We all knew the first big, fat, unread “stimulus” bill shoved through by the Democrats last year would be useless and some had noticed it contained frightening encroachments upon American liberties. And even though all the money from the first “stimulus” hasn’t even been spent, the Democrats are ramming another one through Congress under the wolfskin guise of “jobs”. But this one is not only going to be more more wasted money, it is, in fact, the death blow to the foundation of freedom upon which this country was founded.
Obama Preparing Another Trojan Horse
Jake Tapper reports today that in his upcoming State of the Union address, His Transparency intends to focus on on four little words that send the hearts of hard-working Americans soaring: “middle-class tax cuts”.
Tax cuts are good. We like tax cuts. But as with everything that is proposed by these progressive liberal Democrats, Obama is going to roll in another Trojan horse. Here’s a catch. First of all, these aren’t direct tax cuts but instead tax-paying Americans will continue to loan money to the federal government with every one of their paychecks and only get that money back at the end of the year. Then there is the catch that comes in the form of more government intrusion – takeover, if you will – into the lives of those tax-paying Americans. Here’s the list:
1. Increasing the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit for middle class families making under $85,000 a year from 20% to 35% of qualifying expenses. The administration says that almost all eligible families making under $115,000 a year would see a larger credit. Families could claim up to $3,000 in expenses for one child or $6,000 for two children, and the maximum credit for a family with two children making $80,000 a year would increase by $900 from $1,200 to $2,100. The Obama administration will also provide a $1.6 billion increase in child care funding which it says will help an additional 235,000 children.
2. Capping student federal loan payments to 10 percent of the student’s income above a basic living allowance. The monthly payment for a single borrower earning $30,000 who owes $20,000 in loans would be $115 a month – as opposed to $228 a month under the standard 10-year repayment plan.
3. Requiring all employers to give workers an option of automatic workplace direct-deposit IRAs. Currently 78 million working Americans — roughly half the workforce — do not have employer-based retirement plans. The contributions will be voluntary and matched by the Savers Tax Credit for eligible families. The smallest firms would be exempt.
4. Expanding tax credits to match retirement savings by expanding and simplifying the Saver’s Credit to match 50 percent of the first $1,000 of contributions by families earning up to $65,000 and providing a partial credit to families earning up to $85,000.
5. Expanding support for families balancing work with caring for elderly relatives with a $102.5 million Caregiver Initiative adding $52.5 million in funding to Department of Health and Human Services caregiver support programs that provide temporary respite care, counseling, training, and referrals to critical services. The administration says the extra funding will allow nearly 200,000 additional caregivers to be served and 3 million more hours of respite care to be provided. It also adds $50 million to programs that provide transportation help, adult day care, and in-home services, such as aides to help seniors bathe and cook, help which eases the burden for family members and helps seniors stay in their homes.
The first two aren’t so bad. Sure, they’ll cut down the amount of federal revenue but as is always the case, more money in the hands of the people, not the federal government, improves the economy.
Number four bears scrutiny because this “extra funding” has to come from somewhere and, as usual, who’s going to pay for it isn’t being defined.
But it is number three that is especially troubling. Not just because it is yet another example of the liberal progressive Democrats telling the American people that they are too stupid to make decisions for themselves, but it is part of a larger plan to have the taxpayer offset the goverment bailouts of Wall Street insurance companies by getting more money into the market if they can’t outright take the funds from 401k plans.
While we’re all for individuals saving for their own retirement instead of relying on Nanny Fed to take care of them in their old age, here’s the rub. Even when an employer does not offer automatic-workplace direct-deposit for an IRA (a choice that costs them money, by the way, in terms of paying more for the administrative costs to run their business and therefore affects the costs of goods or services as well as salaries they provide), you, as an individual can get up off your butt and go to a bank to set up an IRA on your own and make tax-deductible contributions to it. Today, you and your employer have personal choice – freedom – as to how you, and you alone, handle your financial affairs.
The objection, then, is to the government mandating behavior. Legislating morality, if you will. Taking away the individual’s freedom to choose. Particularly when it is done with the intention of usurping the results.
So for the astute, it ain’t gonna be much to cheer about.
Two Historic Days
Dr. King’s dream will be fulfilled only by stepping aside and allowing people to pursue their own happiness. Stupid is not a race or a color, mind you, yet today the federal government would have you believe that whole classes of Americans are, indeed, too stupid to understand the risks they take when they pursue their happiness and must be divided out and protected from the consequences of their poor choices.
That doesn’t sound like liberty to me.
It is a tragedy of historic proportions. A once great Republic brought to Her knees by deliberate distortions of Her Constitutional democracy now glances behind and, as Aristotle pointed out, sees despotism looming. There was a reason that the United States government was divided into three parts, good reason that members of the House were elected directly by the people and members of the Senate by the legislature of each state and that reason is to insure that the deliberately-limited, enumerated powers of the federal government would contain it. The popular election of Senators has loosened their responsibilities to the States and the individual and the results are the same as in all democracies: a dangerous game of federal regulations in an attempt to legislate a minority’s opinion of what constitutes morality for some “greater good”.
Nothing comes without risk. Sometimes great risk. The road to socialism is a bloody one. Just ask Mussolini, the darling of the earliest progressives like Woodrow Wilson and Winston Churchill, who called Il Duce “the great lawmaker”. Look to Venezuela, to Cuba, to North Korea and tell me if it is truly possible to pursue your own, unique, individual happiness there.
I think not.
So as we celebrate the legacy of Dr. King today, we must also look to Massachusetts. The birthplace of the American Revolution is now poised to fire yet another historic shot as her special election tomorrow to fill the seat held so long by progressive liberal Democrat Ted Kennedy has become a referendum of sorts. Not a referendum on the Obama administration, as some would like you to believe (and thereby divide the American people once again), but a referendum on the United States Constitution. The two leading candidates stand at opposing ends of the American political spectrum: one a progressive liberal Democrat with the same bloody hands as Kennedy, the other a conservative Republican who believes it is the individual’s right to choose. To their credit, the people of Massachusetts, liberal as they are, have seen the writing on the wall and rightly read its warnings, and in doing so their local battle has been thrust into the national spotlight.
To observe this battle is to see what has come to be called “the machine” overtly at work for the Democratic candidate, Martha Coakley. Her campaign is defined by flying to Washington, D.C. to curry campaign contributions from lobbyists and having the president speak for her at a campaign rally when poll numbers show her “sure thing” has become anything but, while Republican Scott Brown simply travels across his state talking to the people. And in doing this he has engaged the support of Americans in all states who not only reject this administration’s hell-bent usurpations of their liberties, but realize that the great expansion of the federal government engineered in the 1930s now means that every Senator’s actions will directly affect them.
Scott Brown has grassroots support, and despite the claims of the Obama 2008 campaign, the likes of which have not been seen as shown by Brown’s endorsement by the police union from which Coakley’s husband retired and the numerous SEIU members who carry her campaign signs only because they are being paid to do so but intend on voting for Brown. While Coakley was in D.C. to beg for that special interest money to broadcast her negative ads (in which one didn’t even have “Massachusetts” spelled properly), Brown quietly raised a million dollars in a single day through donations made by concerned Americans across the country.
Frankly, it’s stunning to see this. It means that the Founding Fathers were right, you know. And that Dr. King knew it.
So today I have a dream. A dream that tomorrow the good people of Massachusetts will fire one more “shot heard ’round the world”. A loud, resounding shot for liberty. For that is truly the finest way to honor the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King.
The Dems Are Faking Suicide
The Democrat-controlled Congress is busy planning how to ram their visions of health care “reform” down America’s throat and the rising backlash against their tactics and, indeed, against their progressive liberal ideology is becoming more and more severe.
So severe, that true to the form of all yellow-bellied selfish cowards, Democrats are turning tail and dropping out of 2010 elections left and right. And the pious spinning begins. Among the louder dropouts is the infamous sleazeball Senator Chris Dodd (D-Conn). Perhaps to spend some time licking his wounds at his Countrywide sweetheart-deal-bought cottage in Ireland?
You’re Too Stupid To Plan For Your Own Retirement
Hidden in the wolf’s guise of compassionate concern, the Obamanation is now looking at how they can get their hands on your retirement savings. It is their affirmatively-graduated Ivy League opinion that we, the great unwashed masses, simply aren’t saving enough money to carry us through our retirements so the wishlist for the Secretary of Labor includes taking a look at how to regulate (read: force) retirees to convert portions of their 401k plans into annuities.
Here is the actual text:
Department of Labor (DOL)
Employee Benefits Security Administration ( EBSA ) RIN: 1210-AB33
Priority: Other Significant
Agenda Stage of Rulemaking: PreRule
Major: Undetermined
Unfunded Mandates: Undetermined
CFR Citation: Not Yet Determined (To search for a specific CFR, visit the Code of Federal Regulations http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/retrieve.html)
Legal Authority: 29 USC 1135; ERISA sec 505
Legal Deadline: None
Title: Lifetime Income Options for Participants and Beneficiaries in Retirement Plans
Abstract: This initiative will explore what steps, if any, that the Department could or should take, by regulation or otherwise, to enhance the retirement security of American workers by facilitating access to and use of lifetime income or income arrangements designed to provide a stream of income after retirement.
Regulatory Plan:
Statement of Need: With a continuing trend away from defined benefit plans to defined contribution plans, employees are not only increasingly responsible for the adequacy of their retirement savings, but also for ensuring that their savings last throughout their retirement. Employees may benefit from access to and use of lifetime income or other arrangements that will reduce the risk of running out of funds during the retirement years. However, both access to and use of such arrangements in defined contribution plans is limited. The Department, taking into consideration recommendations of the ERISA Advisory Council and others, intends to explore what steps, if any, it could or should take, by regulation or otherwise, to enhance the retirement security of workers by increasing access to and use of such arrangements.
Let’s get this into perspective, shall we? The Fed, led by tax-cheat “Turbo-Tax Timmy” Geithner, rather deliberately crashed the market, causing retirees (and everyone else) to lose significant chunks of their investment portfolios, and now they want to help by possibly forcing Americans to buy from Wall Street investment firms bailed out by our hard-earned tax dollars because WE are the stupid ones?
Cue those frantically flying pigs. From Business Week:
The U.S. Treasury and Labor Departments will ask for public comment as soon as next week on ways to promote the conversion of 401(k) savings and Individual Retirement Accounts into annuities or other steady payment streams, according to Assistant Labor Secretary Phyllis C. Borzi and Deputy Assistant Treasury Secretary Mark Iwry, who are spearheading the effort.
—
“There’s a real desire on a lot of people’s parts to try to encourage something other than just rolling over a lump sum, to make sure this money will actually last a lifetime,” said [David] Certner, legislative counsel for Washington-based AARP, the biggest U.S. advocacy group for retirees.
—
There is “a tremendous amount of interest in the White House” in retirement-security initiatives, Borzi, who heads the Labor Department’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, said in an interview.
In addition to annuities, the inquiry will cover other approaches to guaranteeing income, including longevity insurance that would provide an income stream for retirees living beyond a certain age, she said.
“There’s been a fair amount of discussion in the literature taking the view that perhaps there ought to be more lifetime income,” Iwry, a senior adviser to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, said in an interview.
“The question is how to encourage it, and whether the government can and should be helpful in that regard,” Iwry said.
—
Promoting annuities may benefit companies that provide them through employers, including ING Groep NV (INGA:NA) and Prudential Financial Inc. (PRU), or sell them directly to individuals, such as American International Group Inc. (AIG), the insurer that has received $182.3 billion in government aid.
—
One proposal raised by Iwry as co-author of a paper while at the Retirement Security Project, before joining the administration, has reached Congress. A bill requiring employers to report 401(k) savings both as an account balance and as a stream of income based on an annuity was introduced on Dec. 3 by Senators Jeff Bingaman, a New Mexico Democrat, Johnny Isakson, a Georgia Republican, and Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat.
What Americans choose to do with their money is nobody’s business but their own. Certainly people should be encouraged to save for their retirement but when those who do so have their money stolen by the government through alleged regulation and oversight, the answer is not more government regulation and oversight. Social Security was intended to be an adjunct to our personal retirement savings, not the end-all into which it has morphed (mainly through the progressive liberal-encouraged spread of entitlement mentality derangement syndrome), and the government’s management of it has never been as originally intended so despite being a Ponzi scheme in the first place, it’s broke. The AARP benefits from the sale of insurance policies so their support must be seen as self-serving and therefore suspect.
Bottom line: To give the government any more control is just another step towards the nanny-state they so desperately desire.
It’s Begining To Look A Lot Like…Russia?
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia
Ev’rywhere you go;
Take a look on the Senate floor, glistening with even more
Backroom deals and silver bribes aglow!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia,
Pork in ev’ry law,
But the prettiest sight to see is the bacon that will be
In your own state’s maw.
A pair of Medicare bribes and a blizzard or two
Was the wish of Nelson and Reid.
An outright repeal of the pro-life Hyde deal
Is the hope the Democrat’s seed.
And Liberty is crying as they do their dirty deed.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia
Everywhere you go.
Mao is hanging on Barry’s tree;
The Senate wants health care free
For every voting Democratic ho.
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia,
Soon the bells will toll.
Our economy’s in the tank,
As our deficit breaks the bank.
The Democrats are really on a roll!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Russia
Soon the bells will start.
And the thing that will make them ring
Is the greed that’s found within every Blue Dog heart.
Bribes Beat Facts
He who controls the purse strings makes the rules. At least that’s how the Senate has handled their version of American health care “reform”. In the end, it was billions of dollars of taxpayer money handed out as early Christmas presents behind closed doors in the middle of a snowstorm in the middle of the night by Majority Leader Harry Reid that bought the crucial 60 votes the Demons…errr…the Democrats needed for the Senate to pass the bloody bastard.
‘Tis truly a sad, sad day for America. Those words can’t even begin to do justice to the wrenching ache deep in my gut as it is demonstrated yet again and with such blatant obviousness that this administration will do anything to turn what was once a beautiful beacon of light for the world into just another banana republic where freedom is but a dream and business is conducted through bribes in dark alleyways.
At this moment, I can naught but allow myself to be human and feel absolute loathing towards every Democrat in the Senate. While truly I wish no one harm, if I could have my way every single one of them would be run out of town on a rail and the only job they would ever again hold would be prefaced with “You want fries with that?” For such an entry level, real world job is barely all for which they have proven themselves qualified. They have shown once again that they don’t have a clue about how things work in the real world, the real world that is the source of the wealth they accumulate and toy with like so many cat turds in their little phantom sandbox in Washington.
This morning, they break their arms patting themselves on the back, proudly telling America it’s raining when they’re still just peeing on our leg. It is all beyond disgraceful, it is all beyond shameful. Reid said afterwards that “facts beat fears” but the reality this Christmas Eve is that bribes beat facts.
It has been noted that despite all the campaign promises, Obama’s legacy will be seen as that of the great divider. Senate Democrats have now struck a solid blow to really break this country in half, pitting honest, tax-paying, jobs-creating Americans against those standing in line for their Obama-promised handout. Rock The Vote’s latest stupidity that passses for advertising telling young people to withhold sex from those who are against the Democrat version of health care reform is but a prelude to the prejudice this farce of a Senate has just set in motion. At least as I write this piece Americans still have choices and I expect the more savvy will be voting with their dollars against businesses run by Democrats. I know that I will.
And therein lies America’s last hope. That this morning’s vote will be historic only by its fatal shattering of the Democratic party. That it will be a wake-up call to the GOP about the beliefs of the majority of Americans and our expectations of those we send to Washington to represent us; that it will allow true, constitutional conservatives a greater voice and thereby educate the immature in this society that it our Constitutional freedoms that have allowed them to stand here today with their hands out instead of shouldering their fair share. That our Constitutional freedoms are the only thing that will allow themselves to better their lot in life; for unlike the foundation of freedom given to us by the Founding Fathers, in a progressive, liberal Democratic regime, it is handouts, not opportunity, that are guaranteed to be rationed.
Obama Takes A Step Towards Eliminating U.S. Sovereignty
It is with great concern I recently read that President Walking Eagle has taken it upon himself to quietly change Executive Order 12425. While Congress and the country has been embroiled over the Senate battle over health care “reform”, last Thursday he signed the following:
The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
December 17, 2009
Executive Order — Amending Executive Order 12425
EXECUTIVE ORDER
– – – – – – –
AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL
AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO
ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words “except those provided by Section 2(c), Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act” and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,
December 16, 2009.
Doesn’t look like much, does it? It’s certainly not making any headlines in the media. But unfortunately, it’s a Really Big Deal. You see, INTERPOL is the International Criminal Police Organization. Basically, the global cops; according to their own website:
Created in 1923, it facilitates cross-border police co-operation, and supports and assists all organizations, authorities and services whose mission is to prevent or combat international crime.
INTERPOL aims to facilitate international police co-operation even where diplomatic relations do not exist between particular countries. Action is taken within the limits of existing laws in different countries and in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. INTERPOL’s constitution prohibits ‘any intervention or activities of a political, military, religious or racial character.’
The United States was a founding member of the organization, however She is not part of the International Criminal Court (ICC), in which INTERPOL plays a significant role. President Bush removed the U.S. as a signatory (Bill Clinton had signed the Rome Statute, a U.N. treaty establishing the ICC) , and:
“President Bush in fact went so far as to gain agreement from nations that they would expressly not detain or hand over to the ICC members of the United States armed forces. The fear of a symbolic ICC circus trial as a form of international political protest to American military actions in Iraq and elsewhere was real and palpable.”
In 1983, President Reagan signed the original Executive Order 12425:
By virtue of the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and statutes of the United States, including Section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (59 Stat. 669, 22 U.S.C. 288), it is hereby ordered that the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), in which the United States participates pursuant to 22 U.S.C. 263a, is hereby designated as a public international organization entitled to enjoy the privileges, exemptions and immunities conferred by the International Organizations Immunities Act; except those provided by Section 2(c), the portions of Section 2(d) and Section 3 relating to customs duties and federal internal-revenue importation taxes, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act. This designation is not intended to abridge in any respect the privileges, exemptions or immunities which such organization may have acquired or may acquire by international agreement or by Congressional action.
Section 2(c) reads:
Section 2(c) Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable.
What we have here is that INTERPOL was simply granted “diplomatic immunity” but, unlike diplomats, because of Reagan’s exception, they have always been subject to, in particular, the 4th Amendment of the United States Constitution. The same way citizens, including those who work in the FBI, the CIA, Congress, etc., are subject to it. (A good explanation of this matter can be read here.) Yet this is the crucial part just removed by Obama (the other sections refer to various taxes from which diplomats are typically exempt; does this mean U.S. INTERPOL operations will now pay Social Security, FICA, and property taxes?)
For just what purpose has Obama chosen to allow the members of this international law enforcement organization who operate in the United States the right to do so ABOVE the law of the land? He has granted them special privileges and effectively subordinated the Constitution to international law. And perhaps a more disturbing part of the whole matter is this:
“…INTERPOL’s central operations office in the United States is within our own Justice Department offices. They are American law enforcement officers working under the aegis of INTERPOL within our own Justice Department. That they now operate with full diplomatic immunity and with “inviolable archives” from within our own buildings should send red flags soaring into the clouds.
Ultimately, a detailed verbal explanation is due the American public from the President of the United States detailing why an international law enforcement arm assisting a court we are not a signatory to has been elevated above our Constitution upon our soil.”
—
UPDATE:
Andrew McCarthy at the National Review Online shared further thoughts today about this still-underreported, underquestioned, and most importantly unanswered change:
Mark Tapscott has thoughts at the Washington Examiner. Mark points out something I’d forgotten: “Interpol and ICC [the Intenrational Criminal Court] … took seriously Iran’s Oct. 3, 2009, request that 25 top Israeli civilian and military officials be placed on the international ‘Most Wanted’ list because of their actions in Gaza against murderous Palestinian radicals.”
Mark also observes that an Obama offical told the New York Times that the administration has not explained the President’s decision to immunize Interpol because — notwithstanding that the President took pains to amend a longstanding, Reagan-era executive order (EO 12425) and the White House issued a press release announcing tha the had done so — “there is nothing newsworthy here.” [By the way, I love the fact that, to Charlie Gibson and the rest of the Obama press office at the Times, the interesting part of this story is not the immunization of a police force but the fact that Obama’s decision “irks conservatives.”] Mark counters:
If there is nothing newsworthy involved, then why won’t the White House answer these basic questions regarding the EO?
-
Every other international organization granted such exemptions deals with mundane issues like fish – the International Pacific Halibut Commission – or disaster aid – the Red Cross. But Interpol is a law enforcement operation. Why does President Obama think it appropriate to give such exemptions to an international law enforcement operation, and what does he want Interpol to do here in the U.S. in the future with the exemptions that it cannot do now without the exemptions?
-
Does the search and seizure exemption extend to the activities and documents created by U.S. Department of Justice employees working with and for Interpol in New York and Washington, D.C.? If these employees and activities were already exempt from coverage of the federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), why have FOIA requests concerning them been previously answered?
They OWN This Now
The Senate’s Demon-crats continued to steamroll their plans to enslave the American people via their pork-filled “health care reform” bill today. Three key scenes played out on the Senate floor and they are extremely telling.
First, every single Democrats voted AGAINST examining the constitutionality of the individual mandate. It is their learned opinion that requiring every American to purchase a product is not an infringement of their freedom to choose and therefore debate is not necessary.
They then refused to consider whether their legislation infringes upon the states’ rights with regard to regulation of insurance companies.
Just as a reminder, here is the list of those who are putting the chains on you:
Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Bayh (D-IN) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Burris (D-IL) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Conrad (D-ND) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feingold (D-WI) Feinstein (D-CA) |
Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY) Hagan (D-NC) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kaufman (D-DE) Kerry (D-MA) Kirk (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) McCaskill (D-MO) Menendez (D-NJ) Merkley (D-OR) |
Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Nelson (D-NE) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Specter (D-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Warner (D-VA) Webb (D-VA) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR) |
And, at the last, they voted to INCLUDE ALL THE BILL’S EARMARKS. Though in this vote, the Republicans found themselves joined by a handful of Democrats who apparently felt it was ok to vote for the bill until someone else had the cajones to publicly bring up the fact it contains billions of dollars of pork.
YEAs —53 | ||
Akaka (D-HI) Baucus (D-MT) Begich (D-AK) Bennet (D-CO) Bingaman (D-NM) Boxer (D-CA) Brown (D-OH) Burris (D-IL) Byrd (D-WV) Cantwell (D-WA) Cardin (D-MD) Carper (D-DE) Casey (D-PA) Conrad (D-ND) Dodd (D-CT) Dorgan (D-ND) Durbin (D-IL) Feinstein (D-CA) |
Franken (D-MN) Gillibrand (D-NY) Hagan (D-NC) Harkin (D-IA) Inouye (D-HI) Johnson (D-SD) Kaufman (D-DE) Kerry (D-MA) Kirk (D-MA) Klobuchar (D-MN) Kohl (D-WI) Landrieu (D-LA) Lautenberg (D-NJ) Leahy (D-VT) Levin (D-MI) Lieberman (ID-CT) Lincoln (D-AR) Menendez (D-NJ) |
Mikulski (D-MD) Murray (D-WA) Nelson (D-FL) Pryor (D-AR) Reed (D-RI) Reid (D-NV) Rockefeller (D-WV) Sanders (I-VT) Schumer (D-NY) Shaheen (D-NH) Specter (D-PA) Stabenow (D-MI) Tester (D-MT) Udall (D-CO) Udall (D-NM) Whitehouse (D-RI) Wyden (D-OR) |
NAYs —46 | ||
Alexander (R-TN) Barrasso (R-WY) Bayh (D-IN) Bennett (R-UT) Bond (R-MO) Brownback (R-KS) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Collins (R-ME) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Ensign (R-NV) |
Enzi (R-WY) Feingold (D-WI) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Gregg (R-NH) Hatch (R-UT) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) LeMieux (R-FL) Lugar (R-IN) McCain (R-AZ) McCaskill (D-MO) McConnell (R-KY) |
Merkley (D-OR) Murkowski (R-AK) Nelson (D-NE) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Snowe (R-ME) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Voinovich (R-OH) Warner (D-VA) Webb (D-VA) Wicker (R-MS) |
Not Voting – 1 | ||
Bunning (R-KY) |
The final vote to move this bastard bill out of the Senate is scheduled for tomorrow morning at 7:00 a.m. EST. By all rights, every Democratic Senator who voted to remove the pork from the bill should now vote against its final passage since they have gone on record as saying the bill, as is, is wrong. We won’t even go into the fact that the CBO has now gone on record as saying the Democrats have been arguing financial “benefits” of the bill by double-counting Medicare “savings” and the truth is that is really IS a budget-buster:
The key point is that the savings to the HI (Medicare Hospital Insurance) trust fund under the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. Trust fund accounting shows the magnitude of the savings within the trust fund, and those savings indeed improve the solvency of that fund; however, that accounting ignores the burden that would be faced by the rest of the government later in redeeming the bonds held by the trust fund. Unified budget accounting shows that the majority of the HI trust fund savings would be used to pay for other spending under the PPACA and would not enhance the ability of the government to redeem the bonds credited to the trust fund to pay for future Medicare benefits. To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.
But I doubt they have enough conscience left inside of them to avoid the temptation of the billions of dollars of taxpayer money that will eventually be dangled in front of them by Harry (the Grinch Who Stole Christmas) Reid; that seems to be worth more to them than the thought their constituents are planning to figurately roast their nuts over an open fire for selling generations of Americans into slavery. Perhaps because their nuts are too small to be of any concern?
On C-SPAN Tomorrow: Another Episode Of “As The Worms Squirm”
Finally! Someone, two of them in the Senate, in fact, found their Big Boy Panties and their cajones at the same time.
Tomorrow, Senators DeMint (R-SC) and Ensign (R-NV) will force the Senate to vote on the question that has most bothered Americans about the Obama administration and its minions’ attempt to usurp 1/6 of the American economy: IS THE BILL CONSTITUTIONAL?
“I am incredibly concerned that the Democrats’ proposed individual mandate provision takes away too much freedom and choice from Americans across the country,” said Senator Ensign. “As an American, I felt the obligation to stand up for the individual freedom of every citizen to make their own decision on this issue. I don’t believe Congress has the legal authority to force this mandate on its citizens.”
“Forcing every American to purchase a product is absolutely inconsistent with our Constitution and the freedoms our Founding Fathers hoped to protect,” said Senator DeMint. “This is not at all like car insurance, you can choose not to drive but Americans will have no choice whether to buy government-approved insurance. This is nothing more than a bailout and takeover of insurance companies. We’re forcing Americans to buy insurance under penalty of law and then Washington bureaucrats will then dictate what these companies can sell to Americans. This is not liberty, it is tyranny of good intentions by elites in Washington who think they can plan our lives better than we can.”
The response to this will, of course, be telling. It will be worth almost any price of admission to hear a Demon…errrr…Democrat respond to this, as well as their justifications if they vote that the proposed legislation is constitutional. I am quite certain that if the Democratic majority rules that there is no violation of Constitutional freedoms and the inevitable Supreme Court battle over it falls on the side of the people (which needs to happen before the Supreme Court becomes majority-fouled with progressives), they will come to rue their choice.
As well they should. While drying up on a hot sidewalk somewhere, just like any proper worm.
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