Tag Archives: spending

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.

Government Spending

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…there are also liberal members of the party who have said the government has done too much to reduce the budget deficit and should focus on short-term spending to boost the economy.

A larger point, albeit outside the scope of Damien Paletta’s column, is that when “short-term spending” simply is repeated “short-term” after “short-term,” it becomes long-term—permanent.  And that’s disastrous for our economy, quite beyond what these liberal members’ hero, JM Keynes, had to say about government (deficit) spending; that man is spinning in his grave.

Chuckleheads, Again

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The House chuckleheads are at it again, acting like two-year-olds, throwing tantrums and blocking progress because they can’t get all of their way, and they can’t get it immediately.  They’ve lost sight of, or they’re wilfully ignoring, the legislative version of the Buckley Rule.

House Speaker John Boehner had a strategy that would have, in this run-up to the 2014 elections, forced Senate Democrats, especially those in vulnerable states, choose between voting to defund Obamacare or being responsible for shutting down the government for lack of funding past the current fiscal year.

The plan essentially called for the House to vote on defunding ObamaCare and the temporary spending bill, then send the package to the Democrat-controlled Senate, which almost certainly would have jettisoned the defund part and allowed the chambers to negotiate on a “clean” funding bill.

But

“The Ruling Elite is up to it again,” the Tea Party Patriots group said Wednesday.  “They want you to think they have voted for defunding ObamaCare.  But it’s another shell game.”

And the chuckleheads in the supposedly conservative caucus acceded to the TPP’s demands and forced the Boehner Plan to be withdrawn, at least for now.  How do these politicians propose to defund Obamacare without the votes to do so?  At least this, as I said, would have put Democrat Senators on record as voting for the Obamacare that their constituents do not want.

And they should ask themselves how much of a tax cut their “Tax cut, or nothing” stubbornness got them last year.

These guys’ hearts are in the right place, but their heads…are not.

The Coming Budget Debacle

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House Speaker John Boehner (R, OH) has figured out—or is finally willing to say out loud—that attempts to negotiate with President Barack Obama or with Senate Democrats over the content of the next budget, or on the debt ceiling, are wastes of bandwidth.

Obama already has announced that he won’t discuss the debt ceiling—he simply demands that it be raised commensurate with his spending increase demands.  The rest of the Democrats demand tax increases—or else.

In line with this, Senate Budget Committee Chairman Patty Murray (D, WS) is demanding a balanced approach to “deficit reduction.”

Actually, there’s much with which to agree in Murray’s demand.  We should have a balanced approach: to debt reduction, though (which, of necessity, includes deficit reduction, to the point of its elimination).  That balance is eminently well achieved by reducing taxes and then cutting spending to pay for that.

But this is a thing utterly inconceivable to Democrats, hence the coming debacle.  Or, Republicans will fold, again, creating an even bigger debacle.