AN UNDEMOCRATIC ABUSE OF POWER
WEDNESDAY, OBAMA DROPS A BOMB. RECONCILIATION. DO OR DIE. SWALLOW IT OR CHOKE TO DEATH. If the nuclear option is detonated, we will take another unsustainable step towards government takeover of our lives and pocketbooks, fiscal insolvency, and ultimate economic collapse.
Money Morning has a good piece on the nuclear option/reconciliation process with its potential superficial pitfalls---like abortion and immigration. But the larger pitfall is that it was never intended for life-changing legislation such as this. My friend Bobbie Petray emails me this morning:
Reconciliation is attractive to proponents because it sharply limits debate and amendments to a mere 20 hours and would allow passage with only 51 votes (as opposed to the 60 needed to overcome a procedural hurdle). But the Constitution intends the opposite process, especially for a bill that would affect one-sixth of the American economy.
This use of reconciliation to jam through this legislation, against the will of the American people, would be unprecedented in scope. And the havoc wrought would threaten our system of checks and balances, corrode the legislative process, degrade our system of government and damage the prospects of bipartisanship.
Less than a year ago, the longest-serving member of the Senate, West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, said, "I was one of the authors of the legislation that created the budget 'reconciliation' process in 1974, and I am certain that putting health-care reform . . . legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage that must be resisted." Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, also a Democrat, said last March, "I don't believe reconciliation was ever intended for the purpose of writing this kind of substantive reform legislation." They are both right.
Reconciliation was designed to balance the federal budget. Both parties have used the process, but only when the bills in question stuck close to dealing with the budget. In instances in which other substantive legislation was included, the legislation had significant bipartisan support. For example, Congress used reconciliation to carry welfare reform in 1996, which ultimately passed with 78 votes. And when reconciliation was used to create the Children's Health Insurance Program that I authored with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 1997, the program got 85 votes and served as the glue to passing the first balanced budget in 40 years. Both plans were negotiated with, and signed into law by, President Bill Clinton. Read more here.
*********************
I can only say if this travesty comes to pass against our collective will, it will heartily be challenged on Constitutional grounds in every court in the land, including SCOTUS. It will also be taken up big-time by American voters in the mid-term elections this year. And if none of that works, then there's always moving to Texas where secession is not a dirty word.
Money Morning has a good piece on the nuclear option/reconciliation process with its potential superficial pitfalls---like abortion and immigration. But the larger pitfall is that it was never intended for life-changing legislation such as this. My friend Bobbie Petray emails me this morning:
Reconciliation is attractive to proponents because it sharply limits debate and amendments to a mere 20 hours and would allow passage with only 51 votes (as opposed to the 60 needed to overcome a procedural hurdle). But the Constitution intends the opposite process, especially for a bill that would affect one-sixth of the American economy.
This use of reconciliation to jam through this legislation, against the will of the American people, would be unprecedented in scope. And the havoc wrought would threaten our system of checks and balances, corrode the legislative process, degrade our system of government and damage the prospects of bipartisanship.
Less than a year ago, the longest-serving member of the Senate, West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, said, "I was one of the authors of the legislation that created the budget 'reconciliation' process in 1974, and I am certain that putting health-care reform . . . legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage that must be resisted." Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, also a Democrat, said last March, "I don't believe reconciliation was ever intended for the purpose of writing this kind of substantive reform legislation." They are both right.
Reconciliation was designed to balance the federal budget. Both parties have used the process, but only when the bills in question stuck close to dealing with the budget. In instances in which other substantive legislation was included, the legislation had significant bipartisan support. For example, Congress used reconciliation to carry welfare reform in 1996, which ultimately passed with 78 votes. And when reconciliation was used to create the Children's Health Insurance Program that I authored with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 1997, the program got 85 votes and served as the glue to passing the first balanced budget in 40 years. Both plans were negotiated with, and signed into law by, President Bill Clinton. Read more here.
*********************
I can only say if this travesty comes to pass against our collective will, it will heartily be challenged on Constitutional grounds in every court in the land, including SCOTUS. It will also be taken up big-time by American voters in the mid-term elections this year. And if none of that works, then there's always moving to Texas where secession is not a dirty word.
4 comments:
Hi Web:
As I mentioned, long ago, I enabled moderation on my comments because of anonymous comments that contained porn links. I even posted about it.
Lately, all of the anonymous comments I get seem to be of the type above, or spam advertising prescription drugs.
What's weird, is that they all arrive as comments to that post I made, instead of to other (and newer) posts.
I wonder if there is a viable way to get a fee for allowing them?
(They are commercials, after all. :-)
-
Hi Paul, well I had to go a new route with spam comments due to their exponential increase. Don't know if you can get a fee for them. No amount of money would get me to let most of them on, notwithstanding the one above which I let through the cracks today.
What happened? Do you get so many, mixed in with legitimate ones, that they all seem to blur together?
:-)
-
Drugs, porn, even erectile dysfunction for heaven sakes! probably most of them from China. Having to delete more and more of them each day got old. So far, this new system works well to keep these automatons out.
Post a Comment