House of Representatives Votes to Defund Obamacare

Following Representative Tom Graves, a Republican from Georgia, introduction of a continuing resolution to continue funding the government with the expressed exception of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act onto the House of Representatives the House of Representatives ignored threats from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to kill the legislation in the Senate and from President Obama who promised to veto any legislation which denies his signature healthcare plan further funding. Because of the guarantee that any continuing resolution to finance the government going forward that excludes Obamacare will never get past either the Senate or, should it somehow miraculously be passed by the Senate, past the President without being vetoed there are those, particularly in the mainstream media, who are accusing the House of Representatives Republican Conservatives of grandstanding on a dead issue. The promise that is constantly being touted by the scoffing media is that those Representatives who have pushed defunding Obamacare will back down as they would never risk being blamed for shutting down the government. What is interesting about the entire argument over who gets the blame for shutting down the government over whether or not to fund Obamacare is the previous history, especially the two most prominent shutdowns over funding resolutions. When President Ronald Reagan and the Democrat controlled Congress were at loggerheads over increasing spending and lowering taxes and the Government was shutdown for a fairly short while, the blame was squarely placed on the White House and the obstinate bullheadedness of President Reagan. Then approximately a decade later when President William Jefferson Clinton was contesting over the budget in particular with Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and they refused to find a middle ground, the government was again closed in a shutdown and the media placed the entire blame on the fact that Speaker Gingrich was obstinately refusing to work towards any agreement with President Clinton who was without any blame for the situation. So, one thing we can be totally assured of should the government end up shutdown, the blame will be placed squarely on Representative Tom Graves and his fellow Conservatives for their refusal to pay the government’s debts, especially paying for previously passed legislation which the media will claim they have no right to prevent its funding.

 

The only problem with that line of thinking is that it ignores that the Constitution states plainly that the House of Representatives controls the purse of the government and through this control are empowered to defund any item, department, enforcement of legislation or anything else the majority of the House of Representatives decide they object to the point of defunding. Yes, the Constitution does recognize that the House of Representatives resorting to such defunding is a radical use of the powers of the purse which would seldom be utilized, but the power is there to be used if such case of extremely unpopular legislation exists and cannot be prevented in any other manner. The reason the House of Representatives was given the primary responsibility for such defunding was expressly because the House of Representatives was the peoples’ representation and was to respond to the public pulse, especially if the people were found to be opposed to previously passed legislation. This power is placed initially in the House of Representatives but can also be exercised by the Senate though they theoretically must await funding legislation from the house of Representatives to be passed and sent on to the Senate. Once such legislation has reached the Senate they are able to remove funding for particular items just as the House of Representatives is empowered when originating any spending legislation. Should the Senate change the legislation by removing funding or replacing the funding which the House of Representatives chose to omit, then they are required to send the legislation back to the House of Representatives. If the two houses of Congress find themselves unable to reach an accord they will usually form a committee made up of members from both the House and Senate and from both Parties in ratios that represent the balance of powers for each party in each of the two houses of Congress. This committee is tasked with reaching an agreement which will be passed by both sides of Congress. Should the committee be unable to hammer out a compromise before the funding for the government runs out, then we have a government shutdown.

 

What exactly would be the consequences and inconveniences of a government shutdown. By the way the mainstream media have talked and referred to a potential shutdown one would be led to believe that it would be very similar to the Earth stopping rotating; day would never turn to night and those on the dark side of the planet would never again see the sun and would soon freeze and old people would be starving and not receiving their medications while airplanes would fall from the skies and the horsemen of chaos would be loosed on the nation. The amount of scare tactics borders on the ridiculous. Perhaps you remember the predictions over the sequestration which President Obama cautioned the public that should the Republicans in Congress not take the steps and raise the necessary funding to avoid the sequestration then the calamitous catastrophes that would befall the public and many government functions would paralyze the nation in ways unimaginable and so completely cause upheavals that it would threaten people livelihood and possibly their actual lives. Well, just in case you don’t remember the horrendous catastrophes which struck your life, we did suffer the horrors caused by sequestration except for one small item, almost nothing that President Obama predicted actually came to fruition and life pretty much continued unaffected and smooth as anyone could have hoped. The few places where difficulties were experienced, such as longer lines for a few days at some of the nation’s airports, were the result of a concerted effort to maximize difficulties wherever such was possible. There was a report leaked from one administrator who released a memo he had received from higher-ups which instructed him to make any sequestration adjustments in such a way as to maximize inconvenience on the public if at all possible. The memo claimed these instructions had come from the White House.

 

So, what catastrophes and other calamities should we brace for should the Conservative Republicans decide not to play nice and allow the government to run out of operating funds and go into shutdown? Well, Social Security checks and payments will continue, welfare, food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, WIC, Veteran’s Checks and virtually every funding program which benefit the public will continue unaffected. The FBI, CIA, Military, DEA, BATFE, Border Patrols, Coast Guard and all law enforcement activities of the government will continue. Actually everything considered to be vital services or even necessary services which assist the people and public services will all continue. There will be some catastrophic exceptions which will be shutdown such as most Federal roads projects, some, but not all, wildlife projects, and other functions which shutdown on snow days when all unessential personnel are advised to stay home after a bad snowstorm. Those of you who remember either the Reagan or Clinton Administrations I have a question, do you remember the chaos and unbelievable discomforts and disasters which plagued every corner of the United States during the two shutdowns referred to earlier in this article? For the life of me I just cannot recall any difference between the days under shutdown and any regular period and I doubt we would this time despite any efforts to try and make it uncomfortable. The one thing we can count on, it will be those nefarious Conservative Republicans who will once again be credited with forcing the shutdown and once again displaying exactly how little we actually need the government.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

Will Delay of Obamacare for a Year Really Matter?

A simple, one word answer would be no. Delaying Obamacare for one year will only make matters worse as it will hide the disastrous and intentionally deleterious effects in order to prevent their being used as an effective campaign slogan. The problem with Obamacare has been kept quiet, though it has leaked past a few lips when certain supporters of Obamacare believed they were speaking to fellow true believers who also support the ends which this poisonous legislation is designed to produce. Very recently Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV.) speaking on  PBS’ Nevada Week In Review answered the query of whether Obamacare was designed to take the United States to a single-payer system, replied, “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.” This is pretty much the same guarantee that President Obama spoke of at the AFL-CIO campaign address when he promised that he also favored a single payer health care system and that even though his healthcare plan may not take the United States there immediately, it would take the United States there inevitably. The numbers of people, both experts and lay people, who have read the whole ACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) and related parts of other legislation where certain less popular but vital components of the ACA were passed by attaching them to guaranteed pass legislation grows and they all claim the same results in that the ACA will inexorably lead to the collapse of the health insurance industry and force the United States to adopt a single payer plan with the government as the sole provider as the cataclysmic results will leave the people and the Congress with no alternative when facing the impending collapse of the healthcare industry due to the failures built into the ACA.

 

The entire plan is a train wreck even beyond what many have predicted. This is not because those making such comparisons believe that there will be anything short of a catastrophic and ruinous disaster destroying the entire underpinnings system that pays for healthcare leaving a complete dearth of solvent insurance providers thus forcing everybody onto the government system. Even the few health insurance providers who are able to survive the initial implementation of the ACA will be eradicated through simple adjustments changing the demands, requirements, and regulations which will force these insurers which had survived to make changes in the plans they offer which according to the ACA will force the holders of these plans onto the government system as the ACA denies the option of changing the benefits of an health insurance and stipulates that should your benefits and coverage provided by your plan be altered, then the insured individual is transferred onto the government plan which is a guarantee that within the first half a decade (my estimate) the result of the ACA will have forced over two-thirds of the American population onto the government plans. Eventually, this will take longer except in the states with the foresight not to set up the health exchanges, the ACA will force the states to also default as the only governmental force which will be able to fund the ACA is the Federal Government, and that is only because the Federal Government can adapt the coverage in order to minimize their costs at the people’s expense. That is the eventual climax of the coming train wreck, the rationing of the healthcare provided by refusing to cover procedures, prescriptions, surgeries, or other related healthcare coverage thus making it fit the amount of funding the Congress decides to budget each year. This will inevitably lead to a virtual closure of the healthcare system as the financial year-end approaches and the funds are exhausted.

 

This system once enacted and implemented will start the dominoes falling and as the columns keep toppling the dominoes will slowly become larger and larger until each falling domino threatens to destroy the underpinnings of the system and the supports of our health insurance system collapse under the preplanned limitations woven into the regulations of the ACA forcing a healthcare crisis which will have the public demanding the government repair and rescue them. That is the plan built into the ACA just as has been the practice of governments from the very beginning of time, create a shortage or crisis and then come riding to the rescue only to cause another set of even more disastrous problems. Each time the government addresses a problem they inevitably set up the next disaster without even attempting to do so, it seems to be built into the genetic makeup of the politicians and the systems in which they operate. What do we expect when we have non-physicians making medical decisions, non-engineers making the requirements for automobiles, non-architects making building designs, non-carpenters, non-bricklayers, non-construction experts setting building codes, and those making the rules for everything in the real world have absolutely no experience and only the most casual knowledge about the areas in which they make rules, regulations, codes and other requirements? Utter confusion and a series of disasters stretching on into the future without end is the only result one should expect and the ACA will be an example of such in spades.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

If We Save Only One Child’s Life

If We Save Only One Child’s Life

 

Senator Dianne Feinstein, President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the rest of the legions of gun-grabbers all have a love affair with the phrase, “If we save only one child’s life our efforts will be worth the time and trouble we spend fighting those Neanderthal gun-nuts.” There is the false claim that nobody needs these so-called “assault weapons” to hunt deer. There are two problems with this argument. First, no soldier in their right mind would take one of these so-called “assault weapons” into a combat situation when real assault weapons capable of sustained fire or burst mode are available thus the weapons in question are nothing like real assault weapons. Second, the Second Amendment is not about hunting or target shooting or any other recreational pursuit requiring firearms and these spiteful politicians know this full well but persist in lying hoping that we the people are ignorant enough to take their words for everything. Fortunately, many people have begun to wake to the real meaning behind the designs of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Most are also relearning the justifications and revolutionary concepts behind the Declaration of Independence. Some have even traced the ideas and ideals back through the political philosophers whose ideas were the inspirations behind much of the forming of the United States and have even traced the concept that man is a noble creature capable of self-rule all the way back to the Magna Carta. There are those who have also traced the concepts of individual liberty and that government is formed to serve the people and that those who rule, even kings and other nobility, are forbid to take treasure of any sort, not gold, silver, gems, horses, cattle or other excesses greater than any normal subject possesses which is contained in the Bible in Deuteronomy and other books. These people also have become aware that the Second Amendment was written to allow the people to restrict government whenever it became unwieldy and broke the original promises made to the people and instead began to be an oppressive burden. To this end the Second Amendment was written to allow the common people to own the same weaponry as was utilized by any who were in the service of the government including the military or any form of law enforcement. This little truth puts the lie to the myth of legal gun control in the United States.

 

Unfortunately, far too many citizens in the great lands of the United States have settled into a comfort where they prefer to allow the government to usurp many of the responsibilities which the Founding Fathers took great care in assuring that such power would remain with the people to the extent that the United States Constitution forbade the government these powers. But as the people came to live in great concentrations in large cities, even megalopolises, they no longer provided for themselves in the same manner as the founding generation. No longer do most Americans ever meet the farmers and herders who raise their food. They often do not even know the people who live on their block, let alone most of those who reside in their community and definitely not the entire city. They have become cogs in a large machine. With this change the people no longer know the people who represent them in the government, not even the city government who are supposed to be the closest government to the people and the one that most affects their lives. Reading the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights and one realizes exactly what President Obama meant when he described the Constitution as a document of negative rights. He did not mean it denied the people of rights but that it forbid the government from growing or performing beyond strict limitations. The most striking evidence of this concept is contained in the Bill of Rights with the Tenth Amendment being the most glaring evidence of limiting the Federal Government. It reads, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” You probably could not find a better or more forceful way to state that the Federal Government is prohibited from exercising powers or jurisdictions beyond some strict limitations. The exceptions to the limitations are spelled out within the constitution and anything not listed there as a power permitted to the Federal Government or strictly forbidden for the States to perform, then the Federal Government may not exercise such powers. When reading the Bill of Rights you see that there are distinct rights listed which are granted to the people and the Federal Government is forbidden to curtail or limit these freedoms. Adding to the Tenth Amendment is the Ninth Amendment which reads, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” This plainly grants that the rights of the people are limitless and beyond the power of the Federal Government to constrain, limit, or otherwise deny the innumerable rights which are granted to the people by the right of personhood. Such a powerful statement is one that was intended to warn politicians and public servants that they only held power at the permission of the peoples and the peoples did not have to turn to government for their freedom as it was theirs independent of the government and guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

 

Some claim that the most powerful of the Amendments in the Bill of Rights is the First Amendment which contains five freedoms placed beyond the reach of government. The First Amendment reads “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” These rights allow the individual great amounts of personal power over their life and to express their beliefs and opinions free of government influences or limitations; express grievance with the government and expect the government to respond and correct or repair damages or other infringements; report news and political opinions without restrictions or censorship by the government; and lastly to assemble in pursuit of goals or activities free of government limitations. The rest of the Bill of Rights has more restrictions limiting the government from injecting itself or its limitations and restrictions over the individual or group of individuals. The problem which people had always faced in restraining government came about as the government always had held all the power over the people and the people were unarmed. The government having all of the arms could even act beyond limitations which were supposedly established on them by founding documents or other legal writings. This was the entire concept behind the Second Amendment, to arm the people as well and as powerfully as was the government thus making the people the equal and not the subjects. The phrase that has found favor with many supporters of the Second Amendment is a quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson which reads, “ When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” Now tell Senator Dianne Feinstein and President Barack Obama to leave our guns alone and simply inquire as to what part of “shall not be infringed” they do not understand.

 

Beyond the Cusp