“The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small,but whether it works — whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified.” – President Obama, Inauguration (2009)
That title from Kevin Williamson on the criminal nature of the government we have elected (well, to be truthful, *I* certainly did not vote for this Administration). And here, we see that it isn’t that it just doesn’t work but outright criminal. After all, Obama declared 23 times that he did not have the authority to issue his Executive Order on illegal immigration – and then did it anyways (and the Judiciary shut him down). This on the Obama Administration payment of billions to the Obamacare Crony Capitalism insurance companies that had no legal basis to do so:
The report issued Thursday demonstrates that the Obama administration initially recognized it did not have any authority to make these cost-sharing payments to insurers. The NY Times reports:
The Republican report says the administration’s treatment of the tax credits as it began setting up a new payment system validates the Republican criticism of the cost-sharing subsidies. The report notes that while the authority for the tax credit was undisputed, the administration itself could identify no funds available for the cost-sharing element.
A previously undisclosed 2012 Treasury Department memorandum included in the report stated “there is currently no appropriation to Treasury or to anyone else, for purposes of the cost-sharing payments to be made.” It adds that the eventual basis for making them “can be determined only in connection with whatever statute ultimately appropriates funds for the cost-sharing program.”
Republican investigators say the view that even the administration believed it needed to find new money was further bolstered by the administration’s decision in April 2013 to seek a nearly $4 billion annual appropriation for the cost-sharing program in its budget.
So Treasury could not identify a funding source and the administration went to Congress to ask for $4 billion in funding which clearly indicates it believed an appropriation from Congress was needed. But then the administration reversed course and withdrew that appropriation request during a phone call, not in writing as would normally be the case. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) then prepared a memo authorizing the payments without an appropriation.
Laws are seemingly only for the “little people” and the politically un- and ill-connected. Is this the governmental system our Founders wanted – that the Executive Branch could do what it wants without a legal basis? I’d be railing against this if it were a Republican Administration but it seems that we are well far away from “wrong is wrong” philosophy”. It is up to us to call them out on it, but as Williamson points out (as well as the times I have), we have the government in place because a majority of our citizens did so. What is happening is plain theft, straight up. If Congress has made no appropriation to bailout the insurance companies then the Obama Admin is stealing real monies not just from other programs but from taxpayers.
Take heart, however, as this may be the “best of days” if Hillary gainst the Oval Office in November; it will only get (FAR!) worse…
(H/T:
