Tuesday, July 3, 2012

The Obamacare ruling sure was a victory for Dems... Oh... Wait!!!


Cosmic justice alert: ObamaCare repeal to be mediated using process of reconciliation

POSTED AT 11:36 AM ON JUNE 30, 2012 BY HOWARD PORTNOY


Now that ObamaCare has been declared constitutional (after a fashion), the GOP has announced it will use the process of reconciliation in its efforts to repeal the law. This seems only fitting and appropriate.

Reconciliation, which became part of the political junkie vernacular in 2009, is a parliamentary procedure designed to fast track passage of a bill by eliminating the possibility of a filibuster. Unlike in 2009, when a Democratic supermajority lacked the votes needed to pass the bill through normal channels and abused reconciliation, Republicans plan to use the process as it was intended—on budgetary matters.

Mike Franc, Vice President of Government Studies for the Heritage Foundation, explains the details of reconciliation’s applicability in an article at the Heritage’s blog The Foundary:


Now that the individual mandate has acquired the official constitutional status of a ‘tax’, there is no longer any doubt that the Congress, and more specifically the Senate, can repeal it pursuant to the simple majority vote threshold available under the Budget Act’s reconciliation process. Some Senate insiders were concerned that the reconciliation process would leave too much of Obamacare intact, including the individual mandate. But today’s decision, while alarming in so many other ways, dispels with that concern.

The mandate is now a revenue provision. Therefore, it is germane and not subject to a Senate parliamentary point of order to strike it from a repeal bill. The Senate’s filibuster process that would require a supermajority of 60 Senate votes to approve repeal is now irrelevant.

In other words, the resolution requires a simple majority of 51 votes to pass.

The idea of using reconciliation, aka the “nuclear option,” as a mechanism to repeal ObamaCare is nothing new. The recommendation was made in a GOP debate in October of 2011 by Rick Santorum and seconded by none other than Mitt Romney. Now that the funding for the law has been deemed a tax by no less a constitutional authority than the Supreme Court, the applicability of the process is unimpeachable.

It goes without saying that if the measure passes both houses of Congress and reaches the president’s desk, he will veto it. At least the irony of the process will not be lost.
Republicans can force a vote on the reconciliation measure for the repeal of the obamacareTAX (it's a macro now). Because the Supreme Court has ruled that obamacareTax is a TAX, it can be repealed by simple majorities in the House and Senate, with no option for filibuster. It's actually the same tactic the Dems used to pass it, although they didn't want to admit it was a tax. Now they have no choice.

Dem politico scumbags from red states will be forced to either vote for repeal or go on record supporting the obamacareTAX again, just before the election. If repeal of the o-TAX passes Congress (it will overwhelmingly pass in the House, and might pass in the Senate, if several red state Dem cowards defect), Obama will have to veto the o-TAX cut. He will have to endorse America's largest middle class tax increase in history. Just before the election. A wildly unpopular tax increase.

Here's an interesting scenario:

In January, President Romney's first act will be to sign the repeal of obamacareTax. He can sign the tax repeal in a tiny room, in front of the handful of Democrats who are left in elected office after November.

President Romney and the Republican House and Senate will then begin enacting an agenda of limited government and respect for Constitutional constraints on federal power, backed by a very recent landmark Supreme Court ruling with the four liberal Justices in the majority that sets a strong precedent for judicial respect for legislation. Protection for innocent life, rejection of government discrimination based on race, prudent immigration enforcement, protection of the right to public/school prayer and religious expression, and respect for academic freedom in science education-- all wildly popular initiatives-- will likely be high on the legislative agenda.

Lower courts will be bound to uphold the new federal laws based on the Supreme Court's recent landmark ruling rejecting judicial fiat and respecting legislative results.

A deep game.

10 comments:

  1. First, you will have to take the White House. Second, the Senate. Not to mention holding on to the House. Then we'll see.

    Mitch McConnell doesn't sound very optimistic about the repeal.

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  2. You're putting entirely too much faith into a weak, spineless, incompetent Republican Party. Would that you were right, but the Republicans have neither the candidates nor the onions to do what's necessary to free us from the yoke of Obamacare. The only real difference between Republicans and Democrats is that Democrats' fondness for big government is based on ideology while the Republicans' is based on testing the winds. We are doomed.

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    1. You may well be right. But Obamacare is a political issue, and needs to be settled in the political arena. I think that Robert's decision was profoundly conservative-- he refused to use the Court to strike down a liberal law, just as he (hopefully) would have refused to use the Court to strike down a conservative law. Only when a law cannot be defended Constitutionally in any manner should it be struck down.

      If similar judicial conservatism had prevailed in the last half-century, a host of popular laws would be on the books-- allowing school prayer, banning affirmative action, banning abortion-as-birth control, etc.

      Will conservatives fight hard enough in the political arena to win? Perhaps. Remember the midterm elections in 2010. The Tea Party is a potent force.

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    2. Ditto, Stjones911.

      If Romney gets elected, I doubt he'll really repeal it. Maybe some provisions, but not the whole enchilada. He'll be too busy primping and preening, trying to look like a good moderate and a "reasonable" man.

      I also agree with Dr. Egnor that we should be putting it to a vote. Make our elected officials go on record. Where do they stand?

      TRISH

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    3. "Only when a law cannot be defended Constitutionally in any manner should it be struck down."

      Yeah, like this one. Which is why it should have been struck down.

      Enumerated powers, Dr. Egnor.

      TRISH

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    4. TRISH,

      I think that you have a strong argument, especially about Enumerated powers. I would have been very happy if Ocare was struck down.

      That said, I understand where Roberts is coming from, and he may in the long run be right. He is trying to move the Court away from the "let's strike down laws for any reason we can find if we don't like them" approach of the past 50 years.

      Fighting Ocare in the political arena may be the best thing for our country, and for conservatives.

      Imagine of Ocare was struck down in Oct 2010. The Tea Party would have been defanged, Pelosi may well still have been the Speaker, and goodness knows what mischef may have happened since.

      We need to change voters hearts and minds, not Justices hearts and minds. A non-interventionalist Court could be a very good thing.

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    5. Enumerated powers, Dr. Egnor.

      You mean like this one?

      "The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration."

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  3. Yes Trish, God forbid that the president look “reasonable”.

    -KW

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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