Unconstitutional Procedure Being Used to Pass Unconstitutional ObamaCare

House leaders are preparing to ram through ObamaCare this week  without a vote.  Not only is the legislation unconstitutional, but the process being used to pass it is unconstitutional.  The House is preparing a rule that would consider the Senate-passed version of ObamaCare passed in the House even though members would never directly vote on it.  That would violate Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution.

Here is how the trick would work:  In the House, the Rules Committee sets up the parameters for debate on legislation.  House leaders are considering a complicated rule that would be structured so that a vote on the rule setting down the structure for the ObamaCare debate would allow the Senate’s version of health care reform to pass without a vote.  First, there would be a vote on a rule.  If the rule is passed by the House, then the House would vote on a health care budget reconciliation measure that is an amendment to the Senate passed ObamaCare bill.  If that reconciliation measure passes, then reconciliation goes to the Senate and the ObamaCare legislation is deemed passed without a direct vote.  The plan for the legislation is unclear.  House leadership will either structure the rule to either immediately present ObamaCare to the President for his signature or they will hold the bill and deliver it only if the Senate passes a health care reconciliation measure.  Either way, the Constitution and the American people are the losers.

Understand that this procedure is drafted in a way so your average American can’t understand it.  The simple way to understand the situation is that the House is trying to pass a bill without a vote.

The Constitution states that the House and Senate are supposed to pass identical versions of a bill before the President can sign it into law.  One of the reasons for this tricky procedure is to provide cover for moderate Democrats who don’t want to vote for the Senate-passed ObamaCare bill because it includes the federal funding of abortion.

Michael McConnell, Professor and Director of the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford Law School, explains it this way at the Wall Street Journal today:

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Tags: Chris Van Hollen, Constitution, Nancy Pelosi, ObamaCare
Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 10:11 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 89910180 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bdarling/2010/03/15/unconstitutional-procedure-being-used-to-pass-unconstitutional-obamacare/Unconstitutional+Procedure+Being+Used+to+Pass+Unconstitutional+ObamaCare2010-03-15+17%3A11%3A37Brian+Darling

Which Democrats Get Free Passes?

Starting today, the RNC should offer Free Passes to targeted Congressional Democrats who will agree to vote NO on health care.

The Free Pass should include:

• A guarantee no national money will be used against the Democrat in the general election.
• A guarantee if the Democrat wants to jump parties (far less likely), he/she will receive the RNC’s endorsement in the primary & national money in the general.

Yes, Pelosi still faces hurdles. Yes, a government take-over of health care would inflame America’s likely voters and lead to greater Republican gains in November.  Yes, we can attempt to repeal it.  Yes, we can cheer SCOTUS to rule it unconstitutional.

But, none of these things is worth the current Republican passivity.   We have no time for party purity here.   Our own focus must be jobs, jobs, jobs.   And we cannot get bogged down with “repeal it,” even if we gain power.

Right now, Republicans should be locking down NO votes with as much carrot as we have stick.  We’ve put the fear of god into them, for the ones still fence sitting, it is time to offer salvation.

Here’s my list of persuadable Democrats to be offer a Free Pass:

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Tags: blue dog democrats, government health care, Nancy Pelosi, RNC, Supreme Court
Posted Mar 15th 2010 at 5:31 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 89346163 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mwarstler/2010/03/15/which-democrats-get-free-passes/Which+Democrats+Get+Free+Passes%3F2010-03-15+12%3A31%3A13Morgan+Warstler

Gibbs: ObamaCare the Law of the Land by Next Sunday

Doing his rounds on the Sunday talk shows, WH spokesman, Robert Gibbs, stated:

Gibbs added that those on next week’s Sunday talk shows “will be talking about healthcare not as a presidential proposal but I think as the law of the land.”

It’s interesting to note that Gibbs did not mention the reconciliation package. In fact, there has been a definite cooling of the rhetoric about the prospect of reconciliation in the Senate.

Note to those members of the House, you are being duped. The Senate will not take up the reconciliation package at all. After the House is stupid enough to fall for their bait and pass the ObamaCare bill, the Senate will deem reconciliation an impossibility due to the Byrd Rule.

In addition, Gibbs stated:

President Barack Obama will look to campaign on the new healthcare law in midterm elections, Gibbs said.

“We believe healthcare reform is going to pass, and once it passes we’re happy to have the 2010 elections be about the achievement of healthcare reform,” Gibbs said.

The GOP would love to run on the platform of the Democrats ramming ObamaCare down our throats, and the Slaughter Rule will make it the ultimate death blow.

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Tags: government health care, Obama Care, reconciliation, Robert Gibbs, white house spokesman
Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 5:31 pm in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 89390348 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sahiller/2010/03/14/gibbs-obamacare-the-law-of-the-land-by-next-sunday/Gibbs%3A+ObamaCare+the+Law+of+the+Land+by+Next+Sunday2010-03-15+00%3A31%3A45SusanAnne+++Hiller

‘Schoolhouse Barack’

Remember Schoolhouse Rock, that civic-minded Saturday morning cartoon short from the 1970s? It’s time to update it for the Obama Era.

”I’m Just a Law”

LAW (singing): I’m just a law, yes I’m only a law,
And I don’t know why they passed me at all.
Cause — no — one — knows what is in me
No one’s read a darn word,
I was typed up last night
By a 20-year-old nerd,
But Pelosi twisted elbows all day.
How I hoped and prayed they would stall
But today, all in all, I’m a law.

BOY: Hello, Law, why so glum?

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Tags: government health care, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, ObamaCare, Pelosicare
Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 3:01 pm in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Political Humor, Politics | 8274685 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jherricane/2010/03/14/schoolhouse-barack/%27Schoolhouse+Barack%272010-03-14+22%3A01%3A50John+K.+Herr

The Debt-Sea Scrolls

The Debt Sea, that ocean of red ink that threatens to overflow its banks and inundate every nook and cranny in America from Main Street to Wall street, is bordered on the south by the Potomac River, to the east-southeast by the Anacostia River, to the north-northeast by Prince Georges County, Maryland, to the north-northwest by Montgomery County, Maryland and to the immediate west by Georgetown and the historic 175-year-old Chesapeake-and-Ohio Canal.

The Debt-Sea Scrolls tell a story of evolving fiscal folly that could represent one of the greatest man-made disasters ever — the destruction of mankind’s most successful experiment in governance and the crippling of an economic system that produced the greatest sustained prosperity the world has ever known.  The first of the Debt-Sea Scrolls was written around 80-years ago when the government believed it could spend its way out of the Great Depression with money it didn’t have…with money it didn’t even almost have.  The programs (known as the “New Deal”) described in the first of the Debt-Sea Scrolls didn’t succeed in revitalizing American industry.  It was The Second World War and the massive Lend-Lease program with which we became the “Arsenal for Democracy” that finally succeeded in revitalizing American Industry. By the time the war was over, so was the Great Depression. Unemployment had plummeted to below 2.0% by the time the war ended in 1945 from 14.6% in 1940, which was essentially the rate of unemployment during the early years of the depression and seven years of New Deal Keynesian prime-the-pump policies.  Following the war, American industry converted from wartime to peacetime production and the rate of unemployment remained below 6.0% for over a decade and for most of the half century that followed.

We learn from the Debt-Sea Scrolls that unsustainable national debt, fueled by easy credit that required borrowers to have very little skin in the game (sound familiar?) was, more than any other factor, generally credited with igniting the economic conflagration we now know as the Great Depression.  Ironically we are now, seventy years later, adding unsustainable debt (to already unsustainable debt) at a level many economists believe will seriously impede our recovery and may end any hope of returning to robust prosperity.  We are, systematically, mortgaging the future of our children, their children and their children’s children as well.

Let us pause to consider the debt-spawning spending spree on which the government has embarked and proposes further to accelerate.

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Tags: deficit spending, entitlement spending, Fannie Mae, federal debt, federal spending
Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 6:01 am in Congress, Economics, Featured Story, News, Politics, federal spending | 88606122 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/oftheeising/2010/03/14/the-debt-sea-scrolls/The+Debt-Sea+Scrolls2010-03-14+14%3A01%3A36Of+Thee+I+Sing+1776

Keynesian Economics and the Wizard of Oz

When Dorothy and her friends finally reach Oz, they present themselves to the almighty Wizard, only to eventually discover that he is just an illusion maintained by a charlatan hiding behind a curtain. This seems eerily akin to to the state of Keynesian economics. It does not matter that Keynesianism isn’t working for Obama. It does not matter that it didn’t work for Bush, or for Japan in the 1990s, or for Hoover and Roosevelt in the 1930s.

In the ultimate triumph of theory over reality, the Keynesians say all that matters is the macroeconomic model behind the curtain showing that more government spending leads to more jobs and growth. Consider the recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which claimed that Obama’s stimulus created at least one million jobs. As Brian Riedl of the Heritage Foundation noted:

CBO’s calculations are not based on actually observing the economy’s recent performance. Rather, they used an economic model that was programmed to assume that stimulus spending automatically creates jobs — thus guaranteeing their result. …The problem here is obvious. Once CBO decided to assume that every dollar of government spending increased GDP…, its conclusion that the stimulus saved jobs was pre-ordained.

But surely this can’t be true, you may be thinking. Our public servants in Washington would not make important policy decisions based on a model that automatically produces a certain result, would they? Peter Suderman of Reason pulls aside the curtain:

…those reports rely on assumption-packed models that effectively predetermine their outcomes; what they say, in essence, is that the stimulus worked because we assume it did. …That’s especially true when estimating government spending’s productive effects, which is accomplished by plugging numbers into a formula that assumes that government spending produces a multiplier—an increased return for every government dollar spent. In other words, it extrapolates from how much money is put in rather than from what has actually come out. And it does so using a formula that dictates that if money is put in, even more money will come out. According to the CBO’s estimates, depending on how the money is spent, one dollar of government spending can produce total economic activity of up to $2.50. What a deal! …for all practical purposes, the same multipliers that were used to predict how many jobs would be created are being used to estimate how many jobs have been created.

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Tags: Big Government, CBO, Deficit, Economics, federal spending
Posted Mar 13th 2010 at 5:10 pm in Congress, Economics, News, Obama, Politics, Uncategorized | 88538248 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmitchell/2010/03/13/keynesian-economics-and-the-wizard-of-oz/Keynesian+Economics+and+the+Wizard+of+Oz2010-03-14+01%3A10%3A17Dan+Mitchell

The Healthcare Bill Would Be Obama’s ‘Enabling Act’

Why are Barack Obama and other Democrat leaders so intent on passing a government takeover of healthcare now…Now…NOW?

They must know that costs will rise and the quality of care will fall, right?   They must know that Obamacare would destroy the economy, right?   Of course they do.  But, they also know that the federal government would tighten its grip on the nation.   They know that Obama’s czars and other appointees would be authorized to bypass Congress in enacting sweeping regulations on nearly every aspect of a person’s life.   And, they know that these new powers of the federal government would be concentrated in the hands of the Democratic Party and the President.

Here’s what else they know.   History affords many examples of regimes whose motto was “Never let a crisis go to waste.”   In 1933, having campaigned for “hope” and “change,” the National Socialist Worker’s Party forced through the German parliament a Law to Remedy the Distress of the People and the Nation, also known as the Enabling Act.

This new law enabled the German chancellor and his appointees to bypass parliament in imposing sweeping regulations on the people:

“In addition to the procedure prescribed by the constitution, laws of the Reich may also be enacted by the government of the Reich [i.e., the Cabinet].”

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Tags: Barack Obama, Congress, Constitution, Democratic Party, enabling act
Posted Mar 13th 2010 at 2:46 pm in Congress, Healthcare, History, Obama, Politics | 88118274 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mzak/2010/03/13/the-healthcare-bill-would-be-obamas-enabling-act/The+Healthcare+Bill+Would+Be+Obama%27s+%27Enabling+Act%272010-03-13+22%3A46%3A06Michael+Zak

Carly Fiorina Slams Boxer in New, Outrageous Video

Today, at the California Republican Party Convention in Santa Clara, California, Carly Fiorina is debuting yet another outrageous web video—this time slamming Sen. Barbara Boxer, who Fiorina seeks to replace this November. The web video—actually a lengthier “movie”—is featured at a new microsite, www.failedsenator.com.

Fiorina grabbed headlines—good, bad and ugly—with her infamous “Demon Sheep” video earlier this year. Following the release of that video, her campaign pledged that more would be on the way. This latest offering, which is already being dubbed the “Boxer Blimp,” takes Boxer to task for her record in the Senate. California Republicans say that is something that has been little examined in the course of previous campaigns, but which is essential to highlight in a year where the three-term Senator’s approval ratings are lagging while California’s economy remains on proverbial life support.

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Tags: Barbara Boxer, boxer blimp, California GOP Convention, california senate race, carly fiorina
Posted Mar 13th 2010 at 12:45 pm in Congress, Politics, State Politics | 88526173 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/03/13/carly-fiorina-slams-boxer-in-new-outrageous-video/Carly+Fiorina+Slams+Boxer+in+New%2C+Outrageous+Video2010-03-13+20%3A45%3A22Capitol++Confidential

Scott Brown Delivers GOP Weekly Address: Accuses Obama and Dems of ‘Bitter, Destructive and Endless’ Drive to Pass Health Care

Sometimes the GOP Hits the Mark. Today It Was a Bull’s-Eye….

Senator Scott Brown delivered the GOP Weekly Address today.

The freshman Republican Senator from Massachusetts scored a direct hit on Barack Obama and fellow Democrats for their “bitter, destructive and endless drive to pass health care.”

Choosing Brown to deliver this week’s address was a great move. It was a timely reminder to democrats on how Americans feel about their drive to nationalize the nation’s health care system. Brown currently holds a 70% approval rating… in Massachusetts.

This was devastating:

Terrific… Nothing like a little reminder to democrats on the mood of the nation a week before they plan to ram Obamacare down our throats.

Here’s the transcript:

Hello, I’m United States Senator Scott Brown from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

“When the people of my state elected me in January, they sent more than a senator to Washington – they sent a message. Across party lines, the voters told politicians in Washington to get its priorities right.

“And from my travels and conversation with people throughout this country, they told me that they want their President and Congress to focus on creating jobs and reviving America’s economy. Instead, for more than a year now, we have seen a bitter, destructive, and endless drive to completely transform America’s health care system.

“In January of last year, unemployment hit 7.2 percent and our economy was hurting badly. But, early in President Obama’s term, he and the Democratic leadership of Congress made takeover of health care their first priority.

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Tags: Barack Obama, GOP weekly address, Massachusetts Senate, ObamaCare, scott brown
Posted Mar 13th 2010 at 10:36 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 88510112 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jhoft/2010/03/13/scott-brown-delivers-gop-weekly-address-accuses-obama-and-dems-of-bitter-destructive-and-endless-drive-to-pass-health-care/Scott+Brown+Delivers+GOP+Weekly+Address%3A+Accuses+Obama+and+Dems+of+%27Bitter%2C+Destructive+and+Endless%27+Drive+to+Pass+Health+Care2010-03-13+18%3A36%3A47Jim+Hoft

New CATO Study Shows Educators Lie

As any exasperated advocate of commonsense education reform can tell you, liberals and their allies in the teachers unions will, like drunken spammers, never cease to declaim on how “PUBLIC EDUCATION NEEDS MORE MONEYS LOL.” Yet, as highlighted in the video above, a recent study by the CATO Institute has found that public educators routinely lie about the exorbitant costs of education so as to keep parents from realizing just how little the vaunted Leftist sacred cow of public education actually provides for their child. Yes, you read right. When it comes to public education costs, some of the biggest liars are people who our tax dollars pay to teach the truth.

Just as an example, the CATO study found that, while Washington DC public schools claim to spend about $17,000/student, the actual price tag is closer to $28,000. Just to put this in perspective, this is a higher price than the private Potomac School, Georgetown Preparatory School, Stone Ridge School and Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School. In fact, it’s only $2,000 less than Sidwell Friends, the ultra-exclusive private academy where President Obama’s own daughters attend.

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Tags: education spending, K-12 education, private tuition, public education, sidwell friends
Posted Mar 13th 2010 at 9:24 am in Education, Local Government, News, Politics | 88386102 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/mholt/2010/03/13/new-cato-study-shows-educators-lie/New+CATO+Study+Shows+Educators+Lie2010-03-13+17%3A24%3A51Mytheos+Holt

Bite

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Tags: louise slaughter, ObamaCare
Posted Mar 13th 2010 at 8:01 am in Healthcare, Obama, Political Humor, Politics | 8835848 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/cmuir/2010/03/13/bite/Bite2010-03-13+16%3A01%3A56Chris+Muir

The Star Players in the ShoreBank Story

The Shorebank story is quite complicated and filled with literally hundreds – if not thousands — of individuals who have been in some way involved in the unfolding of an intriguing saga. It has been difficult to narrow down the field of characters in order to focus on just a few. Some of the names are familiar, and some are relatively unknown (except, perhaps, within the context of their own circles of influence).

The original founders of Shorebank probably didn’t dream that this bank would have the worldwide influence that it now has. They were all very active in their communities and had a desire to see the South Shore neighborhood re-built to its former state of safety and community life. The neighborhood had suffered economically and was becoming run-down and plagued by crime. Their hope was to re-invest and re-enliven this neighborhood of Chicago. They made loans towards the renovation of many of the buildings which were deteriorating and in disrepair. They also invested in new building projects to benefit the residents of South Shore.

For 30-plus years Shorebank has seen its founders’ dreams realized; and beyond those dreams, Shorebank has become the catalyst for international financing — especially that directed toward low-income people in many countries of the world. The Community Reinvestment Act, passed into law in 1977 during President Jimmy Carter’s term of office, encouraged financial institutions to make loans to low-income borrowers. Ron Grzywinski (one of the original founders of Shorebank) was the only banker to testify before Congress in support of the Community Reinvestment Act. Its passage was instrumental in paving the way for Shorebank’s success. The bank steadily grew financially and facilitated the renewal of poverty stricken areas through the rest of the 1970’s and early 80’s, catching the attention of then-Governor Bill and Hillary Clinton of Arkansas (in fact, according to the IFA, Bill is still advocating on behalf of ShoreBank).

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Tags: Adele Simmons, Arkadelphia, Arkansas, bailout, Barack Obama
Posted Mar 13th 2010 at 6:01 am in Economics, Featured Story, Financial Services, News, Politics | 8328254 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/centralillinois912project/2010/03/13/the-star-players-in-the-shorebank-story/The+Star+Players+in+the+ShoreBank+Story2010-03-13+14%3A01%3A14Central+Illinois++9%2F12+Project

U.S. Should Not Yield to ‘European Outrage’ over Tanker Deal

Northrop Grumman has announced it will not compete for the contract to build the U.S. Air Force’s new refueling tanker, stating that the specifications of the RFP were unfair. Northrop’s partners in Europe are lashing out at the United States. One French official said this week, “I can assure you that there will be consequences” for the United States. The Euros were planning on using Northrop as the American face of their plane, but the fact remained that most of it would have been built in France and to many observers that seemed like a bad deal for out of work Americans. In fact, EADS/Airbus, who would have actually built the plane Northrop was proposing, was counting on the American taxpayer-funded refueling tanker to help its financial situation.

Meanwhile, an advocacy organization called Build Them Both is urging President Obama to step in “fix” it all. “Build Them Both urges President Obama to step in and – with the stroke of a pen – hire each company to build its proposed new tanker. This will put 100,000 Americans to work, provide the Air Force more tankers more quickly and offer massive taxpayer savings over building only one,” says the group’s spokesperson Carrie Giddins, who is also a Democratic political operative.

Build Them Both, which does not disclose its funders, further argues that the United States should yield to French threats and “European outrage.”

But the “build them both” solution would actually be the worst of all possible ideas. It would, in fact, be a terrible deal for taxpayers. The costs of building two tankers would be astronomical, costing taxpayers more upfront and long term. Designing and building two separate refueling tankers would require two separate sets of specifications. It would also require training two separate groups of pilots and maintenance crews and developing and maintaining distinct resupply networks. Its important to note that Northrop’s partner EADS/Airbus was proposing to build a completely different plane; which would require its own hangars, air base taxiways and landing strips. All of these considerations carry enormous costs.

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Tags: Airbus, Boeing, build them both, carrie giddins, EADS
Posted Mar 12th 2010 at 12:37 pm in Defense, News, Obama, Politics, federal spending | 88202145 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/capitolconfidential/2010/03/12/u-s-should-not-yield-to-european-outrage-over-tanker-deal/U.S.+Should+Not+Yield+to+%E2%80%98European+Outrage%E2%80%99+over+Tanker+Deal2010-03-12+20%3A37%3A32Capitol++Confidential

The Unemployment Benefit Black Card

Tuesday, the U.S. Senate passed another Democratic multi-billion dollar legislative handout designed to temporarily alleviate the continuous financial burden hanging over the nation’s unemployed and fiscally irresponsible states.

Democrats—with six Republicans tagging along for the spending spree—swiped the nation’s Centurion Card to the tune of $140 billion, and went home with bags overflowing with goodies: subsides for health insurance, funds to prevent states from laying off public service employees, extensions of unemployment benefits, etc.

Senator Chuck Schumer—apparently now worried about the chattering class—patted himself on the back for a day’s work and proclaimed, “While our Republican colleagues on healthcare have been stonewall[ing], on jobs they know that they block us at their own political peril … and substantive peril as well.”

New York’s senior senator is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

This initiative can’t possibly be touted as a jobs bill when nearly 90% of the funds appropriated are unrelated to job-creation. Moreover, the Republicans who did cross party lines to support this measure, supported—what amounted to—another spending bill, and they might be doing that at their own political peril.

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Tags: federal spending, Jim Bunning, paygo, unemployment, unemployment benefits
Posted Mar 12th 2010 at 11:17 am in Congress, Economics, Politics, federal spending | 87630112 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jarenas/2010/03/12/the-unemployment-benefit-black-card/The+Unemployment+Benefit+Black+Card2010-03-12+19%3A17%3A28J.C.+Arenas

Tea Party vs. 1960s Radicals

David Brooks is the very embodiment of a New York Times editor’s picture of a “responsible” conservative.

He supported Obama in 2008 and dismisses Sarah Palin as an ignoramus without table manners. He considers Glenn Beck a clown and disdains the traditional conservative desire for limited government, lower taxes and fiscal responsibilities.  Perhaps most outrageously, however, Brooks last week managed to equate the tea party movement with the Weather Underground, SDS and the radicals who crawled out of leftist fever swamps in the sixties dedicated to destroying the America the tea partiers profess to love.

After the GOP electoral losses in 2006 and 2008, Brooks dismissed the notion that Republicans lost mainly because they had performed poorly in office and instead warned that the basic values of conservatives had destroyed the Republican brand. In BrooksWorld, Republicans lost because conservatives just hadn’t come to grips with modernity. Goldwater and Reagan, he hinted, spoke for a different time, to a different electorate in a different voice. The country and politics had changed and the time had come for conservatives to grow up.

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Tags: Barry Goldwater, conservatives, david brook, Glenn Beck, New York Times
Posted Mar 12th 2010 at 9:41 am in Politics, Tea Party | 88130108 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dkeene/2010/03/12/tea-party-vs-1960s-radicals/Tea+Party+vs.+1960s+Radicals2010-03-12+17%3A41%3A11David+A.+Keene

How Republicans Can Stop The Health Care Bill in 3 Steps

The stakes in the health care debate continue to climb. For the Democrats, they truly are in between a self- imposed Barack and a hard place. If they produce a health care bill that Obama signs over the objections of the American people, they risk losing 55 or more House seats and 8-10 Senate seats. If they don’t push through a bill, they will have angered yet another part of their base.

For the Republicans, any failure to demonstrate a principled resistance to the Democrats will hurt them, in the Fall, among Tea Party voters and their base. If it passes, it will do irrevocable harm to our health care system and the solvency of our government, while hurting the economy and the dollar for decades to come. Worse yet, history has shown that de-nationalizing socialized healthcare is beyond difficult. In other words, hoping for the repeal of ObamaCare is not a good option.

That much danger requires that the Republicans pull out all of the stops to literally stop its passage. As the “final” vote on the bill looms, Republicans in Congress simply must enlist the voice of the American people in their effort and force the Democrats to abandon the bill. Here is a 3 point plan to do just that.

1. Adopt a HealthCare Covenant With America. The existing health care bill represents everything that is wrong with American government today. It is a 2600 page monolith and few have any idea of its true contents – as Nancy Pelosi so eloquently noted (“But we have to pass the [health care ] bill so that you can find out what is in it.”) Republicans quickly and simply must contrast that with a one page charter, contract, or declaration. which sets forth 7 – 10 key reforms in simple straightforward language. The contents should obviously emphasize private sector reforms, such as the promotion of HealthCare Savings Accounts (“HSAs”), coupled with the modernization of government regulations, i.e. updated regulations/laws to allow increased pooling across state lines – all with an eye to addressing the deficiencies of the current health care system.

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Tags: government health care, health care covenant, Health Savings Accounts, ObamaCare, townhall meeting
Posted Mar 12th 2010 at 5:31 am in Congress, Featured Story, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 88002218 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/tdelbeccaro/2010/03/12/how-republican-can-stop-the-health-care-bill-in-3-steps/How+Republicans+Can+Stop+The+Health+Care+Bill+in+3+Steps2010-03-12+13%3A31%3A44Thomas+Del+Beccaro

Senate Parliamentarian Rules Obama Must Sign Senate Bill BEFORE Reconciliation

Via Roll Call

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.

House Democratic leaders have been searching for a way to ensure that any move they make to approve the Senate-passed $871 billion health care reform bill is followed by Senate action on a reconciliation package of adjustments to the original bill. One idea is to have the House and Senate act on reconciliation prior to House action on the Senate’s original health care bill.

Information Republicans say they have received from the Senate Parliamentarian’s Office eliminates that option. House Democratic leaders last week began looking at crafting a legislative rule that would allow the House to approve the Senate health care bill, but not forward it to Obama for his signature until the Senate clears the reconciliation package.

This just confirms what I’ve been saying all along: the House vote is the final vote.

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Tags: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, ObamaCare, reconciliation, senate health care
Posted Mar 11th 2010 at 6:39 pm in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 87902188 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sahiller/2010/03/11/senate-parliamentarian-rules-obama-must-sign-senate-bill-before-reconciliation/Senate+Parliamentarian+Rules+Obama+Must+Sign+Senate+Bill+BEFORE+Reconciliation2010-03-12+02%3A39%3A01SusanAnne+++Hiller

Obama Spiked ACORN Investigation: Judicial Watch Releases FBI Documents

By Tom Fitton

Documents released today by Judicial Watch reference serious allegations of corruption and voter registration fraud by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform (ACORN), as well as the Obama administration’s decision to shut down a criminal investigation into these matters.

Two specific complaints were filed against ACORN for alleged voter fraud in October 2008 by Lucy Corelli and Joseph Borges, Republican Registrars of Voters in Stamford and Bridgeport, Connecticut, respectively. As part of its continuing investigation into alleged criminal activities of ACORN, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for documents concerning this matter with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

According to Corelli, on August 1, 2008, her office received 1,200 ACORN voter registration cards from the Secretary of State’s office. Over 300 of these cards were rejected because of “duplicates, underage, illegible and invalid addresses,” which “put a tremendous strain on our office staff and caused endless work hours at taxpayers’ expense.” Corelli claimed the total cost of the extra work caused by ACORN corruption was $20,000. Likewise, Borges contended that: “The organization ACORN during the summer of 2008 conducted a registration drive which has produced over 100 rejections due to incomplete forms and individuals who are not citizens…” Among the examples cited by Borges was a seven-year old child who was registered to vote by ACORN through the use of a forged signature and a fake birth certificate claiming she was 27-years old. By burdening these election officials with fraudulent registrations, ACORN put those who legally registered at risk of not being put on voting rolls at all.

The FBI and Department of Justice opened an investigation. However, the Obama Justice Department, while noting that ACORN had engaged in “questionable hiring and training practices,” closed down the investigation in March 2009, claiming ACORN broke no laws.

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Tags: ACORN, acorn scandal, Barack Obama, black panthers, doj
Posted Mar 11th 2010 at 2:48 pm in ACORN, Justice/Legal, News, Obama, Politics | 87930154 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/03/11/judicial-watch-releases-fbi-documents-on-acorn-investigations/Obama+Spiked+ACORN+Investigation%3A+Judicial+Watch+Releases+FBI+Documents2010-03-11+22%3A48%3A12Publius

Raising Tobacco Taxes is Dumb

Isn’t it interesting how every time a state government is in fiscal trouble that the first thing they decide to do is to raise taxes on the sale of tobacco?  Somehow, legislators have it in their heads that the only people who might be upset by raising the cost of tobacco are smokers.  And, since smoking is bad for smokers, and smokers shouldn’t be smoking anyway, maybe making smokes more expensive will dissuade smokers from smoking.

Of course, this is government we’re talking about.  So it never works out they way they think it will, no matter who tries to tell them.  In fact, this plan to raise revenue from tobacco taxes doesn’t actually work at all.

See, governments don’t understand free markets.  If you raise the price of a certain good or service beyond a certain point, people who want the product badly enough will find a way to procure it more cheaply.  Remember Prohibition? Same thing.  To avoid paying the higher taxes, they will cross state lines, buy from an Indian reservation, buy over the internet, or even resort to black market purchasing.

And, if raising taxes does actually cut down the number of smokers, then the expected revenue from this tax increase will be less than expected…because there will be fewer smokers!

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Tags: anti-tobacco advertising, black market cigarettes, excise taxes, indian reservations, on line cigarettes
Posted Mar 11th 2010 at 10:51 am in Culture, Politics, State Politics, Tax Reform | 86206111 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/lmeyers/2010/03/11/raising-tobacco-taxes-is-dumb/Raising+Tobacco+Taxes+is+Dumb2010-03-11+18%3A51%3A43Lawrence+Meyers