Via Thomas Sowell & Brandon Crocker
There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The
Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to
keep all government activities going -- except for ObamaCare.
This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the
Congressional Record.
As for the House of Representatives' “RIGHT” to grant or
withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the
Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the
House of Representatives, which means that Congressmen there have the ‘POWER’
to decide whether or not they want to spend money on a particular government
activity.
Whether ObamaCare is good, bad or indifferent is a matter of
opinion.
ObamaCare is indeed "the law of the land," as its
supporters keep saying, and the Supreme Court has upheld its Constitutionality.
But it is a matter of ‘FACT’ that members of the House of
Representatives have the ‘AUTHORITY’ to make spending decisions based on their
opinion. That authority does not evaporate into thin air simply because
President Obama, Harry Reid or any elected official decides to have a hissy fit.
The whole point of having a division of powers within the
federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants
to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the
powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution.
If Senator Reid and President Obama refuse to accept the money
required to run all other government activities simply because it leaves out
the money they want to run ObamaCare; that is their choice. But that is also
their responsibility.
According to Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, no one in
the legislative branch has any business trying to change anything regarding
Obamacare because “it is the law.” However! - Obamacare would not pass today.
It would not have passed two years ago. It only became law because Obama’s
election in 2008 ushered in short-lived Democratic majorities in both the House
and Senate including a “super-majority” in the Senate, which allowed the
Democrats to ram the legislation through even though no one was given a chance
to read it, let alone understand it (in Nancy Pelosi’s famous words, Congress
had to pass it in order to see what was in it). Even then, it only made it through
Congress due to political gamesmanship. As a direct result of public opposition
to this legislation, Democrats promptly lost the House and nearly lost the
Senate. Yet Harry Reid says this piece of legislation is so sacrosanct that
Republicans are “insane” to try to change it?
Though the President claims he should not have to agree to
any alterations to Obamacare demanded by the House of Representatives, he has
felt free to make changes on his own, without any input from Congress. (Indeed,
he has felt free to usurp Congressional authority to change other legislation,
as well, such as immigration laws.) On Obamacare, he has made such alterations
as delaying the employer mandate for a year and has made other changes, without
Congressional input, benefiting unions, and changing how various aspects of the
law will be administered and enforced.
The Republicans in the House have essentially said, fine,
we’ll approve all the funding you want in the continuing resolution, but all
those breaks you’ve given to various groups need to be extended to all
Americans (achieved by delaying for one year, just as Obama has done for the
employer mandate, the “individual mandate” for ordinary Americans to buy
Obama-approved health insurance). In response, the President and the Democratic
leadership have gone ballistic. They rave about Republican “irresponsibility”
and pound their chests, indignant that Obama should have to negotiate anything
with the Congress. He’s the President, by gosh! He just won an election! Well,
guess what? Every member of the House won elections the very same day Obama
did. Yes, Congress has to deal with reality of Obama in the White House, but
Obama has to deal with the reality of a Republican majority in the House of
Representatives.
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law
that governs the operations of our American democracy that Harry Reid supposedly cherishes. It provides for separation of powers that the Obama
administration consistently ignores. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have no problem
with this unconstitutional expansion of executive powers (at least when a
Democrat resides in the White House). It also provides the Congress of the
United States the power to fund, or not to fund, various activities, whether or
not previous Congresses have approved such activities. President Obama and the
Democratic leadership do object to this (at least when Republicans control the
House). To them, laws passed by Democrat majorities are inviolable and can only
be changed by Democrats, even when Democrats are no longer in the majority.
When Barack Obama keeps claiming that it is some new outrage
for those who control the money to try to change government policy by granting
or withholding money; that is simply a bald-faced lie. You can check the
history of other examples of "legislation by appropriation" as it
used to be called.
None of this is rocket science. But unless the Republicans
get their side of the story out -- and articulation has never been their strong
suit -- the lies will win. More important, the whole country will lose.
There is a vocal audience of American Voters and citizens
who are shouting from the house tops that they do not want this law to remain –
that it should be repealed and replaced. This is not demonstrated only by
consistent poll numbers; but by the FACT that dozens of Republican candidates
were elected by THE PEOPLE to the House & Senate in 2010. The fact that the
President forced this law on the people became the primary factor that drove
these successful Republican candidacy’s in 2010 – Obama and his loyal followers
only have themselves to blame. These candidates won their elections because
they PROMISED the voters to do all they can to stop, repeal & replace this
job killing, economy tanking, healthcare industry destroying law that is never
going to deliver what it promises. There will be no free healthcare – There will
still be at least 20 million uninsured people – The costs will and are already
going up & premiums are already skyrocketing.
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