The Price of Obamacare, or The Full Faith and Credit Card

grey_whiskers ^ | May 01, 2010 | grey_whiskers

[grey_whiskers]

In the wake of the passage of Obamacare, there has been a great deal of talk about the spending commitments made by the bill. Far from the rosy promises made by the NON-PARTISAN™©® Congressional Budget Office, it turns out that the Administration, in conjunction with Congress, actually held back damaging information on the budget numbers during deliberations. But that’s not all. Obama’s director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, has indirectly confessed that there will be an “Independent Payment Advisory Board” which will act independently of Congress -- each day-to-day decision made by the Board will have the force of law, and can only be reversed by a 2/3 majority of Congress, signed by the President. Not to mention the lawsuits by individual states against the Federal Government to prevent the law from taking effect: when was the last time you can remember that anything like this happened? As Joe Biden (VUP -- Plugs) said, “This is a big F***ing Deal.”


But the details of the bill, and the arrogance with which it was passed, are only half of the problem. Remember the smug look on Nancy (Botox- CA) Pelosi’s face as she carried the oversized gavel across the walkway, an overt “in your FACE” moment to the protestors? Remember Harry (Cadaver - NV) Reid’s promise to follow up with immigration reform? Those remarks, and the attitude, are infuriating: they are meant to inflame, in order to goad protestors into saying or doing something which can be used by the left for propaganda purposes. (Recall the now-debunked, knee-jerk accusations of a Congressman being spit on and called “the n-‘word’...”; funny how despite the multiple You-Tube videos of the event, none of them bore the accusations out.)

So we have a monstrous, wasteful boondoggle of a bill; we have an elite group of powerful buffoons, reduced to baiting their own constituents in order to gain sympathy; and we have a response, that the approval ratings of Congress are at an all-time low, and the Democrats’ generic popularity is even below what it was before the Republican tsunami of 1994. So it looks like ONE of the problems may be something we can resolve: we can at least vote the bums out.


Which leaves us with only one other problem. And not only us, but our children and grandchildren, and the entire US economy as well. What’s that, you ask?


The bill.

OK, not just the bill, the bill for the bill.

The CBO now estimates that Obamacare could cost $2.5 - $3.0 trillion in real costs in its first decade.


Add to this the baby boomers’ retirement and Social Security going into the red; Medicaid and Medicare part D; cap-and-trade; and the tidal wave of government pension benefits. We are headed pell-mell for the wonderful financial situation of California, or worse, Greece. So clearly, just voting this bunch out of office won’t fix everything.


Is there anything else we can do?


There is a suggestion I would like to make -- and this should suit a number of liberals just fine, including Arlen Spectre (Benedict Arnold - PA), who wanted the Supreme Court to be informed by Scottish Law.

Let’s bring back debtors’ prisons and involuntary servitude for debt. We can first throw Reid and Pelosi on the auction block to the highest bidder, to help defray the costs of the debt. And since they’re (let’s face the truth) old, and probably won’t bring much money in, we can they sell the rest of the members of Congress into slavery until the cost of Obamacare is paid in full.

What’s that, you say? It’s unconstitutional? No, it’s all quite proper. Right here, in the 13th Amendment:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

So all this means, is that in order to make this happen, is that after we take control of Congress, we can introduce a bill, and pass it, making the members of Congress personally liable for spending which they voted for, and which the Federal Government cannot afford: and if the members of Congress who voted for the spending cannot pay for it out of their own pocket, they are to be sold into slavery (with their heirs and assigns) until the debt is paid entirely.

Then override the the Man Child’s veto.


Oh, I’m sorry, you think that this falls foul of ex post facto laws? Fine, modify to make the Congressmen responsible for ongoing spending continuing after their vote: that way, any Obamacare spending which goes on AFTER the passage of this new law, is a fresh offense. And, by the way, what about that little maneuver which Reid passed which made it “out of order” by Senate rules for any Senate to modify or drop the section of Obamacare dealing with Death Panels? That sounds like an ongoing action to me.

And finally, if the Democrats really do say that this is a travesty, that it perverts the meaning and the sense of the Constitution? Remember, the liberals always remind us that the Constitution is a “living, breathing document,” in order to find their own private and special meanings in its text. As Bill Clinton (Lewinsky -- impeached) reminded us, “It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”

If they want to put our children into debt for their spending? They voted for it -- let them pay for it.^(*)

It’s time to give them a taste of their own medicine.

^(*)Recall that this is May Day. "To Each According to His Needs, From Each According to His Abilities." (And since Congress is so much *better* and so much more *talented* than the rest of us -- just ask them! -- it's only fair they should pay for all of these things, too.)

[grey_whiskers]

Let's see them try to draw the race card on this.

I'm calling for debt slavery, for those who tried to consign us to debt slavery.

And all spending originates in the House.

Cheers!

[radioone]

who is John Galt??

[grey_whiskers]

Like, *PING*, dude.

Fresh birdcage liner for a limited time only.

Cheers!

[Venturer]

I dont trust the Congressional Budget Office to be non-partisan any more than I do the State Department.

[hinckley buzzard]

The actual members of the CBO may be nonpartisan, but it really is not the most important feature. The fact is, the CBO is nothing but a big adding machine--they are constrained to use only whatever data the congress gives them, and to abide by any parameters or assumptions handed to them.

So when Pelosi says "Here run these numbers" and doesn't give them the half trillion medicare costs, they dutifully comply, and ignore medicare costs.

[SunkenCiv]

The CBO now estimates that Obamacare could cost $2.5 -- $3.0 trillion in real costs in its first decade.

That assumes, for example, that Obama doesn't complete implementation of his plan to destroy the U.S. Thanks grey_whiskers.

[LucyT]

The Price of Obamacare, or The Full Faith and Credit Card

The CBO now estimates that Obamacare could cost $2.5 - $3.0 trillion in real costs in its first decade.


Add to this the baby boomers’ retirement and Social Security going into the red; Medicaid and Medicare part D; cap-and-trade; and the tidal wave of government pension benefits. We are headed pell-mell for the wonderful financial situation of California, or worse, Greece.

So clearly, just voting this bunch out of office won’t fix everything.


Is there anything else we can do?

. . . . Check out the article.

[Thanks, grey_whiskers.]

[rodguy911]

My guess has always been 350-400 billion per year. We are slowly getting there.
This thing has to be defunded after November, forever. Truth is ten year projections are about as uselses as you can get,they are all but meaningless.