Obamacare IRS subsidy fiasco shows what happens when legislators punt their responsibilities - Granite Grok

Obamacare IRS subsidy fiasco shows what happens when legislators punt their responsibilities

An observation specifically about the writing of the Obamacare Law:

…So that’s what happened: in between the “conceptual language” and the actual legislative text, some experts who were writing the law thought it was a good idea to try to coerce states into creating their own exchanges by withholding tax subsidies from the federal exchanges. The actual legislators who voted on the legislation didn’t know how the law would work, but they trusted the experts they hired….

…Tom Carper (D-Delaware), who also served on the Senate Finance Committee,insisted that the legislative language wasn’t important:

“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language, because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life.”

So, the Senate Finance Committee voted on “conceptual language” that established subsidies for exchanges without mentioning who those subsidies would apply to. They then hired experts, as Baucus said, who did intend for subsidies not to apply to federal exchanges, and those experts plainly wrote the law in the way that it wouldn’t apply to federal exchanges. Democratic leadership then refused to post the legislative text for people to read in an adequate time period before passing the law, and as a result, Congress voted on legislation that was written by people who, yes, intended for tax subsidies only to apply to state-established exchanges…

But that’s NOT the main problem.   I “get it” that a lot of the CongressCriters are not lawyers and can’t write the legislation themselves.  But it seems that they have reduced themselves to be “concept only” folks.  The idea that these folks were elected to actually grind out the smallest details would probably be met with something equivalent to

“are you kidding me?  That’s for the interns staff experts to do.  We trust them!”

And that is the problem!  The base problem is that they seem to measure productivity by “pages in a bill” – the bigger the “comprehensive” bill the better.  Size beats quality, so it seems.  As any software engineer can tell you, the larger the project, the worse the bugs – and they generally are experts!  No, the problem in Congress is that it seems, in toto, these hacks are more interested in being someone instead of accomplishing things (and yes, we have the same kinds of folks locally here in NH as well).

I have complained for a while now that Congress has been making itself irrelevant by handing more and more of its decision making power over to the Executive Branch (e.g., “…the Secretary SHALL <create reams of regulations here>…”).  Now we see that even in one of the most important parts of the entire bill, these nitwits couldn’t bother to QA their own work.  And we’re supposed to take that as a feature vs being a bug?

Like many, I sometimes daydream of what I would do if I were President – and I will say that the most important thing I would say at my inauguration and promise to keep would be this:

The Constitution, that document that guided our governance extremely well up until Progressives decided that they knew better, is only 18 pages long.  We know that “comprehensive bills” don’t work – an NO one knows or understands them.  Thus, I will say to both my loyal opposition on the other side of the aisle as well as to my friends on the other – I will veto ANY bill that is longer than 18 pages.

I first thought that limiting it to the length of the Gettysburg Address would be much better – but I had severe doubt Congress was that good that it could reliably write a bill that short.  Thus, 18 pages was a compromise.  After years of putting our citizenry through one malfunctional bill after another, I felt it was time for us all to back to basics – single purpose bills.  Do one thing, but do it well.  Write it short and keep it understandable.  The Constitution was written so that farmers in the field, the shopkeepers, the tradesfolks could understand it (and not just the Elites).  You will do the same.  I promises, other than in cases of immediate national emergency, that bill will stay up for review for two weeks.  Then I will decide to sign or veto it.

But again, 18 pages; no more.  I cannot tell you how to carry out your responsibility to those that elected to you.  For me, that is how I will do MY job – that a bill is understandable, Constitutional, and implementable.  That will be my responsibility to those that elected me.

Maybe, instead of just electing these lay-abouts (for that’s what they are when they refuse to do the jobs for which we pay them), can we just hold a lottery for their seats?  After, for $175K / year, that WOULD be like winning the lottery for most people.  Betcha they could “not write – not read” the bills just as well as the blowhards that gave us this abomination…

Note to self: make sure that all posts going forward are less than 18 pages long.

(H/T: Townhall)

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