicaid expansion costs.35Obama silenced Big Pharma’s opposition by agreeing not to further cut Medicare’s payments to them and by abandoning his campaign promise to push for importing drugs from Canada. He allegedly won the support of the American Medical Association by agreeing to cancel all or part of the 21 percent cut in physicians’ reimbursements (the “doc fix”). He seduced AARP with a promise to eliminate subsidies for Medicare Advantage, which was eating into AARP’s side business, the Medi-gap insurance program, which supplements Medicare coverage.36 In exchange for its support and in keeping with Obama’s unsavory alliance with unions, Big Labor earned an exemption from the new Cadillac tax on high-cost insurance coverage.37But one industry wouldn’t give in to Obama: the medical device industry, which rejected Obama’s Godfather-like offer to cut costs in exchange for his promise not to impose even worse cuts.38 Now those crucial, life-saving companies are facing a 2.3 percent excise tax on sales of medical devices, which is expected to raise $20 billion over ten years to help fund ObamaCare. Industry experts fear the tax will destroy jobs, innovation, and small companies with thin profit margins.39 It will also likely increase the cost, and thus reduce the availability, of such devices as automatic external defibrillators (AEDs), whose wide availability, according to research reported by the New England Journal of Medicine, could significantly improve the survival rates of cardiac arrest patients .40Perhaps even more disturbing were indications Obama’s parade of bribes and threats at times may have descended into illegality. For example, there was widespread speculation that Obama offered judgeships to secure healthcare votes. The Weekly Standard reported that in March 2010 Obama hosted ten House Democrats who had voted against the House bill the previous November. One of the ten was Utah’s Jim Matheson, whose brother Scott M. Matheson, Jr., was nominated by Obama that very day to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit.Taking in the full ugliness and corruption of this process, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said, “This bill is a monstrosity, a 2,100-page monstrosity full of special deals for people who are willing to vote for it. And they’re playing these kind of games with the nation’s health care. This is an outrage.”
Obamacare is a trainwreck. People are only just starting to see the shocking costs now. Coverage is doubling and tripling for many. Companies are having to cut back workers hours to under 30 because they can’t afford to offer coverage (here’s a LIST of 313 companies so far cutting work hours and jobs). Many new jobs created in America now are therefore part-time. Even hospitals are cutting back staff.
A new study out today is showing that just in Illinois, that the equivalent of 66,000 jobs are being lost because of Obamacare.
The Obamacare facebook page is full of comments by folks shocked at the new coverage prices that they can’t afford.
The worst part – the people who can least afford insurance, STILL can’t get it.
A sweeping national effort to extend health coverage to millions of Americans will leave out two-thirds of the poor blacks and single mothers and more than half of the low-wage workers who do not have insurance, the very kinds of people that the program was intended to help, according to an analysis of census data by The New York Times.
-----------------------------------------
According to a gallup poll in June, businesses are suffering because of Obamacare.
Small business owners’ fear of the effect of the new health-care reform law on their bottom line is prompting many to hold off on hiring and even to shed jobs in some cases, a recent poll found.“We were startled because we know that employers were concerned about the Affordable Care Act and the effects it would have on their business, but we didn’t realize the extent they were concerned, or that the businesses were being proactive to make sure the effects of the ACA actually were minimized,” said attorney Steven Friedman of Littler Mendelson. His firm, which specializes in employment law, commissioned the Gallup poll.“If the small businesses’ fears are reasonable, then it could mean that the small business sector grows slower than what economic conditions otherwise would indicate. And small businesses have been a growth engine in the economy,” Friedman told CNBC.Forty-one percent of the businesses surveyed have frozen hiring because of the health-care law known as Obamacare. And almost one-fifth—19 percent— answered “yes” when asked if they had “reduced the number of employees you have in your business as a specific result of the Affordable Care Act.”In addition to restricting hiring or cutting jobs, small companies are considering other ways to mitigate the expected financial fallout. Twenty-four percent are weighing whether to drop insurance coverage, while 18 percent have “reduced the hours of employees to part-time” in anticipation of the ACA’s effects, the poll found.
According to the Bureau of Labour Statistics, 97% of job growth in the past year came from part time work.
“Over the last six months, of the net job creation, 97 percent of that is part-time work,” said Keith Hall, a senior researcher at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “That is really remarkable.”Hall is no ordinary academic. He ran the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that puts out the monthly jobs report, from 2008 to 2012. Over the past six months, he said, the Household Survey shows 963,000 more people reporting that they were employed, and 936,000 of them reported they’re in part-time jobs.“That is a really high number for a six-month period,” Hall said. “I’m not sure that has ever happened over six months before.”“There is something going on if such a large share of the hiring is part time,” Hall said. …Hall speculated that the implementation of the Affordable Care Act, shorthanded as Obamacare, might be resulting in employers shifting workers to part-time status to avoid coming health care obligations.
Meanwhile, UPS is dropping 15,000 spouses from insurance because of Obamacare.
-------------------------------------
Boehner can stand up there and ask why the Democrats don’t want to negotiate, but frankly that is disingenuous. They don’t want to negotiate because right now the Republican position that either the Democrats defund Obamacare full stop no exceptions or the US Government remains shutdown.
I remember seeing that one of the options the GOP put forward is that the personal mandate (whatever it is called) should be delayed a year because the ACA isn’t ready for prime-time (which we’re seeing with the computer glitches not allowing anyone to sign up).
I don’t think this is unfair, as Obama has already delayed the employer mandate by one year.
I don’t think this is unfair, as Obama has already delayed the employer mandate by one year.
Also, for such a ‘popular’ law, funny how the members of Congress and their families are now exempt from it, after complaining. Obama illegally amended the law for them. Also, the unions (who were so keen to get the law passed) are now railing against it, now that they see what is actually in it.
In short, Congress, big business and the unions (probably) are exempt, while the little people have to pay.
---------------------
---------------------
One really funny story about Obamacare – very few (if any) have been able to sign up to it because of glitches. One guy, Chad Henderson, claimed he’d done so and the media were flocking to him for interviews like he was some kind of star. He was getting invites for interviews left, right, and centre.
The coverage of Chad Henderson has been massive. He was featured in The Washington Post Thursday as “the Obamacare enrollee that tons of reporters are calling.” He was also profiled in The Huffington Post as someone who “beat the glitches to sign up for Obamacare.” He was interviewed by Politico, multiple local news organizations, and, according to his Facebook feed, was asked to be part of a conference call hosted by the Department of Health and Human Services.Chad’s story was tweeted out by the official Obamacare Twitter feed. It was promoted to the media by Enroll America, a health-care activist group headed by a former White House communications staffer, as a sign of Obamacare’s success. Henderson told reporters at multiple news outlets that after a three-hour wait to sign up online, he enrolled around 3 a.m. Tuesday morning in an unsubsidized private insurance plan that would cost him about $175 a month. He also said that his father enrolled in separate coverage plan that would cost about $250 a month after factoring in the subsidies for which his father qualified on his approximately $24,000 annual income.
Turns out now he was lying, according to his father. He hadn’t signed up at all. Not surprisingly, he was part of Obama’s Organizing For America group.
After speaking directly with Chad Henderson, The Washington Post has confirmed that he has not in fact enrolled in a health-care plan.
Hilarious! It’s so difficult to find anyone that has signed up, that anyone who has is out of the ordinary – and now even that was a lie.
------------------------
yes isn’t that funny? We know of NO ONE who has signed up so far. Imagine Apple rolling out a new line of products and after a week no one had been able to get one, or register.
---------------------------
As an October 3rd Wall Street Journal editorial noted, however, “House GOP leaders also insist they don't want a default, and they've already passed a bill to prevent it—not that the media have paid any attention. First sponsored in 2011 by California Republican Tom McClintock and Pennsylvania Senator Pat Toomey, the Full Faith and Credit Act is essentially an insurance policy against miscalculation. Their bill certifies that U.S. sovereign debt will always be repaid, on time and in full.”------------------------------
As regards the Affordable Care Act (or Obamacare), someone has written a very good article that rebuffs those who say it’s law now and can’t be changed. I’ll try and explain this in my own words as best I can.
When the Obamacare bill was presented, the Senate attached it as an amendment to another bill that the House had already passed (and which had nothing to do with the bill the house had passed).
It was introduced in Congress in 2009 by Senate majority leader Harry Reid, who called it the “Senate health care bill” (a description still touted long afterwards on Reid’s website). Employing the chicanery that marked the legislation through and through, the Democrat-controlled Senate turned its 3,000-page mega-proposal into a Senate amendment. The Senate attached its amendment to a nondescript, uncontroversial House bill (the “Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009”) that had unanimously passed (416–0) in the lower chamber.
Thus the Obamacare bill originated in the Senate. The problem with that, is that when the bill went to the Supreme Court, Justice Roberts decided that Obamacare was, in fact, a tax – and rewrote it as such. This is even though the Dems and Obama strenuously asserted that it WASN’T a tax. Now, the thing is – ANY bill to do with spending or tax MUST originate in the House and Obamacare did not – it came from the Senate – which means it really isn’t constitutional.
It is not just that the intensely unpopular Obamacare was unconstitutional as fraudulently portrayed by the president and congressional Democrats who strong-armed and pot-sweetened its way to passage. It is that Obamacare is unconstitutional as rewritten by Roberts. It is a violation of the Origination Clause — not only as I have expansively construed it, but even under Matt’s narrow interpretation of the Clause.Contrary to Obama’s latest dissembling, the Supreme Court’s decision is far from an imprimatur. The president insisted that Obamacare was not a tax, famously upbraiding George Stephanopoulos of the Democratic-Media Complex for insolently suggesting otherwise. Yet, the narrow Court majority held that the mammoth statute could be upheld only as an exercise of Congress’s power to tax — i.e., contrary to Obama’s conscriptive theory, it was not within Congress’s commerce power to coerce Americans, as a condition of living in this country, to purchase a commodity, including health insurance.
Note the crucial qualifier: Obamacare could be upheld only as a tax. Not that Obamacare is necessarily a legitimate tax. To be a legitimate tax measure, Obamacare would have to have complied with all the Constitution’s conditions for the imposition of taxes. Because Democrats stubbornly maintained that their unilateral handiwork was not a tax, its legitimacy vel non as a tax has not been explored. Indeed, it is because Obamacare’s enactment was induced by fraud — a massive confiscation masquerading as ordinary regulatory legislation so Democrats could pretend not to be raising taxes — that the chief justice was wrong to rebrand it post facto and thus become a participant in the fraud.We now know Obamacare was tax legislation. Consequently, it was undeniably a “bill for raising revenue,” for which the Constitution mandates compliance with the Origination Clause (Art. I, Sec. 7). The Clause requires that tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives. Obamacare did not.Representative Franks has introduced a resolution (H.R. 153) expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Obamacare legislation clearly violated the Origination Clause. The measure is gaining momentum. As it rapidly picks up co-signers, the resolution should materially advance the cases filed against Obamacare, including one to be argued this fall in the D.C. Circuit federal appeals court. After all, if a statute violates the Origination Clause, it is a nullity — invalid from the moment of enactment.
Worth reading the whole thing –
------------------------
--1. Treatments for Children Suffering From Cancer - The GOP have agreed to a compromise by funding part of the government, including the National Institutes of Health, which offers children with cancer last-chance experimental treatment. Obama has threatened to veto this funding.
2. The World War II Memorial - The WWII memorial on the DC Mall is a 24/7 open-air memorial that is not regularly staffed. Although the White House must have known that WWII veterans in their eighties and nineties had already booked flights to visit this memorial, the White House still found the resources to spitefully barricade the attraction.
The Republican National Committee has offered to cover any costs required to keep the memorial open. The White House refused. Moreover, like the NIH, the GOP will pass a compromise bill that would fund America's national parks. Obama has threatened to veto that bill.
3. Furloughed Military Chaplains Not Allowed to Work for Free - Furloughed military chaplains willing to celebrate Mass and baptisms for free have been told they will be punished for doing so.
4. Business Stops In Florida Keys - Although the GOP have agreed to compromise in the ongoing budget stalemate and fund the parks, Obama has threatened to veto that funding. As a result, small businesses, hunters, and commercial fisherman can't practice their trade. While the feds have deemed the personnel necessary to keep this area open "non-essential," the "enforcement officers" to ensure no business is done are "essential."
5. Obama Blacks Out Sports, Entertainment Programming to Overseas Troops - The American Forces Network (AFN) that provides American sports and entertainment programming to our troops stationed abroad, has been shut down. For some reason, though, AFN News will still broadcast news, just not any of the popular and fun stuff.
Camp David is essential, but popular programming for heroes overseas is non-essential.
6. Obama Closes D-Day Memorial - The GOP have offered to compromise and fund the National Parks. Obama has said he will veto this compromise legislation. As a result, along with 24 other military cemeteries, the D-Day memorial in Normandy has been barricaded.
7. Obama Tries to Close Privately-Funded Mt. Vernon - Although George Washington's Mt. Vernon estate is privately funded, the feds blocked visitors from entering the parking area because the Park Service maintains the lot. Apparently, the New Media publicity resulted in the feds backing down.
8. Obama Closes Over 100 Privately-Managed Parks That Cost No Money to Run - The U.S. Treasury actually makes money from the rent paid by a private company that "employs about 400-500 camp workers and managers across about a dozen states." No federal money is used to operate these parks. No federal employees are used to staff these parks. Taxpayers make a profit from these parks. Still, Obama had them closed and as a result 400-500 employees and a private business are taking it in the neck.
9. Obama Closes Self-Sustaining Colonial Farm It Hasn’t Supported Since 1980 - "For the first time in 40 years, the National Park Service (NPS) has finally succeeded in closing the Farm down to the public. In previous budget dramas, the Farm has always been exempted since the NPS provides no staff or resources to operate the Farm.”
10. Obama Tries to Close State-Run Parks in Wisconsin - "The park service ordered state officials to close the northern unit of the Kettle Moraine, Devil's Lake, and Interstate state parks and the state-owned portion of the Horicon Marsh, but state authorities rebuffed the request because the lion's share of the funding came from state, not federal coffers."
11. Obama Closes Vietnam Memorial - The GOP have passed compromise legislation that would fund national memorials and parks, and open them to the public. Obama threatened a veto. Apparently, the "essential" government employees are those erecting barricades, not those who could keep the memorial open.
12. Obama Closes Privately-Owned Hotel, Police Block Parking Lot - "The operator of a 51-room inn located on U.S. government-owned land in North Carolina abandoned his defiant stance on Thursday to keep the property open despite being ordered to close as part of the federal government shutdown."
October is this inn's prime season. The GOP have offered compromise funding opening the parks. Obama said he will veto that compromise.
State troopers blocked customers from entering the inn's parking lot.
13. Park Service Ranger: 'We've Been Told to Make Life As Difficult For People As We Can' - “It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington says of the harassment. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”
------------------------------------------------
Obama goes full Mugabe – people tossed out of their homes with the shutdown theatre.
The government shutdown is being felt close to home for some locals. They say they’re being forced out of private homes on Lake Mead because they sit on federal land.Joyce Spencer is 77-years-old and her husband Ralph is 80. They’ve been spending most of their time in the family ice cream store since going home isn’t an option.The Spencers never expected to be forced out of their Lake Mead home, which they’ve owned since the 70s, but on Thursday, a park ranger said they had 24 hours to get out.“I had to go to town today and buy Ralph undershirts and jeans because I forgot his pants,” Joyce Spencer told Action News.The Stewart’s Point home sits on federal land, so even though the Spencers own their cabin outright, they’re not allowed in until the government reopens.Park officials said property owners can visit only to retrieve belongings; they sent Action News a statement which reads in part, “Unfortunately overnight stays are not permitted until a budget is passed and the park can reopen.”
1 comment:
Architecture design services in Dubai
Interior design services in Dubai
Post a Comment