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

spike spike66 at att.net
Wed Oct 16 14:19:10 UTC 2013


 

 

 

On Behalf Of Omar Rahman
Subject: Re: [ExI] Tap tap..Hello? Is this thing on? (Or Zombie Apocalypse!)

 

 

>…Dear Rafał,

 

>…Let me begin by apologising…

 

 

Rafal and Omar you are a true gentlemen.  Excellent, me lads.

 

 

>…The Senate has no obligation whatsoever to rubber-stamp the House's bills. That's just not how it's designed to work. It matters not what their supposed motivations…Regards,  Omar Rahman

 

 

There is one more important layer of subtlety, critically important in that argument.  The way the constitution is designed, the responsibility for a budget is on the House of Representatives.  The Senate has veto power, as they have demonstrated, and they can counter propose and negotiate, as can the president.  But neither of those two can legislate into existence funding or taxation.  The House must do that, for that is their responsibility and their authority. 

 

If the other two seats of power refuse the House’s budget, there is a contingency called the CR or continuing resolution, which keeps the government in business.  At the tail end of George Bush’s term, a giant pile of money was spent by the government to rescue the banking system which was declared too big to fail.  That was then considered part of the 2008 spending, so the next year, congress was unable to agree and failed to pass a budget.  So they just passing a CR, which kept the spending at the same absurd level as the 2008.  The same thing happened every year since.

 

Being able to pass a CR, which is functionally equivalent to a huge one-time bank rescue operation every year, effectively defeats the ability of congress to control spending, which is what happened.  The constitution was brilliantly designed that way: the house which faces re-election every two years and is thus closest to the voters, is responsible for taxation and spending.  The president is elected every four years and is term limited, the senate every six.  So the latter two seats of power have by design veto power, but the House is the boss on the budget.  That one-time “stimulus package” partially defeated the intention of the constitution.

 

So, we end up with farces lie we are seeing now.  The house wanted to defund ObamaCare, which it can legally do, the Senate kept saying no, which it can legally do, and the two sides negotiated until it comes down to one major point of disagreement.  Currently congress is exempt from ObamaCare.  The House has proposed a funding bill like the Senate’s version in every way except congress would not be exempt from ObamaCare; congress would be under the same system it is imposing on the proletariat.  The Senate doesn’t like that idea, but there is still one further interesting observation: both opposition and agreement with both plans are seen in both parties in both houses.  Now it is unclear which plan will succeed, but as a member of the proletariat who does not believe this system could work as written, I hope they subject congress to the same plan we are having forced upon us.  It will motivate them to fix it.

 

spike

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