Change You Can Believe In, Chicago Style
Today's Wall Street Journal has an editorial worth your attention. There is no better term for the ObamaCare Bill than Despotism. It's all very well for Congressmen and Senators to look out for their states, but this bill is a pure transfer payment from Republicans to Democrats. There is built into the bill a 40% tax on the most comprehensive -- and thus most expensive -- health care plans: But it does not apply to everyone. Longshoremen, for instance, are exempt -- and of course their unions have negotiated some of the most comprehensive healthcare short of what Congress gets. Other lines of work, nearly all heavily unionized, are exempt from the 40% tax (which will pretty well eliminate these plans for those who aren't exempt from the tax). Also, 17 States will be exempt; for the rest it's just too bad. There is no attempt at an explanation for these arbitrary transfers from those taxed to those not taxed. There is no logical reason why some are taxed and some are not. It's simply a set of earmarks, rewards to those supporting the "plan" and punishment for those who don't.
It's exactly what the Constitution was designed to prevent, a despotic transfer of wealth from one group to another.
Change you can believe in.
Indeed. A majority of America asked for this, and now we are all going to get it good and hard.
4 comments:
Do you honestly think this is the health care bill Obama wanted? (I'm asking that seriously.) Seems to me that the Republican's pretty much gutted anything good that the Democrats wanted in there. Pretty much all the big points that Obama pushed ended up getting taken out. I'm not saying it was all perfect to start with, just pointing out that Congress has more control over what actually gets in the bill than anyone, including the president. He wanted to pass health care, and mostly because of Republican opposition, this bill is the only thing that could get through Congress.
It's sad how broken our political system is. Even if a president was completely honest and did his best for the people, it would never happen because there are too many other people that have their hand in it to ever pass anything meaningful or beneficial. :-(
There's a bumper sticker that says O = W, used by liberals who supported Obama in opposition to Bush's wars of imperial aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan. These wars continue, O sold them out.
He also sold out folks who supported him thinking he would do something about the bankster takeover of the economy and the distorted distribution of wealth in the US. O sold these folks out too.
Matt: No doubt the bill wasn't what Obama wanted, but who really knows? He refused to talk in anything other than generalities. No matter. Just as the tax reform bill in the early 1980's is forever the Regan Tax Cuts and the tax reform bill of the late 1980's is forever the Bush Tax Increases, this will forever be Obamacare because at the end of the day, he signed it.
This thing is 1200 pages of Easter eggs for all sorts of political friends (and booby traps for political enemies). As I, like all of congress and the president, have no clue what is in this thing, I can only guess as to its impact, but I fully expect health care costs to continue to increase, employers will continue to either cut benefits or shift more of those costs to employees, and more people will be uninsured. In short, nothing is going to change. If anything, this bill will simply make things worse.
Presidents aren't supposed to create legislation; that is a perversion of the Constitution that has slowly come about in the last 50 years. The president is supposed to serve merely as a check on Congress. What is really sad is that we now have two parties that have no clue how to run the country and a president with visions of grandeur. Fortunately, he has surrounded himself with such a bunch of incompetents, he hasn't been able to take full advantage of the complete breakdown of Constitutional law.
Dagny: The mid-term elections will be the biggest blood bath for the Democratic party since Clinton's first term. Almost every stereotypical Democratic constituency is feeling sold out. But frankly, in my lifetime, the "best" years have always been those with divided government in DC. One can always... er... hope.
And I'm getting ahead of things; Senate and House versions have to be reconciled then re-voted then signed. But I seriously doubt that will invalidate anything said here.
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