Posts Tagged ‘Mike Lee’

What Rough Porkulus Shambles Out of Washington?

Wednesday, December 23rd, 2020

People asked why Nancy Pelosi delayed passing a Wuhan coronavirus relief bill until now. One obvious reason was to avoid helping President Donald Trump’s reelection chances. Now that both houses of congress have passed this 5,593 page monster of a bill, another reason is evident: To cram as much special interest pork into it as possible.

How serious is this bill? Not very, but it spends serious money on unserious things. Tom Elliott of Grabien points out a few of the ridiculously beside-the-point items in this bill. They’re gobsmacking.

Snip.

Don’t worry. The Kennedy Center is getting yet another bailout. Why, exactly? Are they putting on shows right now? How many bailouts does it take to keep the lights on and the development department still working the phones calling on all those rich lobbyists living in the DMV?

And — thank God! — the government COVID stimulus package is there to keep teenagers from hooking up — as if there aren’t dozens if not hundreds of other programs doing the same thing. And let us take a moment to say thanks to all the HIV workers in other countries by giving them new cars. Funding for this is in the COVID bill. You? Buy used.

Other pork in the bill:

A minimum of $3.3 billion in grants to Israel.

Also included is $453 million to Ukraine, on top of the $400 million Trump eventually released. No word on how much of that goes to the ‘big guy.’

$10 million for “gender programs” in Pakistan.

$1.3 billion to Egypt, and $700 million to Sudan.

$135 million to Burma, $85.5 million to Cambodia, $1.4 billion for an “Asia Reassurance Initiative Act,” and $130 million to Nepal.

If we have to pay money to Sudan for it’s peace deal with Israel, then the price is too high.

There’s so much pork in the bill that President Trump has threatened to veto it:

He notes that the bill provides stimulus checks for the families of illegal aliens, “far more than the Americans are getting.”

Alas, President Trump is a late convert to fiscal sanity. The budget deficit was just shy of $1 trillion in FY2019, before coronavirus shutdowns wrecked the economy. Alas, since the Senate passed the bill 92-6 (Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, Ron Johnson, Mike Lee, Rand Paul and Rick Scott were the only senators to vote against it), a veto override seems likely.

As Stephen Kruiser notes:

All of the media chatter about this has been referring to it as a COVID relief bill. Yes, we’re all aware that this is how these spending bills get done. That’s the problem, though, isn’t it? This little pork dance just gets worse with each new spending bill. Ninety-nine percent of the people who get elected to the House or Senate immediately become afflicted with brain damage that renders them incapable of understanding the meaning of “fiscal responsibility.”

(Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)

Alas, I would not expect any fiscal process reform from a Biden-Harris Administration…

ObamaCare Repeal: The Dam Breaks

Thursday, March 23rd, 2017

After a couple of weeks of President Trump and GOP House leadership insisting “Nope, this is it! Kiss this pig or it’s nothing!” and conservatives replying “Die in a fire!” it looks like the GOP establishment has finally gotten the message.

First came this news from Senator Mike Lee:

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on Wednesday that the Senate parliamentarian has told him that it may be possible for Republicans to push harder on repealing Obamacare’s regulations than the current House bill, which contradicts the assertion by House leadership that the legislation goes after Obamacare as aggressively as possible under Senate rules.

“What I understood her to be saying is that there’s no reason why an Obamacare repeal bill necessarily could not have provisions repealing the health insurance regulations.”

Now Speaker Paul Ryan, the pig’s primary pimp, has relented as well:

In a last-minute bid to woo conservatives ahead of a high-stakes vote on Thursday on repealing and replacing Obamacare, House leaders are considering gutting more Obamacare regulations.

The news comes as President Trump and White House officials are in talks with House conservatives over changes that can win over holdouts and secure enough votes to move the bill to the Senate.

Among the many arguments conservatives have made against the House healthcare bill, one of the most significant is that it leaves too many costly regulations in place and thus fails to address long-standing criticisms of Obamacare — that it limits choices and drives premiums higher than they otherwise would be.
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Previously, House leaders have argued that the regulations could not be nixed, because doing so would blow up the bill in the Senate, where Republicans will have to pass the measure under restrictive rules to enable it to clear with a simple majority.

But a House leadership aide told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that Republicans received new information from the Senate, indicating that axing the regulations would not automatically doom the bill from being considered on an expedited basis.

House Speaker Paul Ryan’s office is now more open to nixing the regulations, known as “essential health benefits.” Under Obamacare, all insurance policies must include ten categories of benefits, such as maternity care and preventive coverage, that make policies more comprehensive but also make it costlier for individuals who would prefer cheaper plans with fewer benefits.

You know what would be a great bill? One that completely repealed ObamaCare. You know, the way every Republican House and Senate member running for election since 2010 has promised.

The Trump Administration can also gut Obamacare without any help from congress:

Within the bill there are 2,500 references to “the Secretary”. 700 times the Secretary “shall” do something, 200 times the Secretary “may” do something, and 139 occasions when the “Secretary determines” what should be done.

These “shall” and “may” determinations cover things like what type of insurance coverage Americans are required to have, how insurance networks and exchanges are organized, how grant money is doled out, what the “essential health benefits” that every insurance policy must cover are.

Suppose the new Secretary determines that Americans “shall” only be required to have catastrophic insurance? Or no insurance at all? What if the “essential health benefits” are left to the discretion of the purchaser of the insurance policy? What if the Secretary “determines” that there will be no insurance mandates or penalties? Or that insurance “may” be sold across state lines?

The Secretary also has discretion over “pilot programs” and “demonstration projects” for controlling costs. These include wellness plans, information technology, quality measures, and national payment for Medicaid. Perhaps throw in tort reform and a rollback of many of the many more onerous regulations strangling the medical profession. The Secretary “may” implement these reforms.

In reality, the Secretary has the statutory power to infect Obamacare with the cancer of repeal and replace, metastasizing into so many aspects of the law that what emerges is a shadow of the original bill. Repeal and replace from within.

The downside to this approach is that any future Democratic administration could restore all the Obamacare nightmare taxes and regulations at will.

Still, there’s no reason Republicans can’t pursue a two-track approach: Gut it administratively while also working on a full legislative repeal.

Both approaches are far superior to the original “embrace and extend” ObamaCare bill Republican leadership originally tried to cram down representative’s throats….

The Reviews Are In! Ryan-Murray Is Budget-Busting Garbage!

Thursday, December 12th, 2013

Conservatives have taken a good, close look at the details of the Ryan-Murray budget agreement, and are unanimous in their judgment: It stinks!

  • “House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan has now accomplished the astonishing task of pushing House Republicans substantially to the left of the Senate GOP. His budget deal, announced Tuesday night, was achieved by shutting conservative Senate Republicans out of negotiations, by resorting to the old trick of spending now while claiming savings later, by ignoring a symbolically important budgetary red line, and by treating as Democratic “concessions” things to which even Democratic budgeteers already had agreed.”
  • “With liberal Senator Patty Murray, Congressman Ryan wants to raise spending today on the promise that Congress will restrain itself ten years from now (or whenever the benchmark will be). It’s a return to pre-sequestration Washington — spending increases today in exchange for promises of spending cuts later.”
  • “How can leadership credibly promise spending cuts later, after agreeing to a plan that rolls back the sequestration savings promised two debt increases ago?
  • Ted Cruz: “”The new budget deal moves in the wrong direction: it spends more, taxes more, and allows continued funding for Obamacare… this proposal undoes the sequester’s modest reforms and pushes us two steps back, deeper into debt.”
  • Sen. Mike Lee: “Rather than enacting reforms to make government more efficient, the budget deal makes more government more expensive. Sequestration is far from ideal, but at least it forced Congress get serious about excessive spending. This deal cuts into the modest gains taxpayers have won since 2011, by trading concrete spending reductions over the next two years for theoretical spending cuts a decade from now.”
  • Paul Ryan has given birth to a pile of garbage. The fact that it’s a relatively small pile of garbage is beside the point, since it will still stink up the place. Republican House and Senate members should haul it out to the curb.

    LinkSwarm for December 9, 2013

    Monday, December 9th, 2013

    A LinKSwarm to start your Monday off, with a mix of old and new:

  • Obama’s popularity down among the Obama coalition:

    Obama’s job approval rating among Hispanic Americans has plunged from 75 percent in December 2012 to 52 percent today — a drop of 23 percentage points, the sharpest decline among any voter group. Among Americans who make less than $24,000 a year, the president’s approval rating has fallen from 64 percent last December to 46 percent today. Among Americans 18 to 29 years of age, it has fallen from 61 percent to 46 percent. Among women, it has fallen from 57 percent to 43 percent.

    Evidently free contraceptives don’t trump lost jobs and insurance. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)

  • First came the first wave of ObamaCare “cancellation shock” as policies were dropped left and right. Next comes the “Doc Shock,” as people lose physicians who won’t cut their rates for ObamaCare plans. (Hat tip: Instapundit and Ed Driscoll.)
  • Indeed, 7 out of 10 California doctors are boycotting California’s ObamaCare exchanges. When you’ve lost California…
  • So get ready to see a lot more signs like this. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)
  • “The GOP establishment is loath to admit it, but the government shutdown is turning out to be a brilliant political chess move on the part of Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee.”
  • Why the hell is Paul Ryan trying to undo the sequester cuts?
  • New York City starts confiscating rifles and shotguns.
  • On Twitter, #LiesObamaToldUs trended for three straight days. Well, it’s a target-rich environment…
  • Photojournalist robbed twice in one day in Detroit. Funny how 50 years of Democratic rule mean that government is unable to enforce its most central function: keeping the populace safe by enforcing the rule of law.
  • Why you don’t stop shooting until the threat is neutralized:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades.)

  • Is Hollywood turning the Biblical story of Noah into another tree-hugging Dances With Smurfs?