Quote of the Day
Hating people is like burning down your own house to get rid of a rat.Harry Emerson Fosdick
Image of the Day
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| Via Catholic Libertarians |
SCOTUSCare (Or Is It ScrotumCare?): How SCOTUS Bailed Out the Fascists on ObamaCare, the Latest Failed Government Healthcare Initiative
Bad Judges of the Year Nominees
Okay, so let's recall how the obscene, misnomered "Affordable Care Act" came into being. When Arlen Specter switched parties after the 2008 election, he provided the filibuster-proof 60th vote for the Dems; his intent was to run for reelection as a Dem. (It did not work for him as he was primaried by Sestak, who went on to lose the general election.) The problem for the Dems was that a number of senators from red or purple states were vulnerable in 2010, and passing the "public option" version favored by House "progressives" was a non-starter. (Could you as an insurer compete against a government which routinely runs up massive deficits and can print its way out of debt?) Basically the Senate migrated to an approach that Romney had devised with a key economic advisor (Gruber) when the Bush Administration threatened to cut off Medicaid funding for Massachusetts, thinking the state was subsidizing the ineligible uninsured. Romney basically converted state subsidies into premium supports for private sector providers. The Senate bill also expanded Medicaid and had notorious corrupt bargains (Gator-Aid, the Cornhusker Kickback and the Louisiana Purchase).
The Dems needed to get states to vest into the exchanges, to mitigate the risk of a national exchange failure. For Medicaid, it was the threat of all or nothing: the Feds expected the states (within a few years) to foot half the cost of the expansion. For the exchanges, it was the opportunity for state residents to quality for ObamaCare subsidies. And everybody knows it.
Normally, when the House and Senate pass separate bills, they go into reconciliation to fashion a compromise. But when Republican Scott Brown defeated the Massachusetts attorney general, this changed the dynamics: the Dems weren't about to negotiate with the GOP, but Brown was the filibuster-sustaining vote #41. This led the Dems to try to shove the Senate bill down the House's throat. The only carrot left was to tell the House that they could use the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process to amend the bill more to her liking.
I don't think the Dems seriously believed that the states would opt out of Medicaid or the state insurance exchange--for one thing, they guaranteed a federal exchange. And I think they expected that if in the unlikely event, the scheme didn't work, they would quickly patch the system because no politician wanted to explain why his state's residents didn't get their own fair share of subsidies, although everyone paid into the subsidies. But there is a price when you enact legislation that lacked majority support months before it passed. Only about a third of the states put up exchanges, and a new House under GOP control has no intention of bailing out a program it wanted to kill.
The IRS KNEW that the participants in the federal exchange did not qualify for subsidies when it drafted its unauthorized expansion. Now in the Burwell case decided earlier this week, Chief Justice Roberts once again bailed out a bad bill. Arguing that government-sponsored healthcare was unaffordable without subsidies and that that the explicit reference to an exchange run by a state was merely inartful drafting of a bill is completely disingenous legal sophistry. There are no reason to add "run by the state" which is purely redundant. The bill was hoping all 50 states would establish exchanges making a federal exchange unnecessary. Now John Roberts should know better because he struck down the Medicaid extortion.
Even if SCOTUS thought the bill was poorly drafted, it's definitely not constitutional for the court to rewrite a bad bill. That's the function of the legislature. It's extremely morally hazardous policy; it merely encourages a legislature to write sloppy laws. As a professor, it wasn't my decision to worry about what happens if a student failed my class. Maybe I "ruined" his life. But it would be immoral for me to complete his test with what I thought he knew to be the right answers: it would be wrong for me to pass him, because it's no longer his work. Hence John Roberts wins a nomination.
Anthony Kennedy went 2-for-2 this week, including the notorious second round of "gay marriage". Let us recall that SCOTUS in the Civil War/Reconstruction era did hold that a Congressional law banning plural marriage in the territories was constitutional. Arguing that structurally different, nontraditional constructs of marriage, which have no precedent in common law or American law through 2000, are fundamentally co-equal, and states which maintain a traditional definition of marriage are "discriminatory"? Absurd! I mean, this guy paid lip service to the Tenth Amendment; when, exactly, did the residents 30-odd states that democratically validated a form of marriage lose their rights? None of the states were prohibiting or otherwise regulating gay relationships, were restricting gays from migrating in or out of state, restricting the contractual rights of gays. The idea that somehow "real marriage" involves the state conferring a rainbow-colored certificate is sheer Statist hubris. Kennedy wins a nomination.
Finally, last but not least: there is Judge Rosemary Pooler, who ruled a pro-life license plate design (saying "choose life" and showing kids' faces shining in the sun) was under New York DMV's discretion to ban under the "patently offensive" category promoting road rage. It later cited political divisive issue restrictions (although it allows union- or environmentalist-friendly plates: if you don't think those are divisive, you haven't paid attention to my blog). This judicial sophist argues just because the DMV engages in de facto political censorship, doesn't restrict pro-lifers from placing pro-life stickers on their vehicles. Because everyone knows that drivers are less susceptible to road rage over a vehicle covered with inflammatory bumper stickers than in small print on a license.
Economic Illiteracy Among the Popes Did Not Start With the Leftist Populist Francis
Rand Paul's Tax Plan
I've been particularly intrigued by the implications of this plan on entitlements, and I think Rand Paul should be more explicit sooner or later, given the fact that the Democrats (not to mention some of his GOP challengers) will be fear-mongering any significant changes to the third rail of American politics. (Yes, even Republicans. I have mentioned in a past post that a former boss ran in the GOP primary for a retiring Congressman's seat in the Chicago suburbs. His signature issue was protecting Social Security.) When he talks of scrapping the payroll tax for workers, he's notably not including the employer share--but this is somewhat disingenuous because benefits are part of the cost of labor. An employee doesn't see it because it's not explicitly deducted from his pay. WSJ has a more explicit summary here. It seems like he is saying the employee portion will be replaced by a dedicated stream of business tax revenues. I have an issue with a pension system where an employee has no skin in the game; I think it's morally hazardous. How is he going to replace the operational cost of government caused by siphoning off business taxes to social security? My guess is that he is going to argue by eliminating tax gimmicks or loopholes, although he seems to be determined to keep the mortgage interest and charitable deductions (the latter exceptions to which I'm opposed). I like that he gets the bad economics behind progressive tax schemes; I might want to see the income tax counterbalanced with a small flat consumption tax (e.g., on interstate sales). We'll go in depth as next year's election grows closer and other candidates' tax plans are fleshed out.
Facebook Corner
(Catholic Libertarians). I've been needing to get this off my chest. From Yours Truly. ~Mark
I disagree with your assessment of Romney; I just thought he blew the obvious strategy of running against Bush and Obama. I am less judgmental about his governor experience, given his having to deal with an 85% Dem legislature, and let's recall RomneyCare was designed to fend off Statist attempts to do single-payer and was a reaction to the Bush Administration's threat to cut off Medicaid, claiming the money was being used to subsidized uninsured medical care.
Really, it take chutzpah to list Romney's sins on abortion, when, in fact, Obama single-handedly blocked the born alive infants protection act in Illinois as a state senator. We are talking babies born in a hospital with incubators, left to die alone in medical equipment rooms, sometimes left directly in trash bins, other times near edges of tables where they fell to the floor hurting their unprotected heads. Obama is the guy who ran on having the judgment not to enter the Iraq war but doubled up on Afghanistan, more than doubling Bush's casualties; this is the same guy who has threatened to veto authorization bills for the Middle East on the grounds he didn't need authorization, the same on any vote to close Gitmo, one of his first 2008 promises.
I'm not sure when I finally considered myself a libertarian-conservative, but it was some time between the birth of the Tea Party and frustration over the Afghanistan War. For a long time I was a skeptic over the Afghanistan and Iraq interventions, but I told myself maybe they had information I didn't have. Bush himself had run against nation-building in east Europe, and the reason his Dad didn't depose Hussen had to do with not opening up sectarian Pandora's Box. I was wrong.
Although I did support Ron Paul for a short while in 2012, he was somewhat of a gadfly and a conspiracy theorist; he had few legislative accomplishments other than a one-time audit of the Fed. His son Rand has a somewhat more pragmatic tone, but has a tough time inheriting his Dad's neo-con enemies.
(Catholic Libertarians). Fr. Stephen Imbarrato
SM ruling as if today we have become an immoral nation. We have been legally killing preborn children in this country for over 4 decades with the government either supporting it or condoning it at every juncture. Nothing is or can be more immoral than killing innocent children. We should not be surprised anymore at anything our morally corrupt government does. The truth is that we, as a so-called Christian populace, have not properly responded and protested the immeasurable innocent blood shed for the past 40 plus years. Thus any outrage today rings a bit hollow.
It's not just the mothers who sacrifice their children at the feet of the goddess of ideological feminism, it's the fact that of those babies that survive their mother's choice, roughly 40% of them are born illegitimate.
(Rand Paul 2016). Rand Paul's Flat And Fair Tax: Even Better Than Reagan Plan
He should not exempt morgage interest and charitable deductions; these are popular but unprincipled. Dividends are still double-taxed, and capital gains can reflect little more than inflation vs. real gains. I would like to see more of a balance between consumption vs. savings and investment.
This flat tax would cripple me. I support it only if all other taxes are abolished, including the gasoline tax, sales tax, property taxes, etc.
What about the $50K exemption didn't you notice? Plus he's taking away your payroll tax. Some of the taxes you mentioned, e.g., property and sales, are local, and the gas tax has mutiple government assessments. And the gas tax is not a general tax but a dedicated user tax to support roads and bridges.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Gary Varvel via Townhall |
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Vocalists
Dionne Warwick, "Who is Gonna Love Me?"
