[ExI] Tap tap..Hello? Is this thing on? (Or Zombie Apocalypse!)

Omar Rahman rahmans at me.com
Wed Oct 16 13:30:02 UTC 2013


> 
> Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 20:51:36 -0700
> From: "spike" <spike66 at att.net>
> To: <rafal at smigrodzki.org>, "'ExI chat list'"
> 	<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Tap tap..Hello? Is this thing on? (Or Zombie
> 	Apocalypse!)
> Message-ID: <03a901ceca23$03f83f70$0be8be50$@att.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="us-ascii"
> 
> 
> Rafal Smigrodzki
> ...
> ### The House of Representatives passed the appropriations bill...
> 
> A way to state all this taking personalities and parties out of it for the
> sake of non-USian readers would be as follows:
> 
> The government passed a law with a new twist in it: the individual mandate
> looked to most of us like the government ordering us to do something, buy
> health insurance.  The government cannot order its citizens to do something.
> It can only order us to not do something.  The Supreme Court court decided
> the constitution does allow the individual mandate if the penalty for not
> buying insurance is declared a tax.

The government can and does have the power to order it's citizens to do something. For example we must provide education to our children either in schools or through homeschooling. I like education. It used to issue draft notices. I'm not so keen on that. There are probably lots more examples but these two will suffice. Oh, car insurance is another one that comes to mind due to relevance.

> 
> Declaring the penalty a tax has interesting implications.  The House of
> Representatives controls taxation and spending.  So under the constitution,
> the House has the authority to set the penalty for non-compliance anywhere
> it sees fit (since it is a tax) and to fund the law where it sees fit (since
> it is spending.)  That means the body which has full constitutional
> authority over the law is now in the hands of the party which voted against
> it in perfect unison.
> 
> The Senate and the presidency are in the hands of the other party.  They
> refuse to accept the authority of the opposing party over this law, as
> granted by the constitution and affirmed by the Supreme Court.  So, those
> two seats of power, the Senate and the president, veto any appropriations
> bill the House sends up, all the way until the nation is on the verge of
> default.
> 
> By that line of reasoning, the Senate and the president are responsible for
> the partial shutdown and now threaten to send the government into default
> unless the final irony is passed.
> 
> Final irony is seen tonight, two days before default.  The House and the
> Senate have worked closer and closer to a deal, with the exception being the
> House wants a version of the appropriations bill which requires congress to
> be subject to the health care law.  The senate is refusing that provision,
> and wants instead its own nearly identical bill but exempts congress from
> the healthcare law that they are imposing on the rest of us.  So we see the
> Senate willing to send the government into default in order to impose the
> healthcare law on the citizens and simultaneously exempt themselves from
> that law.
> 
> Any questions?
> 
> spike

This is an interesting take on things but as I've said before elsewhere, the Senate has no duty to rubber-stamp any bill sent up by the House. I really have no interest in playing the 'blame game' but the Republicans did sign an open letter stating that they would shut down the government unless "Obamacare" was defunded/destroyed/whatever.

This is all part of a political game where the Republicans are backing themselves into the corners of their gerrymandered districts. They have placed themselves so firmly on the wrong side on demographic trends that just to remain 'centrist' the Democratic party has slid to the right just from the huge power vacuum the Republicans are creating.

I'm sure that somehow it is ironic that the members of Congress, even radical Tea Party people I assume, have the government funded health care that they are so afraid of. Why would you personally Spike pass a bill that took away your government funded health care so that you could get government funded health care? It seems quite logical to strip that nonsensical provision from the bill.

Regards,

Omar Rahman

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