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Friday, March 19, 2010
Blogging It Forward
Fran here. It's time for a little linky-love to other second-tier blogs, in place of my customary endless blather.
1. The chickens are coming home to roost. From the Big Dog:
Walgreens in Washington state will stop accepting new requests for prescriptions to be filled for Medicaid patients because the state does not reimburse enough to cover the cost of the drugs. Several other stores have also decided to stop accepting new Medicaid patients for the same reason....The government run systems control costs by shortchanging doctors on the reimbursement. Obama clearly told us that this was the safety valve that is used when there is a cost problem....
Well, the doctors are tired of it. Some pharmacies are tired of it.
And it will only get worse if the government passes the health care takeover plan.
And the federalization-of-medical-care bill hasn't even been passed yet!
The great fault of government control of anything is that the normal relationship between customer and vendor, with all its critical feedback mechanisms, is irretrievably sundered. Dissatisfied customers can't get refunds or take their business elsewhere. The State must choose between tolerating even the very worst customers or violating its own rules. Quality and price become fictional constructs. And let's not forget how governments hide their inability to perform: by making you wait.
How do government-worshipping liberals respond to the complaints? They raise taxes and expand bureaucracies. They select scapegoats -- private-sector scapegoats, of course -- to demonize. Every now and then they throw the unluckiest of their number to the wolves, usually after covertly tucking compensation into his back pocket. They insist repeatedly that "this time, it will be different." We're hearing that now with the promises to reduce Medicare costs $500,000,000,000 by "eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse." God Almighty, if it were that easy, wouldn't it have been done already?
The ones who aren't merely seriously deluded are either certifiable or evil. They certainly don't deserve a moment's attention or respect...except to expel them permanently from the halls of government, so they can do no more harm.
2. A Lion Among The Jackals.
I'd been wondering how newly elected New Jersey Governor Chris Christie would approach the fulfillment of his campaign promises. Doug Ross has the story:
Sanity: Governor Chris Christie is amputating large portions of the budget. Because it's the only way.
- His proposed budget would slash subsidies to schools by $800 million and to cities and towns by $450 million.
- It would reduce state spending by nearly 10%.
- It would permanently cut more than 1,200 state employees.
- It would suspend payments of billions on the insanely rich public sector pension plans that can't possibly be sustained.
My word. Actual political courage. We haven't seen anything like that for a century.
Say, I've got an idea: how about insisting that if your locality wants to have a government of some sort, whether it be a city council, a county legislature, or a district school board, it has to raise all its own revenue, without help from some "higher power?" God excepted, of course. Time to finance your own wee vices, dear "public servants."
Governor Christie is indeed a brave man. But he'd leap to the pantheon of political gods if he were to zero out "aid" to cities, counties, school districts, corner lemonade stands, and so on, on the strength of the "no taxation without representation" principle. After all, the residents of Paramus aren't represented by the school board of Newark that so desperately "needs" their money, and it's a fiction that the state government effecting transfers between them actually has Paramus's best interests at heart. But no politician has shown that degree of courage since Grover Cleveland.
3. For Those Nostalgic For The Sound Of Gunfire...
The state governments are as badly crushed by government health-care expenditures as is Washington. ObamaCare threatens to make their burden even worse -- and at least one state isn't going to take it lying down:
From the Washington Post, a letter from the Virginia Attorney General to the Speaker of the House:March 17, 2010
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi Speaker of the United States House of Representatives Office of the Speaker H-232, U.S. Capitol Washington, D.C.Dear Speaker Pelosi:
I am writing to urge you not to proceed with the Senate Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act under a so-called "deem and pass" rule because such a course of action would raise grave constitutional questions. Based upon media interviews and statements which I have seen, you are considering this approach because it might somehow shield members of Congress from taking a recorded vote on an overwhelmingly unpopular Senate bill. This is an improper purpose under the bicameralism requirements of Article I, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution, one of the purposes of which is to make our representatives fully accountable for their votes. Furthermore, to be validly enacted, the Senate bill would have to be accepted by the House in a form that is word-for-word identical (Clinton v. City of New York, 524 U.S. 417 (1998)). Should you employ the deem and pass tactic, you expose any act which may pass to yet another constitutional challenge. A bill of this magnitude should not be passed using this maneuver. As the President noted last week, the American people are entitled to an up or down vote.
Sincerely,
Kenneth T. Cuccinelli, II Attorney General of VirginiaSo it isn't just bloggers in their pajamas that think what is being proposed is unconstitutional.
We've already seen two states declare that, in accordance with the federalist system instituted by the Tenth Amendment, they hold that federal gun-control laws shall not apply to arms produced, sold, and kept entirely within their borders. I expect that ObamaCare, if it passes, will elicit similar reactions...and sequels that might prove very nasty indeed.
I find myself wondering whether even the prospect of a Second Civil War would be enough to deter the Obamunists from their agenda. My suspicion is that it wouldn't -- that Barack Hussein Obama would take pleasure in deploying the United States Army against Americans.
We might soon find out.
Comments
Will what’s left of the rule of law be “put to sleep” this Sunday? Along with those over 65 years of age?
Class war is a sort of nice way of saying race war. The popular visual media image is every group of Whites must have a negro minder present. Does this represent real life? Of course not. It instructs that all Whites are suspect racists and must be brought to heel.
The shooting war may break out somewhere or everywhere. The tactics will be brutal and impossible for government agents to suppress. Our most creative and resourceful people have, or soon will, lose their jobs. These people know how things work, and how to make them not work.
One way or another, the present situation will not stand.
Posted by on 03/19/2010 at 10:54 AM
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