Obama’s first lose-lose Obamacare-related argument today.

The first round of the US Supreme Court’s attempts to settle the problem that is Obamacare takes place today, and from the Obama administration’s purely partisan (and particularly puerile) perspective, there’s no winning scenario available. Essentially, what’s happening today is the courts are hearing arguments about whether or not Obamacare’s individual mandate qualifies as a tax. If it does qualify as a tax, then under the provisions of the Tax Anti-Injunction Act (TAIA) the mandate cannot actually be challenged in courts until it’s actually been collected; more plainly, you can’t sue for relief from an onerous tax before they take it from you.

The merits of the case are one thing – the above link from Heritage goes into the whole issue, in some detail – but the partisan implications are another. There’s no good result for the Obama administration: if the Supreme Court decides that the individual mandate is not a tax then a large portion of the administration’s existing arguments goes away, thus increasing the likelihood of a humiliating disposal (at least in part) of the one thing that Obama has managed to do domestically in four years. But if the mandate is a tax, then Obama gets to face a plethora of attack ads in the fall which will be (accurately) portraying him as a shameless serial liar who used the looming Obamacare legislation to sneak in a stealth tax on the American middle class.

:shrug: I can work with either scenario.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: There is nothing deeply, deeply ironic about the fact that the President opposed the mandate as a candidate. Or, as American Majority put it:

Contrary to popular belief, a fundamental inability to live up to the job is neither particularly ironic nor particularly not ironic. It simply is.

PPS: If you’re wondering why either side got involved in this argument in the first place, well… neither one brought it up in the first place (the states don’t want to wait to destroy Obamacare, obviously). The court had to assign somebody to argue that TAIA applied in this case.

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And Now for a Postal Bailout

It’s another week in Washington, and it’s yet another bailout.  This time, taxpayers will be tapped for another $41 billion to subsidize the healthcare retirement benefits of postal workers – benefits that are quite scarce in the private sector.

Democrats have a serious problem with creative destruction and advancements in technology.  For self-described progressives, they are quite regressive when it comes to efficiency in markets and use of technology.  They exhibit nostalgia for 14th century energy technology and 20th century banking technology.  Hence, they don’t care too much for market progression.  In concerted drives to hold back the tide of technology, they are quick to offer a helping hand to a dying industry.  One such industry is the mail delivery.

It’s no secret that the United States Postal Service is on its way out.  The transition to electronic communication, in conjunction with the success of private mail carriers, has dramatically reduced the demand for their service.  Consequently, they no longer generate enough revenue to function as a self-sufficient entity, particularly when it comes to paying employee retirement benefits.  In recent years, the USPS has patched the annual losses with borrowed money from the Treasury.  However, it is now in such dire straits that it’s expected to hit the $15 billion borrowing cap later this year.  It needs extra taxpayer cash to fill in the gaps.

If the USPS were a private entity, it would trim its workforce and operations to the amount of revenue they can produce until they are eventually forced to go out of business.  That’s how creative destruction and supply and demand work in the real world.  That is not how it works in Washington.

In order to continue operating at a limited capacity, which is what the free-market would dictate in this circumstance, there is a plan to end Saturday delivery, cut the workforce by about 220,000 employees, and close 3,700 local post offices and 252 processing centers. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe even asked Congress for the flexibility to act more like a business and use innovation to restructure and cut costs.  But Democrat nostalgia for the past is too potent to overcome.  They are completely averse to gradually winding down the Postal Service.  Claire McCaskill has even suggested that people write more letters so that the USPS will have more work.

Once again, a bipartisan group of senators plan to bail out a failing government entity with taxpayer dollars, allowing them to operate, more or less, at current capacity for much longer.  S. 1789, which has 2 Republican cosponsors, will grant a $41 billion bailout to the postal service for the purpose of managing the payments of healthcare benefits for its retirees.  Harry Reid is planning a cloture vote late Monday afternoon, following a vote to raise taxes on oil companies and hand the proceeds to green energy companies.

As part of the proposal, sponsored by Joe Lieberman, the USPS would be entitled to recoup $11 billion in so-called overpayments that it gave to the Treasury for employees’ retirement benefits held in the Civil Service Retirement System.  The problem is that there are no overpayments.  Last year, the GAO ruled that the Postal Service was wrong in their assertion that they paid too much money to the Treasury to fund employee retirement benefits.  As such, any money recouped from the Treasury would engender more taxpayer funding.   Don’t let them fool you with language pertaining to “transfers” and “overpayments.”  This is a pure bailout.

It’s time to let the wheels of economic progress spin.  Let’s do to the Postal Service what should have been done with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  It’s time to attempt to privatize it or wind it down.  Either way, taxpayers should not be exposed to more bailouts.

Cross-posted from The Madison Project

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The Obama Administration Outlaws New Coal-Fired Powerplants

Law of the land. Kinda cool.

Yesterday the Obama Administration effectively outlawed coal as a fuel source and it underscores the importance of Congress severely circumscribing the authority of regulatory agencies.

The Environmental Protection Agency will issue the first limits on greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants as early as Tuesday, according to several people briefed on the proposal. The move could end the construction of conventional coal-fired facilities in the United States.

The proposed rule — years in the making and approved by the White House after months of review — will require any new power plant to emit no more than 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt of electricity produced. The average U.S. natural gas plant, which emits 800 to 850 pounds of CO2 per megawatt, meets that standard; coal plants emit an average of 1,768 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.

By outlawing new coal-fired electric generation plants and ignoring nuclear power, the Administration has set in motion a plan to make the nation dependent upon natural gas and a mishmash of politically correct but non-viable sources such as solar and wind as older plants are decommissioned. Essentially, Obama has done via regulatory means what it could not accomplish in Congress: to set the trajectory for exorbitant electricity prices in the service of reducing “greenhouse gasses.”

This is not a new problem. Indeed, last year Speaker Boehner wrote to Obama to complain that the Administration was not being forthcoming in disclosing its regulatory agenda and, as far as I can discern, was roundly ignored.

Whether it be in the form of directing you to purchase a product you don’t wish to buy, telling religious organizations what they have to allow, or making electricity unaffordable, the cancerous growth of regulations presents the greatest danger to our liberty. Until the Congress decides to man up and take back the power that it has relinquished we are on a death spiral as a free people.

As the

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This Week in Washington — March 26, 2012

Shall the federal government be allowed unfettered power over citizens?  That is the ultimate question for nine justices of the U.S. Supreme Court this week.  The three days of Supreme Court oral arguments on ObamaCare may be the most important constitutional discussions of our lifetime.

This week in Washington is going to be dominated by a national discussion the constitutionality of ObamaCare, yet Congress plods on.  The House of Representatives is expected to take up a short term extension of a highway bill and the Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget plan for Fiscal Year 2013.  The Senate is expected to take votes on an energy tax bill and legislation dealing with the U.S. Postal Service.

This is a very important week for American freedom in the federal courts.  The Supremes will be engaging a debate on whether there is any limit to federal power residing in the executive and legislative branches of the federal government.  Will Americans be allowed to make very personal decisions about health care or will that power be handed to the federal government in perpetuity?  We shall engage in the national debate this week and the Supreme Court will hand down a decision later this year.

The House has five relatively non-controversial votes on the Suspension Calendar today.  The last Suspension vote scheduled is on H.R. 4239, a short term extension of a highway bill.  If this were to pass the Senate, then the House and Senate would engage in a fight on competing highway bills over the next few months.

The House and the Senate are intent on passing different versions of a highway bill.  The House leadership wants to pass a five-year $260 billion bill and the Senate has already passed a two-year $109 billion bill that was opposed by 22 Senate Republicans.  Conservatives don’t like either the House or Senate approach because they don’t give enough power to the states and they spend too much.  The generational theft of spending today and passing the bill on to America’s kids is immoral and should cease immediately.

On Tuesday the House will debate the “JOBS Act,” H.R. 3606, a bill to make it easier for small businesses to raise money and make stock offerings.  The House will also take up an Federal Communications Commission reform bill.  Then the House will spend two days on the Rep. Ryan budget.

The Ryan budget will commence a national debate on entitlement reform, spending and taxes.  Ryan’s spending plan for next year will slow the growth of government.  He calls it the “Pathway to Prosperity.”  Ryan’s approach includes entitlement reforms, pro-growth tax reform and some spending cuts.  The Ryan plan is in start contrast to the Obama budget that will tax, spend and borrow us into the poor house.  If President Obama’s budget were to be adopted by the Congress, America would creep toward the European style welfare state that has sucked the life out of so many European entrepreneurs.  Some conservatives worry that the Ryan plan is incremental change at a time when America needs a radical approach to cutting the size and scope of the federal government. 

The Senate will spend a week on Class Warfare and another bailout.  The Senate will consider S.2204, the so called “Repeal Big Oil Subsidy Act.”  This bill extends preferential tax treatment for electric cars, car plug in stations, biofuel plant property and other green lobbyist special interest tax provisions.  Taxes are hiked on oil, natural gas, drilling and wells in the name of class warfare against evil “Big Oil.”  Lefties in Congress want to hike taxes on oil and gas production so that they can force Americans into tiny expensive fuel efficient cars.  The Senate will also have a vote on a so called “Postal Reform” bill that is expected to be a magnet for another massive federal bailout.

The Supreme Court will start down the road of determining if a law shall stand that allows the federal government to force Catholic institutions to fund sin.  Furthermore, the Court will determine if the feds have the power to coerce states, by threatening to withhold Medicaid monies, in order to force them to comply with mandates coming from Uncle Sam.

This week freedom will be debated in the Supreme Court and conservatives hope that at least five justices take the side of freedom over the side of big government with no limits. No matter what nine justices say, the federal government would violate the natural rights of all Americans to be free from intrusive government, if the Supreme Court rubber stamps an intolerable act that forces Americans to buy government approved products.

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RomneyCare Inspires ObamaCare, But Not America

Two years ago, President Obama signed into law ObamaCare, his signature piece of  legislation.  As a direct result of that law’s unpopularity, Congressional Democrats suffered devastating defeats in the midterm election of 2010, losing more than sixty seats in the House.  It would be an understatement to say the President’s healthcare overhaul law is merely “unpopular.”  According to several recent polls, Americans still overwhelmingly oppose ObamaCare by a two-to-one margin.  Americans understand that not only is this the wrong solution to our healthcare needs and challenges, it is also an affront to freedom that makes our families’ health and country’s fiscal health more fragile.

The 2012 election should be an opportunity for Americans to elect a President committed to ObamaCare’s repeal and replacement with sound free-market competition.  But that is where this 2012 election has an unusual aspect.  The original architect of the Democrats’ unpopular healthcare law is himself also running for president on the GOP ticket.  Mitt Romney, one of the candidates in the race for the GOP nomination, authored and championed his own version of ObamaCare less than six years ago.

Over the past two years, Americans have learned more about ObamaCare and about the true impact of this law.  By the Democrats’ own stated objectives, the law has been an utter failure.  Democrats in Congress and President Obama made several claims about ObamaCare; they promised Americans that the law would bend the healthcare cost downward.  They also promised that it would be “budget neutral,” that it would achieve “universal coverage,” and that families would immediately see their health insurance costs decrease.  On each and every account, the law has failed.  Instead, public sector and private sector  health care costs are rising.  The Democrats’ “budget neutral” bill is, in reality, going to cost trillions of dollars more for American families, small businesses, and taxpayers.  And rather than reducing families’  health insurance costs, most Americans have  already seen their health insurance premiums rise. (And unions, businesses, and states alike are rushing to plead with the Obama Administration for waivers from the disastrous and partisan law.)

All of these side effects of ObamaCare were entirely foreseeable.  Anyone who has studied Massachusetts under RomneyCare could have predicted each of these problems.

Mitt Romney has been on the defensive for the past several weeks, trying to explain to GOP primary voters how his government takeover of health care in Massachusetts was somehow different than ObamaCare.  The task has proven incredibly difficult because the laws are, in numerous ways, identical.   Romney’s challenge to draw distinctions has been made even more difficult now that White House senior advisor David Plouff last week called Mitt Romney the “godfather” of ObamaCare.

It’s worth noting that the White House knows just how unpopular the health care law is, and they’re looking to share the blame with someone else.  After all, if Mitt Romney becomes the GOP nominee, the Obama Administration will have effectively neutralized the ObamaCare issue.

Mitt Romney, confronted by the reality that ObamaCare remains unpopular, has tried to manufacture distinctions between his healthcare law and the President’s.  Unfortunately, all of the major flaws of ObamaCare can be found in RomneyCare.

There are several key objections that conservatives have about ObamaCare.  And those objections equally apply to RomneyCare.  For limited-government conservatives, one of the most offensive aspects of ObamaCare is the “individual mandate.”  Conservatives. The National Federation of Businesses, and twenty-seven states rightly point out in their legal challenge considered this week by the Supreme Court that our government simply does not have the authority to require anyone to purchase something – whether it is health insurance or an American-made car, or anything else.  The Constitution grants very specific and clearly defined powers to Congress.  The authority to dictate particular purchases, thankfully, is not one of those powers.

But Mitt Romney’s views differ from those of most conservatives in this country.  He does believe that government – both at the state and at the federal level – possesses the right to dictate to individuals what they must purchase.  RomneyCare includes an individual mandate that functions exactly like ObamaCare’s individual mandate.  And, beyond that, Mitt Romney penned an Op-Ed in 2009 for USA Today, in which he encouraged President Obama to adopt his state’s individual mandate.  He boasted that the individual mandate is an effective way to encourage people to take responsibility for their own health care.  He never expressed any concerns about what an abuse of power it is for the federal government to take that action.  Classically for Mitt, his Op-Ed this past week in USA Today failed to mention that his Ted Kennedy embraced affront to freedom in Massachusetts punished businesses and families with fines that failed to comply with his big-government prescribed solution to the healthcare needs of citizens and pushed more people into taxpayer-financed Medicaid rolls.

While for both ObamaCare and RomneyCare, the central policy healthcare prescription is government coercion, rather than market-based incentives and choice, both ObamaCare and Romneycare failed to address the number one challenge for healthcare in America – rising costs.  Not only did they not address it, they exacerbated it for families, businesses, and taxpayers.  This is failed leadership.  It should not surprise us that a policy prescription for such an important issue produced such outcomes when driven primarily by Governor Romney and Democrats in Massachusetts and entirely by Barack Obama and Democrats in partisan fashion in Washington, D.C.  Massachusetts under Governor Romney had the highest healthcare premiums in the country and the growing burden of healthcare costs for our nation remains the primary long-term threat to our economic and fiscal future.

The 2012 election is about one central philosophic point: How big of a federal government do we want and is that where the solutions lie to the challenges that face America?  Do we share the Obama-Romney view that government possesses vast and broad powers to dictate anything it pleases?  Or do we prefer the view of our founding fathers and the authors of the Constitution?   Do we embrace the status quo, which is good for the establishment, but not good for America?  Or do we once again, correct our course, and embrace the inalienable rights endowed by our creator of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and the pursuit of a better America?

A primary reason that I chose to run this election cycle is that I believe ObamaCare is an assault on America’s system of limited government.  I believe in American solutions to America’s challenges.  This is how we renew our economy and our prosperity.  Our founding fathers wisely designed a Constitution that protects individual liberty by limiting the scope and size of government.  Pretending that one will only be big government at the state level and not at the federal level, if given the opportunity, doesn’t pass the commonsense test for most Americans.  Unlike on Wall Street, in government, past performance does indicate future performance.  It’s also the best thing that voters have to go on.

The authors of the Constitution correctly understood that there is an inverse relationship between the size of government and individual liberty. ObamaCare is a dramatic departure from our tradition of limited government and needs to be stopped.   And, unfortunately, Mitt Romney does not offer a satisfying or credible alternative to the Democrats’ view of an ever-expansive government.  Unlike Governor Romney, I have successfully led on free-market solutions for our healthcare needs and challenges like health savings accounts and choice and competition in Medicare.  I have led the charge to end and reform entitlements, not to add to them.

President Obama would love for the Republican voters to neutralize this central issue in the 2012 debate about our vision for America and her future.  Let’s embrace freedom instead.

Rick Santorum, a former representative and senator from Pennsylvania, is a candidate for the Republican nomination for president. 

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Barack Obama asks for ‘flexibility’ from Medvedev on missile defense.

Alternative title: “Barack Obama begs Russia for more time to arrange capitulation on missile defense.” There’s an election coming up, you see – and if the President gets re-elected then he will be in a position where he won’t have to worry about those pesky voters, and their provincial dislike for having nuclear weapons pointed at their heads. Hence, the need for more time:

President Obama assured Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Monday that he’d have “more flexibility” after the November election, during a conversation that appeared to focus on the touchy issue of missile defense.

Flexibility.

Flexibility.

Ye gods and little fishes.

There is no flexibility, here. The missile defense system was proposed for a reason, and the reason is that nobody particularly trusts the Russian ‘Republic’ – which is actually a kingdom whose ruler remembers fondly the days where it was the center of an empire and one of the two poles of the world. More to the point, that kingdom still has the nuclear weapons that made it one of those poles*. Nukes + an aggressive foreign policy designed to stoke domestic pride + systematic domestic problems = worrisome neighbors. Which is why countries like Poland were happy to host the missile defense platforms: after all, they’re well aware that Russians have difficulty admitting that the concept of “Poland” should exist in the first place.

I should not have to explain any of this to an American President. Then again, as we all know killing missile defense has long been on the progressive Left’s wish list for some time. Certainly Barack Obama knows:

(‘Unproven.’ Amazing how badly this guy guesses the future, huh?)

That’s from 2008, and Barack Obama’s apparently decided to see if he can keep his views quiet just long enough to get reelected in 2012. Great news if you’re an antiwar progressive; not so great if you happen to have relatives in Warsaw, Riga, Kiev, and/or Budapest. Or just don’t want to see Eastern Europe under outside imperial control again…

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: Let me make this clear. Missile defense is a shield, not a sword. That an effective missile shield will marginalize Russia on the European stage should not be the problem of the United States of America. It should instead be an impetus for the Russians to become better neighbors. And, hey, possibly a functioning representative democracy, too? – Crazy notion, but God knows they’ve gone through all possible variations of autocracy by now; the Russians might as well try something radical.

*Well, it’s not like the Soviet Union was ever a world power because of its economic policy. Or technological prowess. Or grasp of basic agricultural principles.

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