Medicaid Block Grants

Posted on by
Reply

The Trump administration is planning to set up procedures for allowing States to convert the Medicaid funding they receive from the Federal government from matching funds to block grants.

The new procedures would represent a large change.

Medicaid funding is open-ended, meaning the federal government matches state spending. If that funding is converted to a block grant, a state could get a limited, lump sum of federal money instead.

There are two key differences here. One is that the funding would go from strings-attached matches to no-strings block grants. The other is that the decision to go to block grants would be each requesting State’s, resulting in less Federal control over that State’s internal affairs.

Of course, this has vested interests twisting in their knickers.

Consumer groups and [Progressive-]Democrats say that limitation means thousands of people could lose Medicaid coverage or be unable to enroll if states’ costs rise or enrollment swells.

This is cynical and disingenuous. Whether a State’s citizens lose or can’t get access to their own State’s Medicaid is a matter strictly for, and wholly under the control of, the politicians and bureaucrats in that State’s government and the citizens who elect those politicians—who are the bureaucrats’ direct bosses.

At bottom, there is nothing at all preventing a State from reallocating its own spending to cover those costs or enrollments. Or of limiting access to ensure the truly needy can get the aid, limits that too often are blocked by those Federal strings.

Political Parties

Posted on by
Reply

Joseph Sternberg, in his WSJ op-ed last Thursday, opined that the Democrats aren’t the only liberal party in collapse, averring that Great Britain’s Labour Party and Germany’s Social Democratic Party are in similar straits. He claimed early in his piece that

three of the West’s major economic powers are undergoing leadership turnover within their main center-left parties.

While the US’ and Great Britain’s leftist parties are threatened with leadership turnover (Germany’s SPD has already undergone one, and it may be continuing), Sternberg is operating under a false premise with most of his claim. Neither the US nor Great Britain have a center-left political party anymore.

The US has only the Progressive-Democratic Party, a far-left party given life by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and vigor by Pete Buttigieg, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and such (so far) lesser lights as Bill de Blasio and Gavin Newsom.

Great Britain has only its Labour Party, which has gone as far-left in the British political spectrum as has the Progressive-Democratic Party in ours. Labour has been enthusiastically taken there by the party’s continued and continuing leader, Jeremy Corbyn and the party’s own lesser light Sadiq Khan.

It would be good for both our nations did our two actually have center-left parties, but there’s nothing forming even in the wings for either of us.

Impeachment

Posted on by
Reply

Now the House Progressive-Democrats have deigned deliver their Articles of Impeachment to the Senate, and the Senate’s trial will begin in earnest (the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court has been sworn in, and the Senators have been sworn in) tomorrow right after lunch Eastern Time.  There remains speculation about whether the Senate will call additional witnesses in the course of the trial or whether the Senate should simply dismiss the case.

The matter seems clear to my august self.

Under our Constitution, the House has the sole responsibility to conduct an impeachment investigation and to produce the resulting Articles of Impeachment. Further, only the House is allowed to conduct that investigation. Finally, that investigation is entire and complete with the writing of the Articles. Art I, Sect 2:

The House of Representatives…shall have the sole Power of Impeachment.

Under our Constitution, the Senate has the sole responsibility to try the House’s impeachment Articles. Further, that’s all the Senate is allowed to do vis-a-vis impeachment. In particular, it cannot conduct its own investigation. Art I, Sect 3:

The Senate shall have the sole Power to try all Impeachments.

The Senate should hear the cases presented by the House’s and President’s impeachment managers, evaluate the case as presented in the Articles, and then vote to acquit or convict. No further investigation, no witnesses, nothing else at all is required or legitimate.

Disagreements and Lies

Posted on by
Reply

Progressive-Democratic Party Presidential candidates and Senators Elizabeth Warren (D, MA) and Bernie Sanders (I, VT) disagree with each other on whether Sanders ever told Warren that a woman could not win an election for President. That disagreement came to the fore in Tuesday’s Progressive-Democrat primary debate, and became manifest in a post debate, still on the debate stage, spat between the two:

“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” Ms Warren said, according to audio released by CNN.
“What?” Mr Sanders responded.
“I think you called me a liar on national TV,” she repeated.
“You know, let’s not do it right now. If you want to have that discussion, we’ll have that discussion,” Mr Sanders said.
Ms. Warren responded: “Anytime.”
“You called me a liar,” Mr Sanders said.

The WSJ asked in the article at the link,

Do you think this spat will influence voters as Democrats move forward to the primaries?

It certainly should influence voters in the general election. What the exchange demonstrates is that it isn’t possible to disagree with a member of the Progressive-Democratic Party. The one who disagrees must be a liar or must be calling the one with whom he disagrees a liar.

In Progressive-Democrats’ ideology, disagreements can’t possibly be differences of interpretation, and they certainly can’t ever be matters of saying that one or the other is mistaken.

No. The one is must be a liar or must be calling the other a liar. That’s a deliberate, consciously done effort to suppress dissent, to stifle disagreement. It’s an attack on free speech.

And it’s what we can expect, nationally, should a Progressive-Democrat occupy the White House.

Security Considerations

Posted on by
Reply

The Securities and Exchange Commission is building a massive central database in order to facilitate regulators’ market surveillance, and they’re forcing all brokerages to sign contracts to connect their systems to this Consolidated Audit Trail.

Proponents say the CAT will help regulators make sense of complex US financial markets, by putting data from disparate markets in one place and pinning down the time of each trade to the millisecond. … When complete, it is expected to ingest more than 58 billion records a day to become the world’s largest repository of stock-trading data.

Brokers and the ACLU both object vehemently to the requirement. The ACLU says,

We are concerned that the CAT will pose significant risks to the privacy of millions of investors….

because

the project for plans to store the personal data, such as Social Security numbers and birth dates, of individuals behind stock trades.

Of course, this just provides a convenient site for the government to peruse, at whim, the personal data of any one or group of us. Government, though has no need of these data and no right of access to these data absent search warrants issued solely on

probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

But it’s more than that. Stipulate that explicitly personal data won’t be collected, after all, that only those stock trades and timing data would be collected.

It’s not enough.

It’s like these guys have never heard of OPSEC or COMSEC.

This is a move aimed solely at the personal convenience of bureaucrats, which makes it useless as well as dangerous.