California Boycotting Arizona?

As you may have seen recently, Los Angeles city councilman Tony Cardenas wants the city of Los Angeles to stop doing official business with the state of Arizona over their recent stance on illegal immigration!

My question is... where is Congress on this? While I am hardly one to call for Congress to step in on anything, this is their job! The so-called Interstate Commerce Clause has been used to justify everything from the regulation and control of anything that crosses state lines in trade (such as guns) to the new Healthcare Reform Bill. Over the course of time and as a result of Supreme Court decisions, the use of the Interstate Commerce Clause has grown further and further from the original intention.

"[The Congress shall have power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes."

That middle part (the Interstate Commerce Clause) says that Congress has the specific and enumerated power to regulate commerce between the states. Regulation is not the same as control, but that is how it has been interpreted. Regulation means to keep something regular. One state, or even city, boycotting another is anything but regular. This, I feel, Congress does have the responsibility to keep regular.

Healthcare Part 6/6

Already 20 states' Attorneys General (weird word, I know) have filed lawsuits against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Treasury and the U.S. Department of Labor in response to this legislation. 30 states have proposed state constitutional amendments to counter this legislation.

Idaho is actually calling for a Twenty-Eighth amendment to the U.S. Constitution to provide that "Congress shall make no law requiring citizens of the United States to enroll in, participate in or secure health care insurance or to penalize any citizen who declines to purchase or participate in any health care insurance."

And 16 states have enacted or proposed legislative bills blocking the legislation.

Proponents of this bill would argue that this is no different than having to purchase car insurance, but it's different for so many reasons.

First of all, car insurance is mandated by states. As the 10th amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, any rights not specifically delegated to the Federal Government are reserved to the States or the People. Secondly, you don’t have to purchase car insurance; you only have to purchase car insurance if you drive a car around. However, with health insurance, the only qualifier for being regulated by the government is that you be breathing. If you don’t have health insurance, the government will impose upon you a tax (read: fee); a tax which is prohibited by the Constitution and the 16th amendment. And in fact, this bill will create 16,000 jobs for new IRS agents.

The Federal government has overstepped its bounds, ignoring the 10th Amendment of the Bill of Rights and drastically distorting the use, once again, of the Commerce Clause of the Constitution. The states involved in the lawsuits or legislation are right in both their authority to do so and the obligation to their citizens to do so.

As citizens, you should speak up at the ballot box in November!

Healthcare Part 5/6

According to Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), her state pays 70% of all costs associated with Medicare in the state. While this is the only state I have figures for, it is to be assumed that all states pay similar rates (it’s based on state GDP).

With the addition of yet another entitlement program, stacking on top of the costs for various Medi-programs in the states, what will the states have to do to accommodate this? They have already, and will continue to, cut funding for Higher Education and everything else that is state funded. This will force Universities and Colleges to raise prices.

If you're a college student or are supporting a college student, this immediately affects you. Even without this bill, Northwest Missouri State University (where I go) will be forced to raise Housing costs 3% next year and Meal Plan cost 5% due to rising costs and lowered funding.

Because of this bill, this trend will continue.

Healthcare Part 4/6

Another thing that must be taken into account when discussing yet another entitlement bill and the CBO score resulting from it is the history surrounding other programs' projected costs.

So, let's start with Medicare. In 1965, Medicare was supposed to cost only $12 billion a year in 1990. Actual spending for the 1990 fiscal budget year was $110 billion. That's a little over 9 times off.

In 1987, the new Medicaid DSH program was projected to cost less than $1 billion by 1992. Actual costs for that year were $17 billion! That's off by a factor of over 17.

In 1988, the Medicaid Home Care Benefit was supposed to cost $4 billion for the year of 1993. Actual cost for that year were $10 billion. That's off by a factor of 2.5 - their best performance.

And on to the last example - the Medicare Catastrophic Care Benefit. This one is even better. It was voted on, passed and signed into law. But... it was actually repealed before it could go into effect due to the CBO having to double it's cost estimate over night. They had not gotten all of the information (in this case, the projected costs for medication) when they made their first estimate!

Bottom line is, as Rudolph Penner said, "Any CBO estimate involving human behavior and social programs is very hard to figure."

Costs will go up, and Congress' response will be to throw more money at it, instead of pulling the plug while they can.

Healthcare Part 3/6

So, what will this do to our deficit?

Well, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the deficit will be reduced by $138 billion over the course of the next 10 years, and nearly a trillion dollars over the next 20 years.

That sounds like a great thing, right? Yeah! Except.. it's a fallacy. With the assumptions they had to make about the bill, even they have said that their number's need to be taken with a grain of salt. As former CBO Director Rudolph Penner said, "Any CBO estimate involving human behavior and social programs is very hard to figure."

Assumptions aside for a second, just the time frame for this estimation throws it into question. We're talking about 10-20 years into the future. You have no idea what congress will choose to do (or add) in the meantime, and you have no idea what conditions will be like in 20 years.

Now on to the assumptions. In the current bill (the one the CBO scored), you have this so-called "Cadillac Tax", which taxes high end insurance plans. First of all, it's not set to kick in until 2018 (accounting for 12 years of the trillion) - if it stays in. The labor unions have balked at the idea, so it may end up being scrapped, raising the price of the bill. But the CBO has to score what it has in front of it. It can't make assumptions about what congress will end up doing. It can't operate under the assumption that congress will scrap it's own legislation.

The bill also includes cuts to the Medicare and Medicaid programs of $500 billion. Also included in the bill are 21% pay cuts to doctors. These are not likely to go through. In fact, there is likely to be a separate "Doctor Fix" bill that will compensate doctors so they can keep taking Medicare and Medicaid (originally cut from this bill).

Even after all of this, most benefits don't kick in until 2014 - but don't worry, taxes kick in immediately. 10 years of taxes for 6 years of benefits.

Healthcare Part 2/6

You'll be able to stay on your parent's health insurance until you're 26!

Of course, this is a moot point. First of all, if you're still mooching off your parents when you're 26, you have more than health insurance issues to worry about. Secondly, most insurance companies already let kids stay on their parent's insurance until their mid 20's - as long as the kid is in school.

In this bill is also a complete takeover of student loans. Now, most college students already probably get loans from the government, but this completely removes the option for you to get a student loan from a bank. After all, they'd be able to offer you a lower interest rate. The government will be borrowing the money at about 2%. But, they'll be loaning you the money at 6%. The difference is being used to pay for this bill, even though that will account for a fraction of the cost.

Healthcare Part 1/6

Alright, I'll dive right into it. Healthcare reform! Passed by a slim margin in the House (needed 216 votes, had 219), due to Congressman Bart Stupak's flip-flop on abortion issues (yes, he got Executive Order 13535. See previous posts for an understanding of how useless that is.)

Whether you agree or disagree with this bill, one thing is apparent - it has nothing to do with Healthcare. The only thing it does is put more people on health insurance at the expense of the taxpayers. It does nothing to lower the cost of healthcare, or improve the quality thereof.

But how will this affect you? I do not confess a complete understanding of the bill, as I haven't had time to read it, but I'll do my best.

A number that the proponents of this bill like to quote - a lot - is the number of "uninsured Americans". Besides the fact that this number changes a lot (recently, it's been 30 million; on the campaign trail, it was 46 million), where does it come from? Is it accurate? I'll contend that it is not, for a couple reasons.

First of all, the number comes from the Census Bureau, who conducts surveys every so often to guess at the number. The biggest problem with this number is that it includes illegal aliens! The Department of Homeland Security estimates that there are currently 11.6 million illegal aliens living in the U.S.

Another large part of this number (more than half) are actually in the 18-34 age range - many of whom can afford health insurance, but have relatively few medical problems and have opted against getting insurance.

According to Sally Pipes, CEO of Pacific Research Institute, "as many as 12 million uninsured Americans are eligible for Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program--but they haven't signed up."

As admitted by the Census Bureau, there are people reporting that they are uninsured for the year, when they are only uninsured for a couple of months between jobs. "[T]he estimate of the number of people without health insurance," according to the report, "more closely approximates the number of people who are uninsured at a specific point in time during the year than the number of people uninsured for the entire year."

As such, the number of people that go without insurance (whilst wanting it and being unable to pay for it), is hard to pin. But it is clear that this number of 30 million is a myth.

Executive Order 13088, 13536

This kind of freaked me out, so let me share it with you.

As I said in an earlier post, Executive Orders do have power - we fought a war in Kosovo from 1998-99 on Executive Orders issued by Clinton.

How did that start? If you look in the timeline provided in the link above, in June of 1998, Clinton issued Executive Order 13088 - "Blocking Property of the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the Republic of Serbia, and the Republic of Montenegro, and Prohibiting New Investment in the Republic of Serbia in Response to the Situation in Kosovo."

Well, as I was researching Executive Orders for my previous posts, I came across the April 12, 2010 Executive Order 13536 signed by President Obama. This order does the same thing - "Blocking Property of Certain Persons Contributing to the
Conflict in Somalia."

Obama's is, admittedly, more detailed and direct. And I will also fully admit that I haven't looked deeper into this - blocking property may be something that the President does by E.O. all the time. Somehow, I doubt it.

As mentioned before, Clinton's E.O. 13088 was the start of an Executive Order driven war in Kosovo. While I wouldn't bet on the outcome of this one, with the recent attacks on Navy ships by Somali pirates, I wouldn't be surprised by anything.

Executive Orders - Part 7/7

In summation, frankly, Franklin ignored the Constitution and the limits of his office. While other Presidents have also abused their power, none to such a degree. Executive Orders have been the vehicle for this abuse, and the Supreme Court should step in.

Executive Orders - Part 6/7

This abuse of power by Roosevelt led to the 22nd Amendment, limiting Presidents to two terms.

Still, most of these Executive Orders were issued because of the war, right? No, over 2,000 of these orders were issued prior to September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, leading to the subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and Great Britain. Over 3,000 were issued before December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and we entered into the fray.