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

[spike]

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.

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