Monthly Archives: September 2013

The Wages of Trust

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…or its lack.  Readers of this blog—all half-dozen of you—are well aware that I favor immigration reform (and of a broad, generous variety, but that’s neither here nor there in this post).

There is a serious immigration reform move in the House and Senate, or was until recently.  Congressmen Sam Johnson and John Carter (both R, TX) have walked away from the House’s Gang of … which was working a House version of comprehensive immigration reform.  Their reasons are telling, and they present the difficulty of achieving serious reform at any time in the near, or middle, future:

After years of hard work and countless meetings, we have reached a tipping point and can no longer continue working on a broad approach to immigration.  We want to be clear.  The problem is politics.  Instead of doing what’s right for America, President Obama time and again has unilaterally disregarded the US Constitution, the letter of the law and bypassed the Congress—the body most representative of the people—in order to advance his political agenda.  We will not tolerate it.  Laws passed by Congress are not merely suggestions, regardless of the current atmosphere in Washington.  Laws are to be respected and followed by all—particularly by the Commander-in-Chief.
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If past actions are the best indicators of future behavior; we know that any measure depending on the president’s enforcement will not be faithfully executed.  It would be gravely irresponsible to further empower this administration by granting them additional authority or discretion with a new immigration system.  The bottom line is—the American people do not trust the president to enforce laws, and we don’t either.

And there’s the rub.  This president cannot be trusted.  Worse, though, Obama’s mendacity has reached the point that he’s badly stained the reputation of the office.  It will be difficult to pass any comprehensive immigration reform that depends on a President’s execution of it—indeed, this will be true of any serious legislation, since any law enacted depends on a President doing his Constitutional duty to enforce that law.

Wages of Government Controls

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…Cyprus example.  Deposits continue to shrink (read: disappear from the country) in the country’s banking system.  As the Wall Street Journal last week cited the European Commission as reporting [emphasis added],

the radical shake-up of the banking sector coupled with unprecedented restrictions on the movement of capital in and out of the tiny island have left it exposed to deep economic pitfalls.

And

Confidence in Cyprus’s banks has plunged after the bail-in of depositors, culminating in the gradual flight of deposits despite the government’s imposition of capital controls to stem the outflow[.]

Why?  Not despite the government’s controls, but because of them.  The Cypriot government

appropriate[ed] all uninsured deposits above €100,000 [$135,000] to pay for [Cyprus Popular Bank]’s resolution.  The biggest bank, Bank of Cyprus, underwent a long, deep restructuring, during which 47.5% of uninsured deposits were blocked and then converted into shares in the new bank.

Whether the depositors wanted a slice of a failing bank or not.  Whether that slice could be used to put food on a depositor’s table, or pay his rent, or not.

People found a way to get their money and get it out of the government’s reach.  And now it’s hard to find money to loan, even to a willing borrower.  Because there’s no money to lend to support business expansion, it’s hard to hire.  Because there’s no money to lend to roll existing debt, bankruptcies occur, and jobs are lost.  Because there’s no money to lend to cover the time gap between payouts due (e.g., existing debt or payroll) and money arriving (e.g., payments for goods sold), bankruptcies occur.  And so on.

Thus:

17% of the Cypriot workforce would be out of a job this year [reported the EC], up from an original projection of 15.5%, while unemployment will hit 19.6% in 2014, not 16.9% as previously thought.

The wages of government controls are lost jobs.

Another Non-Existent Idea for Health Care Reform

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The Republican Study Committee has offered yet another Obamacare alternative in a long line of Obamacare alternatives Republicans have offered in the past two-three years.  The gist of the latest alternative is this:

Title I – Repeal of Obamacare

Title II – Increasing Access to Portable, Affordable Health Insurance

  • levels the playing field between those who receive insurance from an employer and those purchasing it in the individual market: replacesthose with qualifying health plan receive an SDHI of $7,500 (individuals) or $20,000 (families) which will apply to income and payroll taxes, and will increase at CPI-U
    • 1) the current uncapped tax benefit for employer-sponsored health insurance
    • 2) the self-employed tax deduction with an above-the-line standard deduction for health insurance (SDHI)
  • full SDHI goes to the individual or family regardless of the cost of the policy bought—the SDHI above the cost goes right into the individual’s or family’s pocketbook
  • expand access to and allowable expenses for health savings accounts (HSAs), increase the maximum allowable contribution into HSAs, and allow employers to offer a larger benefit for successful completion of a wellness program

Title III – Improving Access to Insurance for Vulnerable Americans

  • expand federal support for state high risk pools to $25 billion over 10 years
  • guarantees that individuals with pre-existing conditions can move between the large group, small group, and individual health insurance markets, so long as they maintain continuous coverage

Title IV – Encouraging a More Competitive Health Care Market

  • allows Americans to purchase health insurance products across state lines
  • permits small businesses to pool together to negotiate better rates

Title V – Reforming Medical Liability Law

  • caps non-economic damages, and limits attorney fees

Title VI – Respecting Human Life

  • prohibits federal funds authorized or appropriated by this act from covering abortion, except in the case of rape, incest, or when the life of the mother is jeopardized
  • ensures that no state pro-life or conscience protection laws will be preempted

But this doesn’t exist; Democrats say Republicans have offered no alternatives.

Wages of Surrender

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In a recent Washington Examiner column, Byron York discussed dissension in Senate Republican ranks, centered on a series of maneuvers proposed by Senator Ted Cruz (R, TX) to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) that, with Republican unity, would force a Senate vote on the House-passed CR that would fund the government into mid-December while withholding funds from Obamacare.  This, just incidentally, would put Democratic Senators in 2014’s vulnerable states on record as actively supporting a law that the majority of Americans—including the majority of these Senators’ bosses—do not like and do not want.

Buried in that article was this:

…one [Republican] aide opposed to the defunding maneuver. “They [Senate Republicans] will have just filibustered their own bill and shut down the government.  They will be solely responsible for shutting down the government.”

No.  The Democrats and President Barack Obama will be responsible for shutting down the government.  They’re the ones blocking a bill that funds it, or vetoing a bill that funds it.  But the aide—and the Republican Senators who agree with him—cannot see that, much less make the argument over shutdown responsibility.

That’s what happens when Republicans cede the terms of the argument.  They willingly accept the Democrat framing of the discussion: “No, we don’t want to shut down the government” instead of making the more accurate argument: “The Democrats, President Obama, want to shut down the government—they’re against the bill that would fund it.”  That’s what happens to men who are spring-loaded to surrender rather than fight an inconvenient fight.

Obama is winning: the Republican Party is destroying itself before his eyes.

Privacy and Validity

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Eric Boehm, in a recent Watchdog.org post, noted some concerns about Obamacare.

Thanks to new regulations that are part of the federal Affordable Care Act, patients will be asked to disclose more personal information to their doctors—including how often they have sex and how with how many sexual partners.

And once they do, it won’t really be personal information any more.

Similar questions exist for drug use history, and the questions are required of all doctors, from your dermatologist or osteopath to your GP—regardless of the questions’ relevance to the health problem that brought you to the doctor.

On top of that, as Goldwater Institute lawyer, Christina Sandefur, says,

Once you’ve shared your information with a private third party, the Supreme Court has ruled that is fair game for the government[.]

Apocalyptic?  Likely (the Supremes’ rulings on the related matters didn’t exactly say that), but it can’t be casually discounted.  Additionally,

Doctors and hospitals who refuse to participate could be cut off from some federal funds, and individuals who decline to share sensitive information may have to pay the fines…outlined in the federal health care law.

Regardless of the validity of the concerns in Boehm’s column, people—and doctors—will react to those concerns.  Which raises this set of questions:

What will be the validity of the data collected?  At what rate will patients, to protect their privacy while satisfying (their perception of) the letter of the law, falsify their data—deny drug use to their dermatologist, make up answers to questions about their sex lives?  How will the government reconcile patient-provided data that conflict from their dermatologist to their cardiologist to their GP?