DEFUNDING HEALTH CARE ACT FALLOUT/Part I

The American People

On Friday, September 20, 2013, the House Republicans finally voted to defund the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and send it to the Senate.  The vote was mostly partisan 230/189.  The actual bill was to fund the government through December 15th at current funding levels while at the same time defunding the healthcare act.  I am glad to see they finally took the leap although I know they are taking a lot of heat for that decision.

Rep. John Culberson, R-TX said, "Today the constitutional conservatives in the House are keeping their word to our constituents and our nation to stand true to our principles, to protect them from the most unpopular law ever passed in the history of the country - ObamaCare- that intrudes on their privacy and our most sacred right as Americans to be left alone."

Speaker of the House, John Boehner stated: "The American people don't want the government to shut down and they don't want Obamacare," he said, "The House has listened to the American people. Now it's time for the United States Senate to listen to them as well."

We all know this is an uphill battle; that Harry Reid is not going to pass it much less that the President would sign it.  I don't think that's the point.  Republicans won the House in 2010 based on repealing the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare); unfortunately the public didn't see fit to unseat Obama in 2012, consequently we are still left with a Democrat majority Senate and a Democratic President, who by the way, has stated over and over that he will not negotiate with the Republicans. 

NEWS AND ADVANCE

IN THE EVENT MY LETTER TO THE EDITOR DOESN'T GET PUBLISHED, I AM PRINTING IT IN FULL CONTENT HERE TO DEMONSTRATE THAT IT IS IMPORTANT TO MAKE ONE'S OPINIONS AND COMMENTS KNOWN.  HEREWITH MY LETTER:

Letter to the Editor
September 17, 2013

It’s getting increasingly difficult to differentiate between the two major political parties in America  whose platforms were almost completely opposite.  Republicans trying to do the job they were sent to Congress to do are under attack from the ‘establishment’ Republicans who apparently no longer represent the people, have lost their way and morphed into Democrat lite. They are the so-called ‘obstructionists’ not those who are really trying to do what they were sent to Congress to do.  Democrat lite would be people like Representatives Boehner, Cantor, and Senators McCain, Lindsey, and McConnell, to name a few.

Two items with an urgency to be addressed are the budget and the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare).  Congress has not passed a budget since 2009 – simply ‘kicking the can down the road’ with the use of Continuing Resolutions.  I don’t know about you, but I can’t run my household without a budget so I am aghast that the government continues to neglect its budgetary duty but I guess it makes it so much easier for them to spend it as it comes without accounting for it – a precursor to raising the debt ceiling.  One solution would be to stop financing and arming countries who have sworn to kill us and use that money here to take care of our own economic and social problems which are many. 

Secondly, I would urge the House to, preferably, defund the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) in its entirety – a majority of the public has been and is currently against it anyway. Some reasons for defunding:  1)  Congress along with their staff have been granted a waiver; 2) 3 major unions who once endorsed it want out because it “will destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week”; 3) the employer mandate has been delayed 1 year; 4) the ‘keeper’ and ‘enforcer’ will be the IRS who has proven itself to be somewhat less than ‘fair’ and who will have access to your life story; 5) cost of your current insurance that “you can keep if you like it” will increase substantially; 6) a key provision limiting out of pocket insurance costs for consumers until 2015 has been delayed for some insurers which means they get to set their own limits starting in 2014.

The House should draw up their budget to totally fund the government for a full year and defund the Affordable Care Act in the same breath.  If the Senate Democrats and the President don’t want to fund the government for a full year because the Affordable Care Act is defunded, then they and not the Republicans should be held entirely responsible for any government shutdown that ensues.  

 

UPDATE:  Letter published 9/20/13

 

 

 

  

THE CATHOLIC CHURCH & IMMIGRATION

   I read an article recently regarding the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops who are pushing for Congress to pass a comprehensive  immigration bill.  Their plan is to mount a full throttled campaign with their parishoners to lobby Congress en masse, applying pressure via multiple forms of communication to reach each and every member of the House of Representatives.  This is, apparently, a very important issue to the Church which considers immigration a matter of 'human rights'.  Having been a practicing Catholic for many years, I was somewhat surprised at the fervor attached to this particular endeavor.  I also learned that the Catholic Church is a major provider of support services for immigrants and the Catholic Legal Immigration Network is the largest non-profit legal network for immigrants. 

 

Bishops and priests have been encouraged to deliver sermons  urging their members to participate in this 'campaign'; churches in at least 19 cities have hosted pro-immigrant masses and events and many more will do the same in upcoming weeks.  Parishes are expected to host pilgrimages and public forums while bishops and other church officials plan on meeting with House members.  To learn more about this movement, you can go to http://www.justiceforimmigrants.org for more detailed information. 

CHALLENGES AT HOME....

Time to get back to the business at hand.  That would be (not necessarily in order of importance, but definitely important):

*Benghazi - one year later (Tues. 9/11/2013) and we still don't know what happened; who was responsible; where the President was; we need a Select Committee and Speaker Boehner needs to get out of the way.  Our new Secretary of State Kerry has said he does not intend to make survivors of the attack available to Congressional Hearing Panels.  Rep. Issa says 'we'll see about that'

*IRS - Still picking on conservatives; many still have not received approval of their 501 aps even though this has been an ongoing investigation with IRS heads promising to stop the targeted practice

*NSA - Sensenbrenner says NSA is overstepping its bounds in data collecting and abuse of the 4th Amendment and it is actually accessing information it was never intended to collect; as a matter of fact, we are finding out that the Obama administration secretly got NSA restrictions lifted in 2011 (more on that in a later post)