Posted on 08/06/2013 7:41:18 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
America has a two-party system. But it’s not Republicans versus Democrats. It’s the ruling class — Republicans and Democrats — against everyone else. Consider how President Obama just gave Congress its very own Obamacare waiver.
Obamacare includes a provision that should cost each member of Congress and each staffer $5,000 to $11,000 per year. Needless to say, the ruling class was not pleased.
Congress wasn’t about to try to exempt itself from this provision explicitly, though. If John Q. Congressman voted to give himself an Obamacare waiver that his constituents don’t get, he wouldn’t be John Q. Congressman much longer. What’s an aristocrat to do?
On July 30, I predicted that, even though he had no authority to do so, President Obama would waive that provision at taxpayers’ expense. On August 1, he ignobly obliged the aristocracy by decreeing we peasants give each member and staffer $5,000 or $11,000, depending on whether they want self-only or family coverage. It’s good to be king. The president’s supporters, like courtesans of old, are trying to quell a peasant uprising by denying there were any special favors. The denials ring hollow.
Obamacare imposes two costs on members of Congress and their staff. First, it kicks them out of their current health plans, leaving them to buy coverage on Obamacare’s health-insurance “exchanges.” Second, it makes no provision for the federal government to keep paying $5,000 or $11,000 toward the cost of their insurance as the Treasury does today.
The second cost is by far the larger one; it amounts to a pay cut of $5,000 or $11,000. Many staffers were threatening to quit or retire early.
When the president’s supporters claim that Congress isn’t being exempted, they mean that Obama didn’t exempt them from Cost No. 1. Which is true. But he did exempt them from Cost No. 2.
Rescinding that pay cut may or may not have been the right thing to do. But it’s still a break that ordinary Americans like Kevin Pace don’t get. Pace is an adjunct music professor at Northern Virginia Community College. To avoid penalties under Obamacare, his employer cut his hours — sticking Pace with an $8,000 pay cut.
Supporters say President Obama merely held Congress harmless. Exactly. Kevin Pace and countless others like him aren’t being held harmless, because they’re not members of Congress. As Kevin Pace put it, “This isn’t right on any level.”
Things would be unseemly enough if Congress’s Obamacare waiver were legal. But experts say the president had no authority to grant it.
That didn’t stop even Republicans from praising him, however. Tin-eared Representative Chris Stewart (R., Utah) gushed: “There’s no question it was the right thing to do. Not just for me, but for my staff. Heavens, I have staff who don’t make much money. This would be a really big bite for them.”
Congressman, you also have constituents who don’t make much money, and who can’t make it appear out of thin air. Enjoy your waiver.
How was I able to predict the president would grant illegal subsidies to members of Congress? He’s a repeat offender.
Obamacare actually kicked members of Congress out of their current health plans and imposed that $5,000 to $11,000 pay cut immediately upon enactment in 2010. But President Obama just ignored that part of the law. He let members and staff stay in their current health plans and kept the taxpayer money flowing in their direction.
I predicted President Obama would give illegal health-insurance subsidies to members of Congress because he is already in his fourth year of doing it.
Pretty much all Americans can point to some part of Obamacare that they hate. Seniors hate the Independent Payment Advisory Board, which even Howard Dean calls “a health-care rationing body.”
Unions, teacher assistants, bus drivers, cafeteria workers, and other school employees hate how the law is cutting their pay. Private-sector unions despise the “Cadillac tax” that forces them to fund subsidies their members don’t receive. Young adults hate the penalties for not buying health insurance. Okay, everybody hates those. In fact, a majority of Americans oppose the entire law.
But only Congress gets relief. Why?
Simple. President Obama doesn’t want Congress to reopen Obamacare. A significant share of congressional Democrats just voted to delay the individual mandate. With once-loyal Democrats now upset over how the law hurts them personally, who knows what else Congress would discard?
President Obama circumvented a potential legislative defeat by giving each member and staffer thousands of taxpayer dollars he had no authority to touch. He’s buying votes from members of Congress — with stolen money, no less.
— Michael F. Cannon is director of health-policy studies at the Cato Institute and coeditor of Replacing Obamacare.
Squirrel!
NOTHING going to happen as long as you have a blackmailed Weeper of the House in power. NOTHING - he must be removed.
Under normal circumstances, this would be an impeachable offense. This country is going to Hell. The ruling class has become totally disconnected from the people. Unfortunately, there are no political consequences. We get the government we deserve.
Add the furloughs to the pay cut and -—wow.
Delaying the inevitable. The chickens will come home to roost.
“www.dontfundobamacare”!!! The “Lee/Cruz” defund Obamacare petition!!! Ink & Endorse it NOW!!!
Congress should be kicked out of office for accepting the waiver, whether they vote on it or not.
Congress should be kicked out of office for accepting the waiver, whether they vote on it or not.
Some animals are more equal than others.
Many in congress are like lifelong football players. In grade and high school they are helped with their lessons or given special classes, in college it is the same...then they become professional and their coaches cover for any of their wrong doings, including protecting the dopers and whatever else trouble they get into.
Time to move on to something where your staff can make more money, Chris. Utah FReepers, help a brutha out in 2014.
Exactly what he did to get Obamacare passed in the first place. Add this to the list of egregious examples of creeping authoritarianism.
I don't believe we deserve this government, but it is the government that we have allowed.
That makes us as responsible for the condition of this country, as it does those who've FUBAR'd it.
I am tired of people complaining about the politicians and deflecting their own responsibilities as citizens.
As Milton Friedman said,
“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.”
I guess you missed the part where I admitted that we’re responsible for the state of our government.
And we deserve what we get.
That's completely a matter of viewpoint. I don't see it that way at all, but the differences in our views on that are probably too subtle to translate into text.
Best leave it.
Under the Constitution, it takes two thirds of the Senate to remove the Won (in honor of Charles I, the Framers limited it to removal, LOL).
Nevertheless, House and Senate wannabes should exploit this to the max! It's the Political Class vs the Country!
Let the staffers go work at McD if they don't want to pay for their healthcare. Who needs them? Their existence is the only way 2000+-page bills ever get written in the first place. They are worms! Let their families subsist on food stamps! Then let's repeal food stamps.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.