Political notes

[unixronin]

I know you're not going to listen to me.

I'm going to say it anyway, because as a concerned citizen of The United States of America, I must.

Karl Denninger at market-ticker.org tries to offer a well-thought-out cautionary word to Congress in general, and to Nancy Pelosi in particular.  For my own thoughts, I will add this much:  If you, as a member of Congress, believe a measure to be so unpopular or so poorly crafted that you don't want to go on the record as having voted for it, then either grow a spine and vote against it, or get out of office.  It really is exactly that simple.  You were elected to serve your constituents' interests and wishes — not to conspire to cram legislation that they're furious about down their throats, then look innocent and try to pretend you had nothing to do with it.

See also the Wall Street Journal's discussion of the "deem and pass" on the healthcare bill here.

As Stanford law professor Michael McConnell pointed out in these pages yesterday, "The Slaughter solution attempts to allow the House to pass the Senate bill, plus a bill amending it, with a single vote.  The senators would then vote only on the amendatory bill.  But this means that no single bill will have passed both houses in the same form."  If Congress can now decide that the House can vote for one bill and the Senate can vote for another, and the final result can be some arbitrary hybrid, then we have abandoned one of Madison's core checks and balances.

  It should be noted that a major part of the significance of this maneuver is that this subterfuge allows the House to pass the healthcare bill on a 50%+1 vote (218 votes by my math, if there are no abstentions, though CNN says 216) rather than the 60% (261 votes) legally required of the House to pass major legislation.  Not only can Nancy Pelosi not muster those additional 43 votes, apparently the House is currently 12 votes short of even the 50%+1 required to accomplish "deem and pass", even after Dennis Kucinich switched sides to support the bill this morning at the urging of President Obama.

And in related news, C-Span has put their entire 23-year archive online.

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Full text of the linked article above, with annotations:

I know you're not going to listen to me.

I'm going to say it anyway, because as a concerned citizen of The United States of America, I must.

You are making a grave, perhaps nation-ending mistake.

Attempting to "deem" the Health Care bill passed when it has not actually been voted on is not Constitutional.¹  Article 1, Section 7:

All bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States; If he approve he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his Objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the Objections at large on their Journal, and proceed to reconsider it.  If after such Reconsideration two thirds of that House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent, together with the Objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two thirds of that House, it shall become a Law. But in all such Cases the Votes of both Houses shall be determined by Yeas and Nays, and the Names of the Persons voting for and against the Bill shall be entered on the Journal of each House respectively.  If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law.

This is the black-letter law of the land.

There are millions of Americans who are extraordinarily pissed off right now.  Some of them, like me, write scathing columns on The Internet or we rant on Talk Radio and Television (such as Judge Napolitano)

But some just smolder.  Some remember the other founding document of our Republic, The Declaration of Indpendence, which says, in part:

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

That doesn't sound so good.  What has tempered these people is largely what always has in all nations, that is:

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

Indeed.

Neither you or I know where the line is for that cross-section of the citizens in this land.  I cannot speak for them, for I am not inclined toward the sort of actions that they are, nor do I countenance them.  As such I'm not exactly on those folks' "A list".

In fact I fear the day they decide to express their disgust, for while in singular number those expressions are horrifying, as a group such actions harken to a time I hope we would never revisit in this nation.

But I do understand, and see, that they are seething in anger at what has befallen this once-great country.

They have watched as thirty years of corruption in Washington DC has turned our economy and government into a bad joke.

They have watched their jobs go overseas to a Communist Nation for the benefit of a handful of corporate oligarchs, while Washington chortles.

They have watched banksters do everything in their power to imprison them in debt, including bribing Congress to remove usury laws, "reform" bankruptcy so as to render a significant percentage of the population under effective indentured servitude (allegedly prohibited by the Constitution) while the very same banksters declare bankruptcy at the drop of a hat and stick lenders with losses, and while these very same banksters peddle fraudulent securities, cook their balance sheets and generally defraud everyone in the nation - then force the taxpayers, at gunpoint (quite literally, if you remember the fall of 2008 - you were in the room with Bernanke and Paulson when they threatened tanks in the streets) to bail them out.

Finally, they have watched Health Care turn into a monstrous mess, with cost increases of 10, 20 even 30% or more a year.  These costs are expanding at that rate because ambulance chasers like former Presidential Candidate John Edwards make millions while Congress has passed laws forcing Americans to eat the development expense for every advanced medical technology over the last 30 years.  Congress has refused to demand that medical practitioners bill everyone the same price for the same procedures and drugs.  Congress has passed laws exempting medical providers and insurers from anti-trust law, so those aggrieved cannot sue in private causes of action for these abuses.  And finally, Congress has forced all of us to eat the cost of care for illegal invaders who commit their first crime with their first step over our national boundary. All of these abuses and more could be addressed, but none of them are in the bill you wish to advance, and that, Madame Speaker, is intentional.

But all of this, while it has been outrageous and even criminal, has been, for the most part, Constitutional.  It may be the stuff of a Banana Republic, and it may violate equal protection of the law (a founding principle and in fact a guaranteed right), but Congress has never cared about any of that in my 47 years on this planet.

Witness all the laws you, Madame Speaker and the rest of the Government (including this Health Care plan) do not have to obey while the rest of us do under pain of fine or even imprisonment.

What you propose to do now, however, is not Constitutional.

Rather than negotiate, advance and pass something like my four-point plan² that would, along with dropping anti-trust protections and ending the practice of preventing reimportation of drugs and devices, attack the problem at the source, you instead are putting forward the Senate's 2200-page monstrosity.

You are doing so because this bill is not about Health Care at all. It is about revenue, and you know it. It is about the fact that The Federal Government is running into a wall at warp speed trying to furiously cover up all the fraud and scams in the financial system while at the same time spending over $1.5 trillion we do not have to replace collapsed consumer demand.

You must raise revenues, and you know it - or this ship called "The USS Treasury" sinks beneath the waves, and the first sacrifices to go overboard will be all the Seniors on Medicare and Social Security - not by choice, but by force of fiscal insolvency.

In short, this is just another Washington scam.

But this time you're going too far, and you're taking a horrific risk.

You must not, Madame Speaker.

You must instead face this nation and tell the truth.

We cannot fund the scams and frauds any more. Those who committed them must go to prison, even if they're campaign contributors.

We cannot borrow 10% of our GDP and spend it forward, as the CBO projects we will try, in a futile and permanent attempt to replace consumer demand.

If we do not stop this idiocy we will soon be unable to fund Social Security, Medicare and Welfare in all its forms, leading to an immediate and critical breakdown of our society.

The mad reach for revenue, Madame Speaker, is why you're in such a hurry - and you know damn well I'm right.

If you succeed, we will get your tax bill now and the promised health care never.

That's a fact.

There is a bright white line for every person in this country who has taken an oath to uphold our Constitution. It is in different places for each of those individuals, but you had better believe it exists.

For some it will be crossed if you try to disarm Americans, as was attempted after Katrina.

For some it will be crossed if you try to occupy their homes.

And for some, it may be crossed if you attempt to "deem" this bill passed, when The House has not actually passed it.

I pray this evening I am wrong, and that for no material number of people - indeed, for no one person - that is where their personal line is.

But I am reasonably certain that this prayer will be offered in vain.

Therefore, the choice is yours, not mine, for all I can do in furtherance of my hopes (and abeyance of my fears) is pray.

You, Madame Speaker, on the other hand, can act to quell this idiocy.

Or you may tempt fate, you may tempt the millions of people who have swore an oath to defend and uphold The Constitution and, having done so, went to war throughout our history. Many of those people, along with millions more who never wore a uniform stand today in defense of that "quaint" old piece of parchment - but not in defense of you, nor any other person.

You may also provoke States to assert their long-dormant 10th Amendment rights for real, not in some quaint "one off" regarding intra-state weapons manufacturing. That, Madame Speaker, harkens back to a time I'd rather not revisit as well.

You will almost certainly lose your Speaker's Gavel come November, as the mortal sin against the Constitution of deeming a bill passed without actually voting on it is so inimical to a republican form of government and displays such gross arrogance that you have forfeited your right to wield that gavel by mere contemplation of the act.

I am quite certain that I stand with millions of other Americans who are willing to put forth whatever effort is necessary to see that occurs come November - at the ballot box - whether you proceed with your abhorrent plan or not. 

But what I pray for this evening, as I complete my day and offer homage to God before retiring, is that your office, and those of your fellow Democrats who are about to violate your sacred oaths willfully, intentionally, and with malice aforethought - is all you lose.

[1]  Denninger is, unfortunately, technically incorrect here.  I am given to understand that the Supreme Court ruled in 2003 that "deem and pass" is, in fact, constitutional.  The wisdom and correctness of that ruling may well be debated, and in fact I personally disagree with it.  I learned yesterday that "deem and pass" has in fact been used since the 1930s.  I do not contend that this precedent justifies the practice; rather, I would argue that it makes it worse, particularly since Congress used it for 70 years without, apparently, ever confirming until 2003 whether it was in fact legal to do so.  Presumably they were acting on the basis that if they didn't ask, no-one would say they couldn't do it.  The fact that there is such anger about it now does not reflect the fact that it is a Democratic Congress seeking to use it now; many other Congresses, both Democratic and Republican, have used it in the past.  Rather, it reflects that now, for the first time, it has become public knowledge that Congress uses it. There is also a difference of scope, as noted above by the Wall Street Journal:

Yes, self-executing rules have been used in the past, but as the Congressional Research Service put it in a 2006 paper, "Originally, this type of rule was used to expedite House action in disposing of Senate amendments to House-passed bills."  They've also been used for amendments such as to a 1998 bill that "would have permitted the CIA to offer employees an early-out retirement program"—but never before to elide a vote on the entire fundamental legislation.

[2]  I went and read Denninger's "four-point plan."  It's far from a complete solution, but his points are all valid, they're all important, and the "Health Care" bill addresses — to my knowledge³ — precisely none of them.  The two major points that I can think of that Denninger omits are to end the expectation that insurance must cover everything from a quadruple bypass or a total bone-marrow transplant to an office visit for a sniffly nose, and to prohibit insurance company clerks and actuaries from making medical care decisions.  The doctor is the one with the MD and the medical expertise; it should be left to the doctor to decide whether a treatment is in fact medically necessary, and the patient's insurance should not have the power to overrule medical care decisions made by the patient and the patient's doctors.

[3]  But of course, we can't know for sure, because Congress won't tell us exactly what is actually in the over two thousand pages of the bill, and Nancy Pelosi has declared she does not intend to do so until it's already been passed, at which point she doubtless believes it will be too late for anyone to object.

Comments

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

You're right. I didn't listen to you. I read the blog instead.

:)

I was already in agreement with the stuff you posted, so you didn't gain a convert here. But it did make for good reading. Thanks for posting it.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

You're right. I didn't listen to you.

That's OK, I was quoting. :)