Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Health care process can deliver a crushing blow to our Constitution

What happens when political power is so abused that the intent of the Constitution means nothing? You lose all checks and balances and words like "integrity," "trust" and "leadership" become hollow.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is looking to circumvent Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution that says that in order for a ‘Bill” to become law it “shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate”.

Her solution is to abandon one of Madison’s core checks and balances by not having a health care bill passed by both houses in the same form.

Instead, the House would then vote only once on the reconciliation corrections, but not on the underlying Senate bill. If those reconciliation corrections pass, the self-executing rule would say that the Senate bill is presumptively approved by the House—even without a formal up-or-down vote on the actual words of the Senate bill.

It is clear that Congressional leaders and the President plan to pass a health care bill at any cost and in any way.

This bill will immediately strip fundamental freedoms from Kentucky businesses and citizens.

How low can Washington power players go in sticking it to us? We might soon see. “When all else fails, lower your standards” can be Washington’s rallying cry!

How sad for the USA. How devastating for Kentucky.

6 comments:

Hempy said...

You clearly don't understand that healthcare is a Constitutional mandate. You can find it in the Preamble to the Constitution, the bane of Republicans, conservatives and the Robert's Court. It reads in part:

"Promote the general welfare."

Good health is a necessary component of promoting the general welfare.

What's been lacking is any group pushing Congress to say how they're going to pay for it.

A proportional rate on the movement of money that could cap out at 5%, even if just applied to derivatives, would generate about $30 trillion to the treasury. That's based on 2009's derivative market of $600 trillion in transactions.

Alexander Hamilton advocated that method of taxation as a means of supplying adequate revenue to the treasury.

As far as Pelosi's tactic is concerned, it was a tactic used by Republicans when they were in the majority. So quite your whining about following the Constitution when your side did it.

That's your two-heading ugly monster hypocrisy raising its head again.

Anonymous said...

The fundamental principles of the constitution are under attack by all of the Washington politicians - regardless of party. The detail you talk about should be on the table, analyzed and considered. The problem is that all politicians are getting away with talking points and never get to the real substance.

Any health care bill will have a massive impact on our economy. Whatever gets enacted should be through complete transparency and understanding. All the 'shall', 'will' and financial repercussions on business and individuals should not be a surprise.

The process does make a difference regardless of the result. This is about the USA now with the massive debt that has already been logged.

It's time for fingers to go back into pockets and senior adult leadership to come to the table - if such leadership exists.

Anonymous said...

Who can count $600 trillion in transactions let alone understand it? This is KY. Education needs a whole lot of improvement before that conversation can take place.

But isn't it interesting that everything has to get political? Wouldn't it be nice if some real problem-solving type collaboration took place at least on the blogs. Commenters don't have to get elected and probably can't be bought. But I guess it's easier to call names and point fingers.

Hempy said...

As usual, you have no solution for the question how best to pay for health care.

Ever heard of a proportional tax rate on the movement of money? Alexander Hamilton advocated in in Federalist Paper 12.

Adam Smith advocate it in The Wealth of Nations in 1776.

Such radical ideas are anathema to Congress, the White House, Timothy Geithner and of course all the feudalist Republicans, conservatives and Libertarians.

They're more interested in protecting the economic hegemony of Wall Streeters and corporate welfare queens.

Anonymous said...

It takes a really, really smart person to have all the answers about paying for a health care bill of 2000+ pages when there is a lot of TBD, little objective analysis of the detail, little flow through analysis of impact at the state level, little known on actual impact of taking scarce current discretionary spending money, etc. But I guess one has to be a politician to be able to digest, assess and have those answers in 72 hours. What a joke. Reality hits in the detail, not with the concept.

Hempy said...

Adam Smith proposed a proportional rate tax on the movement of goods. Alexander Hamilton proposed a proportional rate on the movement of money.

Adam Smith wrote his book in 1776, Alexander Hamilton wrote Federalist Paper 12 on Tuesday, November 27, 1787. That's a little more than 72 hours ago.

The means exist for paying for programs. What's lacking is the will by Congress and the American people to push the Congress to enact a proportional rate tax system that taxes the movement of money.

Fairness in taxation is something that many don't want, especially conservatives AKA feudalists.