Among the issues most commonly discussed are individuality, the rights of the individual, the limits of legitimate government, morality, history, economics, government policy, science, business, education, health care, energy, and man-made global warming evaluations. My posts are aimed at intelligent and rational individuals, whose comments are very welcome.

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For "a human being, the question 'to be or not to be,' is the question 'to think or not to think.'" Ayn Rand

28 February 2011

ObamaCare Now Seen as so Bad, Democrats Consider it Disparaging

Recently, Representative Tom Graves, Republican of Georgia was speaking on the House floor in favor of an amendment to defund ObamaCare.  He describes how it is so expensive that 915 companies and union health plans have received waivers, letting 2.5 million Americans off the hook for ObamaCare.  A Democrat Representative from Florida rudely interrupted him several times claiming she wanted a ruling on a parliamentary inquiry.  She was allowed to make that inquiry only after Representative Graves finished and yielded the floor.  Her point was that members of the House were not supposed to make disparaging remarks about the President.  She claimed that by calling the Affordable Care Act by the popular shorthand name ObamaCare, that Rep. Graves was being disparaging.  It is very interesting that this great triumph of the Obama presidency is now seen as so bad that Obama's being associated with it is seen as disparaging.  What an amazing admission by a Democrat in the House of Representatives!  The brief Graves talk and the "lady" from Florida can be watched in this video clip:

4 comments:

Greg said...

Wow. 900+? Last I heard it was 300 something. At this rate everyone will have waivers except we little folk.

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D. said...

Congress has long practiced legislation designed to extort campaign funds from whole industries in order to prevent the proposed legislation from taking place or to get favorable concessions and exceptions written into the legislation. The new types of legislation with most of the rules being left to bureaucrats or central planners to write may be designed to cut them in on the action. Now Congress, the entire Executive branch, and even the Judicial branch have been cut more and more into the power and extortion game.

One of the problems with government power extending beyond the minimum necessary to protect the equal, sovereign individual rights of the People is that the lust for power and wealth of the people in the government becomes a death spiral. Power grubbing becomes so extensive in time that the People finally have no choice but to be slaves or rebel. Fortunately, we should still be able to rebel successfully at the polls, but no one in government will really take that rebellion seriously unless it repeats its message in one election after another. The only escape from slavery is the reassertion by the People that they will not allow their mandate of limited power government in the Constitution be ignored any longer. Without the American Principle of individual rights and very limited government being held by most Americans firmly, government will grow and become an enslaving overseer. It basically had reached that state in Obama's first two years. Not only do we have no property rights to economic goods, but Obama's cadres claimed we had no right to the ownership even of our own bodies and minds.

A federal judge just made a pro-ObamaCare ruling that explicitly states that one cannot claim exemption from ObamaCare on the basis of freedom of conscience, not even that subset called religious freedom because the Commerce Clause allows the federal government to regulate our thoughts since they will be acted on and have consequences for commerce! Wow, is that ever the last straw. The Progressive Elitists had made it pretty clear with their politically correct indoctrinations that they wanted to control our thoughts and now they claim the Constitution allows them to do so via the Commerce Clause.

There is absolutely nothing beyond the reach of the powers of the central planners according to them. And note how this is an example of the Judicial System jumping into the government power game as completely as it can. If Obama has the chance to appoint one more Justice to the Supreme Court, this will become the kind of ruling made at that level.

Michael E. Marotta said...

This has been all over the web, at least all over the right hand side of it. It cannot be repeated enough. As exposition, the irony could fill volumes. Even my "progressive" friends are bitter at the way the current President turned out to be George W. Bush Redux. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

Charles R. Anderson, Ph.D. said...

Not quite the same. When Bush was coupled with a Republican Congress in 2006, they produced a 2007 budget that resulted in a deficit of 1.14% of GDP or about $160.5 billion. The Democrat Congress of 2008 and beyond produced deficits of 3.18% of GDP in 2008, 9.91% in 2009, and 8.92% in 2010. Of course Obama had his hand in for the 2009 and 2010 deficits. The February 2011 deficit was a record $223 billion, which was much larger than the Bush deficit for the whole year of 2007! Bush was fiscally disappointing, but Obama is in a spending league of his own.

Bush's tax cuts were a very good thing, but Obama really wanted to undo them, which would have killed the economy, right along with his trying to kill the coal, oil, and gas industries, cripple all energy-using industries, make banking more expensive, and shoot health care costs through the roof. His anti-business rhetoric and the mostly unwritten nature of the new laws and rules he was pushing made it impossible for most companies, outside the crony merchantilists, to calculate future profits. What good are the low capital gains, dividend, and inheritance taxes now when they are all scheduled to go up before anyone can realize profits due to starting a business now? Obama is a complete idiot about business investment.