Tag Archives: political parties

Huzzah

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Regular order—it lives, sort of, at least on spending measures, in the House.

The House on Thursday voted to send 12 appropriations bills to the Senate. The chamber approved four of these 2018 spending measures prior to its August recess, and the remaining eight were debated and passed as part of the broader Thursday vote. They had previously passed out of committee. This is the first time since 2004 that a House Republican majority has passed all of its individual spending bills….

Now all we need is for the Senate to figure out how to do its job and pass these bills.  However, with unreliable Republicans in the Senate like John McCain (R, AZ), Rand Paul (R, KY), and Lisa Murkowski (R, AK), The Wall Street Journal is almost as skeptical about that as I am.

Medicare for All

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Senator Bernie Sanders (I, VT) is beating that drum, again, and has support from some Progressive-Democratic Party Senators.

The health proposal, dubbed Medicare for all, would offer the same suite of medical benefits required for some insurance plans under the Affordable Care Act and eliminate most out-of-pocket costs. Mr Sanders argues that although taxes would likely rise to support the new system, families would save money by no longer needing to purchase health coverage. The government, he says, could also secure lower prices for medical services.

Of course it has the same stuff as Obamacare—it’s the planned evolution of Obamacare into a Federally mandated single-payer system.  Because Government Knows Better, especially one run by Progressive-Democrats and their Social Democrat crony.

“Taxes would likely rise”—yewbetcha, to the tune of an additional $24,000 per family.  Whether we want that “benefit” or not.  Families can save money by not having actually to purchase coverage?  That’s rich: what do these guys think those 24 stacks are, if not coverage purchase costs inflicted on us whether we want or need coverage or not?  Aside from that, lots of folks, my family included, don’t use health care services very much; we don’t need coverage against costs we don’t incur.  That’s for one geezer family.  Those 24 stacks represent no net savings for us at all.  The young families also are healthy, don’t use health care services very much, and so have no need of health coverage.  And as they’re just starting their lives, they don’t have those 24 stacks to begin with.

Government can get lower prices?  That’s, um, rich.  Just like it (doesn’t) get lower prices on so many other “services” it provides, what with requiring contractors to pay prevailing union labor wages, whether the contractors employ union workers or not.

[P]rivate insurers wouldn’t be permitted to compete with the government plan for basic coverage….

This, I suppose, is one way in which Sanders’ government would get lower prices—competition raises prices, after all, in his and his Progressive-Democrat cronies’ fetid imaginations.

The 96-page bill offers no mechanisms to pay for the plan….

Of course not.  Money grows on trees.  Or, as I speculate Sanders will tout in his promised for “tomorrow” white paper on funding, money is in the bottomless wallets of the rich.

Progressive-Democrat Bigotry

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Senator Diane Feinstein (D, CA) during her inquisition of Judge Amy Barrett, who was appearing before the Senate Judicial Committee pursuant to her nomination to the 7th Circuit:

Why is it that so many of us on this side have this very uncomfortable feeling that—you know, dogma and law are two different things. And I think whatever a religion is, it has its own dogma. The law is totally different. And I think in your case, professor, when you read your speeches, the conclusion one draws is that the dogma lives loudly within you, and that’s of concern when you come to big issues that large numbers of people have fought for years in this country.

Feinstein is projecting.  What Barrett has said in those speeches is that where the Constitution or statute would require a judge to go against his religious beliefs, that judge must recuse himself.  There’s no conflict here.

Senator Dick Durbin (D, IL):

Do you consider yourself an orthodox Catholic?

Or possibly, Congressman Dick Durbin in a bygone era: Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?

Senator Al Franken (D, MN) accused Barrett of belonging to a hate group.  The group in question was the Alliance Defending Freedom, an organization that supports [ahem] religious freedom and on which ground that paragon of Leftist virtue, the Southern Poverty Law Center, labeled it a hate group.  And Franken took the SPLC seriously.

With this hearing, not only have Progressive-Democrats exposed their religious bigotry, they’ve exposed their disdain for the Constitution.  Here’s Article VI on religion:

…no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

Which, of course, Progressive-Democrats in the Senate—every single one of them—know full well.

No Surprise

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Howard Kurtz was on the right track when he wrote that Republicans shouldn’t be surprised that President Donald Trump cut a deal with Congress’ Progressive-Democratic Party* leadership regarding our debt ceiling and financial aid for Harvey and Irma victims.

However, Kurtz’ laying the blame on House Speaker Paul Ryan (R, WI) and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) is misplaced, though.  Ryan did get one Obamacare compromise repeal passed in the House.  McConnell did get 49 out of his 52 Senators to vote for that bill.  It’s the rank and file—the party as a whole—who are failing their duty.

The question of whether the Trump deal is good or bad in its own right also is irrelevant.

Trump has been saying since the Republicans collectively chose the first time to perpetuate Obamacare rather than pass a compromise, however flawed but that would have been an important first step toward remove and replace that he would have to work with the other party.

Since that initial failure, since that initial betrayal of each Congressman’s home district constituents (and yes, that includes Senators, whose home district is statewide) and of their not-too-distant secondary constituents, all of us Americans, those Republicans have continued to choose to inflict Obamacare on us rather than pass successive efforts at compromise toward remove and replace.  They have quibbled with each other over budgets, spending, and on and on, rather than passing Conservative budgets, spending bills, and on and on.  In the Senate, the Republicans won’t even take action on a House-passed bill that would rescind a destructive CFPB regulation.

Republicans still have no plan for removing and replacing Obamacare.  They still have no plan for reforming our mendaciously byzantine tax code.  In fact, here, they’re behaving even more shamefully: instead of acting on their own initiative, they’re meekly pleading for Trump’s tax reform plan details.

Since the Republicans in Congress have chosen not to act for the good of their constituents—either set of them—instead preferring to engage in the personal ego boost of virtue signaling, or preferring to wait to be told what to do, Trump had to act on his threat.

No, his deal with the Progressive-Democrats is no surprise.  Who else is he going to work with, since the Republicans won’t work?

 

*My term, not Kurtz’, which I use because there’s no daylight between today’s “Democrats” and the Progressive beginnings of Herb Croly, TRoosevelt, Woodrow Wilson.  Even today’s party bigwigs brag about being Progressives.

Some Labor Day Questions

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First published in 2015, I’ve updated it for today.  In an ideal world, I’ll be able to update it again next year, with a more optimistic tone.

The Wall Street Journal asked some questions on Labor Day 2012, and supplied some answers.  Here are some of those questions and answers, which remain as valid this Labor Day.

  • Q: How are America’s workers doing? Not good. Over the past decade, over the ups and downs of the economy, taking inflation into account, the compensation of the typical worker — wages and benefits—basically haven’t risen at all. … The Labor Department recently said that 6.1 million workers in 2009-2011 have lost jobs that they’d had for at least three years. Of those, 45% hadn’t found work as of January 2012. … Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Friday that unemployment is still two percentage points higher than normal….
  • Q: Things ARE getting better, though. The US economy is creating jobs, right? Back in December 2007 when the recession began, there were about two jobless workers for every job opening.  When the economy touched bottom in mid-2009, there were more than six unemployed for every job.  At last count, the BLS says there were 3.4 jobless for every opening.
  • Q: How much of this elevated unemployment is because the unemployed just don’t have the skills that employers are looking for right now?  …the bulk of the evidence is a lot of the unemployment really is the old-fashioned kind: the kind that would go away if the economy was growing at a stronger pace. Mr. Bernanke said as much at the [2012] Jackson Hole conference….

The Democratic Party President has taken a bad situation and done little to improve it, even though he’s had four more years in which to do so.  He has, though, actively attacked businesses—the hirers—demonizing them, (over)regulating them, demanding to raise taxes on them.

At least as importantly, the current Democratic Party Presidential candidate has vowed to continue these Democratic policies, and to extend them.  Even with nearly eight years of empirical data demonstrating the bankruptcy of these policies.

Under the new Trump administration, the jobs situation seems, at least superficially, to be improving, although still too slowly.  The headline unemployment rate is at an historic low; however, the labor force participation rate—the denominator in that headline rate—remains at an historic low, also.  And, wages aren’t growing as they would in a normal, more robust economic recovery.

Further, the Federal Reserve Bank management, aided and abetted by the Progressive-Democratic Party Representatives and Senators, are highly resistant to removing job- and job growth-restricting regulations that were emplaced 10 years ago (under Dodd-Frank, for instance) with the ostensible purpose of mitigating the Panic of 2008.  With that dislocation long behind us, those regulations no longer serve a useful purpose.

Happy Labor Day.