Tag Archives: Obamacare

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Debt ceiling battle getting serious

The Affordable Care Act takes effect soon, which won’t end the fight to end it.

Before we get back to that old fight, another old battle — a much more critical one — is being waged in Washington, D.C. It’s about the debt ceiling. Failure to increase it by Oct. 17 could send the nation into default on its obligations. Does anyone really and truly understand the cataclysm that will occur if we fail to pay our bills?

Congress has the authority to increase the amount of money the federal government can borrow to, um, pay its bills and meet its financial obligations. The Republican majority in the House of Representatives, though, is attaching a laundry list of demands on any bill to increase the debt ceiling. The list includes items that have nothing to do with the debt ceiling. They include approval of the Keystone pipeline project and federal tort reform.

President Obama says he won’t negotiate over the “full faith and credit of the United States of America.” He contends — correctly in my view — that the GOP-led House is “blackmailing” the president over the nation’s financial obligations.

President Reagan went through this as well. He scolded Republicans who ran the Senate for threatening the nation’s economic well-being by blocking efforts to increase the debt ceiling. GOP Senate leaders relented and listened to the Gipper.

This time around, House GOP leaders are telling a Democratic president to stick it in his ear.

I am not going to accept the notion that Reagan’s approving the debt ceiling 18 times during his presidency was more acceptable then because the national debt was so much smaller than it is today. The consequences of failing to act are just as grave now as they were during President Reagan’s tenure.

The major difference between then and now — as I see it — is that one major party has been hijacked by individuals who see themselves as institutional reformers. I see them as attempting to destroy the very government they took an oath to serve.

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Tea party support hits the skids

This is a most interesting report: The Gallup Poll organization says 22 percent of Americans support the tea party movement, which I’ve taken to calling the “insane wing” of the Republican Party.

The Gallup survey gives the tea party its near-lowest rating since the movement hit its peak around the time of the 2010 mid-term elections.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/324771-tea-party-hits-a-low-point-

It begs the question: Why are tea party darlings in the U.S. Senate, such as Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Rand Paul, R-Ky., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, getting so much air time and print space? I think it’s because they’ve been yapping the loudest and have discovered some secret formula for getting their faces on national television.

Gallup isn’t exactly a lefty-leaning polling group. The Gallup group actually tends to lean to the right, but its findings often are cited as being authoritative.

Cruz is the latest tea party golden boy to hog the spotlight, blabbering on for 21-plus hours in an attempt to derail the Affordable Care Act in the Senate. He ended up voting with the rest of them to keep funding the ACA, which seems to suggest that his Senate floor gabfest was all for show.

I’m suspecting that showboating is beginning to wear thin among Americans who want their federal government to actually do something on their behalf.

That, of course, is anathema to the tea party wing of the Republican Party.

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Cruz loves sound of his own voice

I applauded Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., some months back for actually filibustering the nomination of CIA Director John Brennan, not because I approved of his reasons, but because he actually took to the U.S. Senate floor and talked until he ran out of verbal gas.

Now another tea party golden boy, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is blabbering his brains out as I post this blog item. I have to hand it to Ted the Tattler: He, too, is yapping about this and that in an effort to derail the Affordable Care Act. Again, I disapprove of his reasons, but I have to hand it to the guy for actually filibustering.

http://news.msn.com/us/senate-moves-toward-test-vote-on-obamacare

The filibuster has become a misused instrument. Senators can “filibuster” something simply by lodging an objection. They object to a bill and then go about their business. Paul and Cruz have restored some form of “integrity” to the process.

Here, though, is where I get rankled at Ted Cruz. The new guy loves the sound of his own voice. Of that I am utterly convinced. I truly wonder whether he is motivated by something other than listening to himself talk in front of a national audience.

Do you remember when he denigrated the character of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel? He questioned whether Hagel, a Vietnam War combat veteran, had become an agent of foreign governments hostile to the United States? Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called Cruz down on the spot and said he never should question the character of someone such as Hagel, with whom McCain served in the Senate. McCain’s admonition went in one of Cruz’s ears and out the other. Cruz hasn’t shut his mouth … yet.

I’ve already wondered out loud why some members of Congress get so much air time on TV. Cruz, so new to the national spotlight, is basking in that limelight a little too comfortably to suit me. I’m wondering now if someone in the Senate is going to challenge this guy’s blustering and loudmouthed actions publicly.

He’s been in national office all of nine months and I’m sick of the sound of his voice already.

Then again, maybe that’s just me.

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Leave health care act alone, poll says

Would it surprise you to learn that a new poll says that Americans do not want Congress to defund the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare”?

It surprised me.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/most-americans-against-defunding-obamacare-cnbc-survey-4B11231267?ocid=msnhp&pos=7

CNBC’s latest survey suggests, therefore, that congressional Republicans are playing with fire in their attempt to gut a law that Congress approved, President Obama signed and the Supreme Court affirmed.

They contend the law is “failed.” How they know that is beyond me, given that it hasn’t even been implemented yet. Those all-knowing GOP lawmakers, though, are prescient enough to predict what they do not yet know.

The stakes in this game are getting a bit too rich for my stomach. The House has approved a spending measure that takes money away from Obamacare. The president will have none of it. Neither will the Democrats who run the Senate. Failure to approve the spending measure, thus, means the government could shut down.

All this is a precursor to an even bigger battle over whether to boost the nation’s debt ceiling. The tea party goofballs within the GOP don’t want to do that. Never mind that their patron saint, President Reagan, raised the debt ceiling 18 times during his two terms in office (1981-89).

Yep, Republicans are playing with fire, which is going to burn them. I don’t care about that. I do care about suffering the damage myself, especially if my retirement income starts flying out the window.

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Insanity tightens its grip on House GOP

Insane.

That’s the only word I have to describe what congressional Republicans have just done. They’ve approved a spending measure that includes defunding the Affordable Care Act, Barack Obama’s signature achievement so far in his presidency.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-passes-gop-spending-plan-that-defunds-obamacare/2013/09/20/4019117c-21fe-11e3-b73c-aab60bf735d0_story.html

The president and his Democratic allies in the Senate have said categorically they will have none of that. They’ve been joined by sensible Senate Republicans who say that defunding “Obamacare” is the wrong approach to deal with this issue.

All this sets up a possible — some might say probable — shutting down of the federal government in 10 days.

House Speaker John Boehner is declaring victory because, he said, the House has approved a continuing resolution to fund the government while taking money away from “Obamacare,” which he has called a “failed policy.” Failed? How does he know that? It hasn’t even been implemented fully yet.

This targeting of a law approved by Congress, signed by the president and affirmed by the Supreme Court simply astounds me.

The consequences of this fight are even more mind-boggling. Suppose the government shuts down — except for “essential” services. Parks will close. Services the people expect will cease. The anger that this tactic will produce seems almost incalculable at the moment. Who will pay for this? The Republican Party leadership in the House of Representatives.

That doesn’t matter to the tea party wing, the insane wing of the GOP, most of whose members were not around when the GOP tried this before. Voters rose up and slapped them bald-headed at the next election.

The worst news of all is that this round of haggling is merely a prelim to the main event, the upcoming fight over whether to raise the debt ceiling. If Congress chokes on that one, then the hurting really starts.

It’s insane, I’m telling you. Insane.

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It’s always the same blowhards spouting off

Have you ever wondered why, with 535 members of both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, we keep hearing only from a tiny fraction of the entire congressional body?

OK, maybe you haven’t wondered about that. But I have. I find it annoying almost in the extreme.

The ongoing discussion about the Affordable Care Act, the budget, whether to shut the government down and a host of other pressing issues of late brings this topic to mind.

Since the loudest voices all seem to be Republicans these days, I’ll pick on them mostly here.

I’ve been intrigued particularly by the ubiquitous presence of one Ted Cruz, junior Republican senator from Texas, who’s been holding the only elected office he’s ever held for all of nine months. But the guy is everywhere, ranting about “Obamacare” and pledging to do everything within his power to defund it.

I’ll make Cruz my Blowhard in Chief on this one.

But as I look at the Senate roster I see a lot of other capable Republicans — especially those who’ve been around a lot longer than Cruz — who would be just as capable, articulate and forceful as the junior U.S. senator from Texas, who has managed to eclipse even his more senior Texas colleague, Republican John Cornyn.

Where has Idaho Republican Sen. Jim Risch been? Anyone seen or heard from Kansas Republican Sen. Jerry Moran? I’m about to put an all points bulletin on Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, who once served as education secretary for President George H.W. Bush.

The Senate has about 90 or so silent types who I guess prefer to leave the blustering to the likes of Cruz, John McCain, R-Ariz., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

To be sure, Democrats have their share of Senate blabbermouths. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Chuck Schumer of New York seem to be the Democrats’ loudest mouthpieces.

I’d rather hear, though, from Al Franken of Minnesota, who in his previous life was a hilarious “Saturday Night Live” cast member.

The House has its small cadre of Republican blowhards as well. I think of Peter King of New York, Steve King of Iowa and Michelle Bachmann of Minnesota (who, thankfully, is leaving Congress after the 2014 election). I’d throw Southeast Texas Republican Steve Stockman into that mix, but he’s too goofy to be taken seriously. As for House Democrats, let’s trot out Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and Debbie Schultz of Florida (who also chairs her party’s national committee).

I’ll mention only one silent House member whose voice ought to be heard. He is Mac Thornberry from right here in the Texas Panhandle. The Clarendon lawmaker has been around since 1995 and has as much stroke and political moxie as any of the aforementioned loudmouths.

I realize we all have our favorite blowhards. I’m sure to have left out someone’s favorite.

But the main point here is that the collective bodies of both congressional chambers are full of wise men and women of both parties who have as much to say as the clowns to whom I’ve just referred.

It once was said of former U.S. Sen. Phil Gramm that the most dangerous place in America was “the space between Sen. Gramm and a TV camera.”

That description clearly now applies to Ted Cruz — and maybe a handful of others.

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Help me understand this budget fight

A lot of things go over my head. I’ll admit to being a bit slow on the uptake at times.

Take the budget battle that’s building into a donnybrook — yet again — on Capitol Hill. I’m puzzled over why the Republican congressional leadership has allowed the tea party wing take it over and threaten to hijack the government because it dislikes a duly enacted law that’s been upheld by the Supreme Court.

The Affordable Care Act has become a bargaining chip in the budget battle. The right-wing crazies in Congress say they’ll approve a continuing resolution on the budget only if it defunds the ACA, President Obama’s signature legislative achievement. If they don’t get the resolution approved in about 10 days, the government shuts down.

Think about this for a moment. We’re still at war in Afghanistan; Social Security checks will need to go out to those who need them; so will veterans disability payments; roads are crumbling; Colorado residents are digging out from horrific weather events in their state … and there might be more weather-related misery occurring in Texas as storm clouds migrate north from Mexico.

You get the picture, yes?

Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner, a so-called “establishment Republican” who’s been whipsawed by the tea party cabal within his caucus, says the GOP-led House has “no interest” in shutting down the government. Who’s he kidding?

Everyone who hates “Obamacare” has forgotten that Congress passed the law, the president signed it, it survived a Supreme Court challenge when the high court ruled that the law indeed is constitutional. It has been settled.

What’s more, the Affordable Care Act hasn’t even been implemented fully — and still congressional Republicans have declared it a “failed policy.” Aren’t there independent studies out there showing that premiums have increased at a slower rate than predicted and aren’t there 30 million or so Americans who are about to have health insurance?

The moronic push to defund the health care law would deny those folks insurance. That’s a good thing for the country?

While our so-called “leaders” wage budget war, a lot of other pressing needs are being ignored. Does anyone remember immigration reform?

I don’t understand a lot of things. This battle is really pushing me to the limit.

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Insanity may result in government shutdown

The insane wing of the Republican Party is having its way, or it would appear, as the government inches toward a shutdown.

Will someone ever be able to slam some sense into those thick tea party skulls?

House Speaker John Boehner, one Republican who doesn’t want to shut the government down over objections to the Affordable Care Act, is now hamstrung by the conservative cabal that has hijacked the once-great political party. They’re insisting on defunding “Obamacare,” and are willing to risk shutting down the entire federal government to do so.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has adopted an apt term for the tea party wing. He calls them “anarchists.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/year-end-tax-cuts-have-nearly-doubled-projected-size-of-national-debt-cbo-says/2013/09/17/cda802d2-1f9c-11e3-94a2-6c66b668ea55_story.html

The Washington Post reports: “None of the Republicans are willing to stand up to these anarchists,” Reid told reporters. Of the law known as Obamacare, he added: “They’re obsessed with a bill that passed four years ago, a bill that was declared constitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. They can’t get over that.”

I keep waiting for some leading Republicans, the folks who’ve been around the nation’s capital for some time, to talk some sense into these yahoos. I’m thinking of, oh, people like Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, who’s been through a government shutdown and knows the political price his party will pay if they go through with this idiotic notion.

Thornberry, though, doesn’t raise a ruckus. I know it’s not his style to be drum-thumper. I’m kind of wishing he’d rethink his back-bench mentality and take the lead on this one.

If he doesn’t, or if someone in the leadership doesn’t wrest control back from the GOP’s insane wing, there will be hell to pay.

Guaranteed.

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Senator’s past may haunt him

I love it when high-and-mighty U.S. senators try to throw their weight around and then find out their own misdeeds may be used against them.

David Vitter, R-La., may be the latest lawmaker to learn that harsh lesson.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/09/david-vitter-obamacare-democrats-secret-weapon-96744.html

Vitter is pushing a tad too hard to abolish the Affordable Care Act to suit some Democratic senators who are infuriated with his tactics on the Senate floor. So, in the spirit of hardball Louisiana politics — with which Vitter no doubt is familiar — the Democratic caucus might resurrect Vitter’s admitted prostitute solicitation to derail his effort to defund the ACA.

POLITICO reports that Vitter is insisting on a vote to repeal federal contributions to pay for lawmakers’ health care coverage. Democrats are angry enough at the conservative Republican to consider their own amendment which would include senators who solicited prostitutes, a la David Vitter.

“Harry Reid is acting like an old-time Vegas Mafia thug, and a desperate one at that,” Vitter said in a statement to POLITICO, referring to the Senate majority leader. “This just shows how far Washington insiders will go to protect their special Obamacare exemption.”

It seems a bit weird for someone such as Vitter — who consorted with hookers — to throw around terms like “Mafia thug” when talking about a leading Senate colleague. The Senate Ethics Committee didn’t take any action on Vitter’s extracurricular activity back in 2008 because it occurred before he became a senator. Vitter did apologize profusely for his behavior.

Still, I am inclined to invoke the old adage about the common color of kettles and pots.

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Cruz is feeling the heat

Ted Cruz is my favorite U.S. senator. He’s providing so many opportunities to those who like to comment on the state of public affairs.

The latest on the junior Texas Republican lawmaker is that he’s apparently making as many foes as friends — among Republicans, no less — on Capitol Hill. Seems that some of those so-called “establishment Republicans” with whom he serves dislike the fervor with which he’s pushing for a government shutdown as a way to defund the Affordable Care Act.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/08/19/20091453-cruzs-steps-into-spotlight-earn-him-backlash?lite

Cruz has been on the job all of seven months and he’s acting as if he’s an expert on the nuances of governing, legislating and deal-making. Then he encounters the likes of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who actually knows about all those things and who says a government shutdown is a patently bad idea. “The problem is the bill that would shut down the government wouldn’t shut down Obamacare,” McConnell told NBC News.

McConnell wants to defund the ACA as badly as Cruz — or so he says — but doesn’t want to punish the entire country to do it.

Cruz, meanwhile, is blustering all over the place about how a shutdown would be good for the country if it accomplishes what he wants, which is to take “Obamacare” off the books.

I haven’t yet mentioned that Cruz is being mentioned as a possible 2016 presidential candidate. That likely explains why the know-nothing senator is hogging the spotlight with his government-shutdown rhetoric.

Cruz forgets that the Senate is full of capable individuals on both sides of the aisle who know how the place functions. Cruz would argue that the Senate’s long-standing traditions are part of the problem and that he wants to change it for the better.

Well, good luck with that, Sen. Cruz. He’s likely learning that good manners still count for something — or at least they used to — in the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.