Friday, February 18, 2011

A Dirty Little Secret About De-Funding Obamacare

Several members of Congress, like Rep. Denny Rehberg (R, MT) and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R.-Wash.) are offering amendments that would prevent any new spending from being used to implement Obamacare.

Good for them. Those are important additions to the big spending bill pending in Congress.

But here’s the dirty little secret: Much of Obamacare is being implemented with money that was already appropriated last year. These billions are already available for bureaucrats to put Obamacare into force.

("We'll have to pass the bill to know what's in it.")

Denying additional funding for Obamacare does not de-fund the huge amounts it already is using for implementation. That requires additional action.

Even though the last Congress failed to pass other appropriations bills (creating the need for the currently-pending spending measure), that former Congress DID provide billions to get Obamacare launched. The money was directly appropriated as part of the health care legislation, rather than included in a separate appropriations bill as is the normal practice.

The details are in a Congressional Research Service report issued last October, “Appropriations and Fund Transfers in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).”

CRS devotes seven pages to describing the billions of dollars already appropriated and which the Obama Administration even now is spending to promote that law.

Conservatives agree with the American people that Obamacare should be repealed. Short of outright repeal, leaders from 32 conservative groups in the Conservative Action Project have unitedly stated that the next-best strategy is defunding. As their report states, “The safest route for legislatively combating Obamacare is to defund it. Now that the statute has been declared unconstitutional, Congress should use the power of the purse to deny funding for the individual mandate, employer mandates, and writing the 100s of regulations need to impose Obamacare. Such legislation will not in any way jeopardize the ongoing litigation efforts.”

It’s good that a federal judge has declared Obamacare unconstitutional, but the White House insists it’s going forward anyway. It’s good that the House may cut off any new money to implement Obamacare.

But unless Congress deals with the pot of money already provided, we won’t meet the goal of defunding Obamacare.

16 comments:

  1. Simple, you short-change the Dem's favorite programs by the exact amount that is currently appropriated for ObamaCare, with the proviso that these programs will be re-imbursed by funds which are not spent on the unconstitutional power-grab.

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  2. Last year, the cars were running 198 mph at Daytona. This year, running 15% Ethanol they're doing 206 mph.

    Likker is Quikker.

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  3. They won't be doing 206 mph at Daytona with the restrictor plate change.

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  4. A Methane/Ethanol hybrid is on deck.

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  5. Now, now, Melody.

    I'll have you know, I've been referred to as the biggest asshole in Ms. :)

    Also, as a "complete asshole." :)

    1/64 of an inch, Indeed.

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  6. They couldn't even cut $100 B out of a $1.3 Trillion Deficit

    Our little darlink, Kantor voted with the Dems. So did the little cutesy-pie, tea party fav, Kristi Noemme.

    Dems/Pukes, there ain't a dime's worth of difference between'em.

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  7. And, if they shoot lasers at us, we'll activate our ANTI-LASERS!

    We got lasers that can shoot down rockets, we got anti-lasers, we got machines that can beat Anyone in the World at Jeopardy,

    But our fucking worthless politicians can't cut $0.1T out of a $1.3 Trillion Deficit.

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  8. Hey, I was just asking the question.

    doug was the one that insinuated...

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  9. We're going "tits-up," and we need to cut 25%, and the worthless dicks can't find 2.6%. (0.1/3.8 = 0.026)

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  10. This was in the "House." The "Republican-Controlled House."

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  11. Actually, the bill they couldn't pass wouldn't have even brought it to $100B. It would have only brought the cuts to $83B.

    We are in some deep, deep shit, buckos.

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