Here's yet another reason that I have zero confidence in any member of our 'stellar' leadership team in the House. I watched an interview that Eric Cantor gave on Hannity’s show last night where the primary topic of discussion was Barry "Almighty's" decision to delay for one year a key requirement of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Cantor stated that it was "a continuation of what we have begun to call the imperial presidency." Cantor went on to criticize Barry for selectively enforcing the law. He also said the individual mandate should be delayed along with the mandate that applies to employers. Good points, but they don't go nearly far enough.
But then things started to become a little less defined and just a bit more fuzzy. Because when Hannity asked if House Republicans would consider defunding Obamacare, since efforts to repeal it have not worked, Cantor proceeded to provide what can only be described as a rather confusing response. Confusing because not only did he not answer the question, what he said was pretty much completely incoherent. Not exactly a response I would have expected from someone in a 'leadership' position. And the entire time he was babbling on and doing his best to dance around the issue, I was standing there in front of my TV yelling at him to have some guts.
In trying to answer, while not answer, Hannity, Cantor said, "Right, and we have continued, when we -- to do just that, we've continued to say under the sequester that we're operating on, that the president says, you know, he wants to do something about it, but never has come forward with any kind of other suggested reforms in the entitlement areas. But when they ask for more money for Obamacare's implementation, we said no. We said no, we don't feel that this law is the right direction to go in. Nor do we feel this administration should have the ability to take taxpayer dollars to go and sell and market this bill." What? Is this guy really the best that we can do?
Cantor continued on, "But I think one of the options going forward, Sean, is to take a look at what this White House has done and say, you know what, if it's fair for big business to be exempted from this mandate, we ought to say the same for individuals. We ought to go ahead and delay the individual mandate, and as you know, that individual mandate is the crux of Obamacare, without the individual mandate, the whole law collapses." But the entire law would collapse without funding as well. And under the Constitution, the Executive Branch cannot spend any money from the Treasury unless Congress first appropriates it. So let’s not appropriate any! It ain’t rocket science!
Supposedly, Boehner and House Republicans are now considering a vote to delay Obamacare's individual mandate, at least that's what The Hill reported on Tuesday. And as it has also been reported, House Speaker John Boehner said earlier this year that he would not include language to defund Obamacare in the most recent continuing resolution (the one that passed in March) because, knowing that the Senate would not go along with defunding, Boehner didn't want to force a government shutdown. Well, John, you're simply gonna have to grow a pair. Either you want to lead or you don’t, and if you don’t, then get the Hell out of the way and let somebody who wants to!
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) told Fox News's Greta Van Susteren Tuesday night, and I watched this interview as well, that Obamacare should be defunded, particularly since the law is being selectively enforced. Lee said, "The point is, no Republican in Congress, no member of Congress from either house or political party, has any business voting to fund the operations of government if that funding package includes Obamacare funding. The American people aren't getting Obamacare implementation. They shouldn't be required to pay for it." Mr. Lee was spot on and was considerably more articulate than Cantor regarding what it is that needs to be done.
I’m sure all are aware of how last week, in the middle of the long holiday weekend, the Treasury Department quietly blogged that companies with 50 or more full-time employees would have an extra year to comply with the requirement that they provide "minimum essential" health insurance coverage to workers or else pay a fine. And despite claims to the contrary, that was done more for political reasons that any sudden, new found sympathy for the effected companies. But while the "employer mandate" was delayed for a year, the individual mandate was not, since it is the heart of Obamacare, and requires all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.
So as they say, our friend Speaker Boehner is going to need to shit or get off the pot when it comes to defunding this mess called Obamacare. And the same goes for Mr. Cantor. And it was The Heritage Foundation, in a July 9 fact sheet, that urged Congress to do just that. The folks at Heritage said, "Full defunding of Obamacare would halt the law’s new entitlements before they start—and prevent HHS from raiding other parts of the departmental budget to promote Obamacare." Adding, "Defunding Obamacare would also prevent the application of the law’s new regulations and 18 separate tax increases, including the tax for not complying with the individual mandate.
The bottom line here is that if Congress chooses not to fund Obamacare activities for the upcoming fiscal year, the Barry "Almighty" cannot act to implement the law. Congress can, and Congress should, act to defund all of Obamacare now. So our House leadership is going to have to get itself together and make the defunding of Obamacare one of their top priorities. And they need to concern themselves a little less about what will, or will not, happen in the Senate and a little more of how this disastrous thing touches the life of nearly every single American. The Republicans can either be seen as being the sane ones in the room in at least trying to get rid of this, or they can continue to pretend they’re doing something. I would not recommend the latter.
No comments:
Post a Comment