The pursuit of Constitutionally grounded governance, freedom
and individual liberty
"There is but
one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily." --George Washington
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Weakening of black family led to social problems By
Walter E. Williams
If we put ourselves into the shoes of racists who seek to sabotage black upward mobility, we couldn’t develop a more effective agenda than that followed by civil rights organizations, black politicians, academics, liberals and the news media. Let’s look at it.
First, weaken the black family, but don’t blame it on individual choices. You have to preach that today’s weak black family is a legacy of slavery, Jim Crow and racism. The truth is that black female-headed households were just 18 percent of households in 1950, as opposed to about 68 percent today. In fact, from 1890 to 1940, the black marriage rate was slightly higher than that of whites. Even during slavery, when marriage was forbidden for blacks, most black children lived in biological two-parent families. In New York City, in 1925, 85 percent of black households were two-parent households. A study of 1880 family structure in Philadelphia shows that three-quarters of black families were two-parent households.
During the 1960s, devastating nonsense emerged, exemplified by a Johns Hopkins University sociology professor who argued, “It has yet to be shown that the absence of a father was directly responsible for any of the supposed deficiencies of broken homes.” The real issue, he went on to say, “is not the lack of male presence but the lack of male income.” That suggests marriage and fatherhood can be replaced by a welfare check.
The poverty rate among blacks is 36 percent. Most black poverty is found in female-headed households. The poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits since 1994 and is about 8 percent today. The black illegitimacy rate is 75 percent, and in some cities it’s 90 percent. But if that’s a legacy of slavery, it must have skipped several generations, because in the 1940s, unwed births hovered around 14 percent.
Along with the decline of the black family comes anti-social behavior, manifested by high crime rates. Each year, roughly 7,000 blacks are murdered. Ninety-four percent of the time, the murderer is another black person. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims. Using the 94 percent figure means that 262,621 were murdered by other blacks. Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation’s population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims. Nationally, the black homicide victimization rate is six times that of whites, and in some cities it’s 22 times that of whites. I’d like for the president, the civil rights establishment, white liberals and the news media, who spent massive resources protesting the George Zimmerman trial’s verdict, to tell the nation whether they believe that the major murder problem blacks face is murder by whites. There are no such protests against the thousands o f black murders.
There’s an organization called NeighborhoodScout. Using 2011 population data from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2011 crime statistics from the FBI and information from 17,000 local law enforcement agencies in the country, it came up with a report titled “Top 25 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods in America.”
They include neighborhoods in Detroit, Chicago, Houston, St. Louis and other major cities. What’s common to all 25 neighborhoods is that their makeup is described as “black” or “mostly black.” The high crime rates have several outcomes that are not in the best interests of the overwhelmingly law-abiding people in these neighborhoods. There can’t be much economic development. Property has a lower value, but worst of all, people can’t live with the kind of personal security that most Americans enjoy.
Disgustingly, black politicians, civil rights leaders, liberals and the president are talking nonsense about “having a conversation about race.” That’s beyond useless. Tell me how a conversation with white people is going to stop black predators from preying on blacks.
~~~~~~
Rescue Detroit? Let the city fail
by George Will
In
1860, an uneasy Charles Darwin confided in a letter to a friend: “I had no
intention to write atheistically” but “I cannot persuade myself that a
beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae
with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of
caterpillars.” What appalled him had fascinated entomologist William Kirby
(1759-1850): The ichneumon insect inserts an egg in a caterpillar, and the larva
hatched from the egg, he said, “gnaws the inside of the caterpillar, and though
at last it has devoured almost every part of it except the skin and intestines,
carefully all this time avoids injuring the vital organs, as if aware that its
own existence depends on that of the insect on which it preys!”
Government employees’ unions living parasitically on Detroit have been less aware than ichneumon larvae. About them, and their collaborators in the political class, the question is: What. Were. They. Thinking? Well, how did Bernie Madoff or the Enron executives convince themselves their houses of cards would never collapse?
Here, where cattle could graze in vast swaths of this depopulated city, democracy ratified a double delusion: Magic would rescue the city (consult the Bible, the bit about the multiplication of the loaves and fishes), or Washington would deem Detroit, as it recently did some banks and two of the three Detroit-based automobile companies, “too big to fail.” But Detroit failed long ago. And not even Washington, whose recklessness is almost limitless, is oblivious to the minefield of moral hazard it would stride into if it rescued this city and, then inevitably, others that are buckling beneath the weight of their cumulative follies. It is axiomatic: When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate.
This bedraggled city’s decay poses no theological conundrum of the sort that troubled Darwin, but it does pose worrisome questions about the viability of democracy in jurisdictions where big government and its unionized employees collaborate in pillaging taxpayers. Self-government has failed in what once was America’s fourth-largest city and now is smaller than Charlotte, N.C.
Detroit, which boomed during World War II when industrial America was “the arsenal of democracy,” died of democracy. Today, among the exculpatory alibis invoked to deflect blame from the political class and the docile voters who empowered it, is the myth that Detroit is simply a victim of “de-industrialization.” In 1950, however, Detroit and Chicago were comparable – except Detroit was probably wealthier, as measured by per capita income. Chicago, too, lost manufacturing jobs, to the American South, to south of the border, to South Korea and elsewhere. But Chicago discerned the future and diversified. It is grimly ironic that Chicago’s iconic street is Michigan Avenue.
Detroit’s population, which is 62 percent smaller than in 1950, has contracted less than the United Auto Workers membership, which was more than 1 million in 1950, and now is around 390,000. Auto industry executives, who often were invertebrate mediocrities, continually bought labor peace by mortgaging their companies’ futures in surrenders to union demands. Then city officials gave their employees – who have 47 unions, including one for crossing guards – pay scales comparable to those of autoworkers. Thus did private-sector decadence drive public-sector dysfunction – government negotiating with government-employees’ unions that are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it wants to do: Grow.
Steven Rattner, who administered the bailout of part of the Detroitbased portion of America’s automobile industry, says “apart from voting in elections, the 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs.” Congress, he says, should bail out Detroit because “America is just as much about aiding those less fortunate as it is about personal responsibility.” There you have today’s liberalism: Human agency, hence responsibility, is denied. Apart from the pesky matter of “voting in elections” – apart from decades of voting to empower incompetents, scoundrels and criminals, and to mandate unionized rapacity – no one is responsible for anything. Popular sovereignty is a chimera because impersonal forces akin to hurricanes are sovereign.
The restoration of America’s vitality depends on, among many other things, avoiding the bottomless sinkhole that would be created by the federal government rescuing one party cities, and one-party states such as Illinois, from the consequences of unchecked power. Those consequences of such power – incompetence, magical thinking, cynicism, and sometimes criminality – are written in Detroit’s ruins.
Government employees’ unions living parasitically on Detroit have been less aware than ichneumon larvae. About them, and their collaborators in the political class, the question is: What. Were. They. Thinking? Well, how did Bernie Madoff or the Enron executives convince themselves their houses of cards would never collapse?
Here, where cattle could graze in vast swaths of this depopulated city, democracy ratified a double delusion: Magic would rescue the city (consult the Bible, the bit about the multiplication of the loaves and fishes), or Washington would deem Detroit, as it recently did some banks and two of the three Detroit-based automobile companies, “too big to fail.” But Detroit failed long ago. And not even Washington, whose recklessness is almost limitless, is oblivious to the minefield of moral hazard it would stride into if it rescued this city and, then inevitably, others that are buckling beneath the weight of their cumulative follies. It is axiomatic: When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate.
This bedraggled city’s decay poses no theological conundrum of the sort that troubled Darwin, but it does pose worrisome questions about the viability of democracy in jurisdictions where big government and its unionized employees collaborate in pillaging taxpayers. Self-government has failed in what once was America’s fourth-largest city and now is smaller than Charlotte, N.C.
Detroit, which boomed during World War II when industrial America was “the arsenal of democracy,” died of democracy. Today, among the exculpatory alibis invoked to deflect blame from the political class and the docile voters who empowered it, is the myth that Detroit is simply a victim of “de-industrialization.” In 1950, however, Detroit and Chicago were comparable – except Detroit was probably wealthier, as measured by per capita income. Chicago, too, lost manufacturing jobs, to the American South, to south of the border, to South Korea and elsewhere. But Chicago discerned the future and diversified. It is grimly ironic that Chicago’s iconic street is Michigan Avenue.
Detroit’s population, which is 62 percent smaller than in 1950, has contracted less than the United Auto Workers membership, which was more than 1 million in 1950, and now is around 390,000. Auto industry executives, who often were invertebrate mediocrities, continually bought labor peace by mortgaging their companies’ futures in surrenders to union demands. Then city officials gave their employees – who have 47 unions, including one for crossing guards – pay scales comparable to those of autoworkers. Thus did private-sector decadence drive public-sector dysfunction – government negotiating with government-employees’ unions that are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it wants to do: Grow.
Steven Rattner, who administered the bailout of part of the Detroitbased portion of America’s automobile industry, says “apart from voting in elections, the 700,000 remaining residents of the Motor City are no more responsible for Detroit’s problems than were the victims of Hurricane Sandy for theirs.” Congress, he says, should bail out Detroit because “America is just as much about aiding those less fortunate as it is about personal responsibility.” There you have today’s liberalism: Human agency, hence responsibility, is denied. Apart from the pesky matter of “voting in elections” – apart from decades of voting to empower incompetents, scoundrels and criminals, and to mandate unionized rapacity – no one is responsible for anything. Popular sovereignty is a chimera because impersonal forces akin to hurricanes are sovereign.
The restoration of America’s vitality depends on, among many other things, avoiding the bottomless sinkhole that would be created by the federal government rescuing one party cities, and one-party states such as Illinois, from the consequences of unchecked power. Those consequences of such power – incompetence, magical thinking, cynicism, and sometimes criminality – are written in Detroit’s ruins.
~~~~~~
‘There Is a Stench to This’: Mo. Town Livid After Saudi
National’s First-Degree Murder Charge Dismissed Dave
Urbanski
A
Saudi national in Missouri accused of first-degree murder—and who remained in
jail for 11 months even after the Saudi Arabian government posted his $2
million bail—is a free man.
Ziyad
Abid was accused of paying his roommate to kill a popular bar owner in
Warrensburg, Mo., a town about an hour east of Kansas City, but prosecutors
dropped those charges Friday due to insufficient evidence, according to the Associated
Press. And many in Warrensburg are
livid. “There’s a stench to this, this
town is outraged,” resident Steve Ciafullo told WDAF-TV. “Anyone else would
face trial, he might be innocent but he should stand trial like everybody else
should.” Mike Bodenhamer was a
friend and business partner of the victim, Blaine Whitworth, and believes
Abid’s release is nothing but dirty politics.
“He’s smiling on his way home probably,” Bodenhamer told WDAF. “The fix
was in a long time ago in my opinion.” Abid,
24, was briefly taken into custody Friday by immigration officials then
released on his own recognizance hours after Johnson County prosecutors
dismissed all charges, the AP reported. The case against Abid, who had
been jailed since Sept. 5, drew national attention when Circuit Judge Michael
Wagner refused to release him even after the Saudi Arabian government posted
his $2 million bail, according to the AP. Abid was arrested after his roommate,
Reginald Singletary Jr., told investigators Abid paid him to kill Whitworth
last September, the AP said. But Abid’s attorney insisted that police led
Singletary to accuse Abid, and now Singletary’s story has allegedly changed,
WDAF reports, which led to charges being dropped.
~~~~~~
“Couldn’t There Have Been Exceptions to the Laws of
Science?” by
Jeff Miller, Ph.D.
Some
people have realized the implications of the laws of science concerning the
matter of origins. Simply put, the laws of science contradict the evolutionary
model (cf. Thompson, 2002; Miller, 2007). So, the question is asked by
both sincere and unrelinquishing people, “Could there not have been exceptions at
some time in the past to the laws of science?”
The McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and
Technical Terms defines a scientific law as, “a regularity which
applies to all members
of a broad class of phenomena” (2003, p. 1182, emp. added). In other words, as
long as the scientist takes care to make sure that the law applies to the
scenario in question, the law will always hold true. According to its definition, a
scientific law has no known exceptions, or else it would not be a law
in the first place. A “theory,” on the other hand, is merely an “attempt to explain”
phenomena by deduction from other known principles (McGraw-Hill…, p. 2129). A theory may not be true, but a law, by
definition, is always true.
Since there are no known exceptions to scientific laws, would it not be unscientific for
evolutionists to assert, without any scientific evidence, that there have been
exceptions to the laws of science in the past?
Consider
the Laws of Thermodynamics. A perpetual-motion machine is a device which
attempts to violate either the First or Second Law of Thermodynamics (Cengel
and Boles, 2002, p. 263). Numerous attempts have been made over the years to
design such a machine—all to no avail. Such a machine would certainly be worth
a large sum of money. However, a prominent Thermodynamics textbook used in
mechanical engineering schools says concerning such attempts, “The proposers of
perpetual-motion machines generally have innovative minds, but they usually
lack formal engineering training” (Cengel and Boles, p. 265). Why would the
writers make such a statement? The answer is that the Laws of Thermodynamics,
which are taught in-depth in mechanical engineering curriculums, prohibit the
design of such a machine. According to the textbook writers, to spend time and
energy on such a pursuit categorizes the pursuer as unknowledgeable about such
scientific truths. The Laws of Thermodynamics have been substantiated to the
point that in 1918 the U.S.Patent Office declared that they would no
longer accept patent applications for alleged perpetual-motion machines (Cengel
and Boles, p. 265). Concerning patent application rejections,
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website says, “a rejection on
the ground of lack of utility includes the more specific grounds of
inoperativeness, involving perpetual
motion” (2008, emp. added)…. As
far as science can tell, its laws have never been violated. They are
without exception. From a scientific perspective, the evolutionary model falls short of
being able to account for the origin of the Universe. Indeed, it contradicts
the known laws of science that govern the Universe. The creation model,
on the other hand, is in perfect harmony with the laws of science.
~~~~~~
Sen. Collins: Obamacare's 30-Hour Rule Will Damage Businesses by: Sandy Fitzgerald
Obamacare
has "perverse incentives" that allow employers to cut their
employees' work hours, says Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who has
introduced a bill to change the healthcare law's definition of full time work
from 30 hours a week to 40.
Collins, in Saturday's GOP address, noted that under Obamacare, anyone working
an average of 30 hours a week is considered full-time, meaning many employers
may cut their hours so they won't have to provide them with insurance. A
40-hour work week is full-time, we all know that," said Collins.
She noted in her address that her family founded a small business in Maine more than 160 years ago that continues to be run by two of her brothers. "Our economy is built on millions of enterprises just like ours," she said. "It’s not easy to survive in today’s economy. But these employers remain our nation’s job creators. We should be doing all we can to promote policies to help them survive and thrive." She also agreed that healthcare reform should provide people with access to quality and affordable care "while encouraging economic growth. That’s not what is happening under Obamacare." Instead, Collins said, Obamacare discourages small businesses from creating jobs and hiring new workers, and "has perverse incentives for employers to reduce the number of hours that their employees can work." Most small businesses want to provide health insurance, said Collins, but can't afford to do so under Obamacare.
She noted in her address that her family founded a small business in Maine more than 160 years ago that continues to be run by two of her brothers. "Our economy is built on millions of enterprises just like ours," she said. "It’s not easy to survive in today’s economy. But these employers remain our nation’s job creators. We should be doing all we can to promote policies to help them survive and thrive." She also agreed that healthcare reform should provide people with access to quality and affordable care "while encouraging economic growth. That’s not what is happening under Obamacare." Instead, Collins said, Obamacare discourages small businesses from creating jobs and hiring new workers, and "has perverse incentives for employers to reduce the number of hours that their employees can work." Most small businesses want to provide health insurance, said Collins, but can't afford to do so under Obamacare.
In
addition, she said, that while businesses with 50 or more full-time employees
are required to provide health insurance or face huge fines, they won't face
fines if they only have 49 employees. "These enormous penalties are a
real threat to employers who want to add jobs," she said. "They are a
powerful incentive for employers to refrain from hiring additional
workers." But even worse,
Collins said, is the Obamacare provision that calls people who work 30 hour
weeks full-time.
"This will only cause some businesses to reluctantly reduce the hours of their workers to fewer than 30 hours per week," she noted. The public sector is also being affected, Collins said, telling of one school system in her state that is preparing to cap substitute teachers' work at no more than 29 hours a week. She also quoted Teamsters President James Hoffa, who said recently that Obamacare will "destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class." "They are right to be worried," said Collins. "In the past, most new jobs were full-time. But, this year, the overwhelming majority of new jobs are part-time." She also quoted a study from the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, which said 10 million workers could have their hours cut because of Obamacare.
Collins admitted her "common sense" bill "won't solve the countless problems caused by Obamacare. But it would help ensure that millions of American workers do not have their hours, and their paychecks, reduced."
"This will only cause some businesses to reluctantly reduce the hours of their workers to fewer than 30 hours per week," she noted. The public sector is also being affected, Collins said, telling of one school system in her state that is preparing to cap substitute teachers' work at no more than 29 hours a week. She also quoted Teamsters President James Hoffa, who said recently that Obamacare will "destroy the foundation of the 40-hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class." "They are right to be worried," said Collins. "In the past, most new jobs were full-time. But, this year, the overwhelming majority of new jobs are part-time." She also quoted a study from the Labor Center at the University of California, Berkeley, which said 10 million workers could have their hours cut because of Obamacare.
Collins admitted her "common sense" bill "won't solve the countless problems caused by Obamacare. But it would help ensure that millions of American workers do not have their hours, and their paychecks, reduced."
~~~~~~
Benghazi Cover-up
About to Hit the Fan
by Marilyn Assenheim
CNN,
not exactly a bastion of Conservative thought, dropped a bombshell on Thursday
about the ongoing Benghazi coverup. The usually Clinton News Network issued an
exclusive saying that sources have informed them that “dozens of people working
for the CIA were on the ground that night, and that the agency is going to
great lengths to make sure whatever it was doing, remains a secret… The CIA is
involved in what one source calls an unprecedented attempt to keep the spy
agency's Benghazi secrets from ever leaking out.” That is only the tip of the iceberg.
It remains to be seen if the other networks will pick up the story and run with
it. The
media have been co-conspirators in Benghazi coverup. Inside sources speaking to
CNN went much further. They provided information that CIA operatives having
served in Libya during the Benghazi debacle have been subjected, sometimes
monthly, to polygraph tests since January 2013. The sole purpose of those tests
is intended to discover whether or not errant CIA agents are blabbing to the
press or to Congress.
What
is worse, CNN’s sources claim that 35 Americans, with as many as 7 wounded,
were on the ground in Benghazi.
How many of those involved were actually CIA operatives remains a secret.
Puzzling, considering that CIA spokesman, Dan Boyd, issued a statement
protesting the agency’s absolute cooperation with Congress: “The CIA has worked
closely with its oversight committees to provide them with an extraordinary
amount of information related to the attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi… CIA
employees are always free to speak to Congress if they want. The CIA enabled
all officers involved in Benghazi the opportunity to meet with Congress. We are
not aware of any CIA employee who has experienced retaliation, including any
non-routine security procedures, or who has been prevented from sharing a
concern with Congress about the Benghazi incident.” Too bad that pronouncement
is being contested. CNN describes what is happening as “pure intimidation with the threat
that any unauthorized CIA employee who leaks information could face the end of
his or her career” and quotes one of their sources: “You have no idea the
amount of pressure being brought to bear on anyone with knowledge of this
operation. You don't jeopardize yourself, you jeopardize your family as
well." Mr. Boyd may have ample opportunity to choke on his words.
On Friday, Gateway Pundit intensified the CNN bombshell blast. Representative
Trey Gowdy (R-SC) appeared on The Greta Van Sustren television broadcast on
Thursday evening. He discussed the plethora of scandals Obama’s regime is
embroiled in but Benghazi was a particular sore point. He stated, unequivocally, that
not only were CIA agents present during the September 11 Benghazi disgrace
being unduly pressured, they were being squirreled away from public’s view by
the president’s regime, “hiding the survivors, dispersing them around the
country, AND changing their names.” Congressman Gowdy was emphatic on that
point: “Including changing names, creating aliases. Gowdy added that while Obama
is dotting the countryside with gagged, secreted, secret service agents, he is
calling Benghazi a “phony scandal.” It should make Americans think; but will
it? Stating that what is being perpetrated “might” be a cover-up is tantamount
to insisting that the White House runs a “transparent” administration. This
couldn’t be a more obvious cover-up if they tried even harder.
~~~~~~
Did Obama break law to win re-election?
Former Homeland Security attorney exposes shrewd
maneuver. Did Barack Obama win re-election by violating the
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act? This is the question posed by former
Homeland Security attorney Stewart Baker, a blogger for The Volokh Conspiracy,
a group blog organized by Eugene Volokh, a professor of American law at the
UCLA School of Law. Baker’s credentials make the question a serious
one. A partner in the
Washington office of Steptoe & Johnson LLP, he returned to private law
practice after serving for three and a half years as the assistant secretary
for policy at the Department of Homeland Security, where he created and managed
the 250-person DHS Policy Directorate responsible, among other duties, for
relationships with law enforcement and public advisory committees.
The
Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, enacted by Congress in 1986, is a broadly written
law that in practice regulates virtually all computers and cellphones, largely
because communications over the Internet tends to have implications for
interstate commerce. Baker argued that the Obama presidential campaign in 2012
possibly violated the act by an arrangement with Obama supporters posting on
Facebook. It allowed the Obama campaign to search the person’s Facebook network
for likely voters the campaign could identify as unmotivated or unregistered. The
likely voters would then get tailored messages from their Facebook friends
urging them to register and turn out.
Baker’s
appreciation for the creativity of the tactic was moderated by his conclusion
the tactic might have been a criminal violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse
Act. “It’s
clever. It’s the future,” Baker conceded. “And it’s a violation of the CFAA.
Facebook doesn’t let users share access to their accounts, and anything
Facebook doesn’t authorize is very likely a federal crime.”
Baker explained that Facebook’s customer service agreement was written to limit access to information, not just use of the information. “Maybe the campaign never thought about the possibility that it was violating federal law,” Baker wrote. “That’s not a scandal, though it strikes me as unlikely that not one of these tech-savvy geeks failed to notice that they were breaching Facebook’s terms of service.”
Baker explained that Facebook’s customer service agreement was written to limit access to information, not just use of the information. “Maybe the campaign never thought about the possibility that it was violating federal law,” Baker wrote. “That’s not a scandal, though it strikes me as unlikely that not one of these tech-savvy geeks failed to notice that they were breaching Facebook’s terms of service.”
Given
the importance of turnout to the outcome of the 2012 presidential campaign,
Baker argued President Obama arguably won re-election by violating federal law
or by getting special treatment from Facebook, and maybe from federal
prosecutors as well. “I think this issue will go mainstream,”
Baker insisted. “Half the country will want to know exactly how that happened.
And I don’t see how the extraordinary discussion conferred by the Computer
Fraud and Abuse Act can survive the storm that follows.”
~~~~~
Union Leaders Beg Reid and Pelosi: “Don’t Force Us Into
ObamaCare!”
Dear
Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi:
When
you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you
pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them.
Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama
Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our
hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work
week that is the backbone of the American middle class.
Like
millions of other Americans, our members are front-line workers in the American
economy. We have been strong supporters of the notion that all Americans should
have access to quality, affordable health care. We have also been strong
supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground,
gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to
secure this vision.
Now
this vision has come back to haunt us.
Since
the ACA was enacted, we have been bringing our deep concerns to the
Administration, seeking reasonable regulatory interpretations to the statute
that would help prevent the destruction of non-profit health plans. As you both
know first-hand, our persuasive arguments have been disregarded and met with a
stone wall by the White House and the pertinent agencies. This is especially
stinging because other stakeholders have repeatedly received successful
interpretations for their respective grievances. Most disconcerting of course is
last week’s huge accommodation for the employer community—extending the
statutorily mandated “December 31, 2013” deadline for the employer mandate and
penalties.
Time
is running out: Congress wrote this law; we voted for you. We have a problem;
you need to fix it. The unintended consequences of the ACA are severe. Perverse
incentives are already creating nightmare scenarios:
First,
the law creates an incentive for employers to keep employees’ work hours below
30 hours a week. Numerous employers have begun to cut workers’ hours to avoid
this obligation, and many of them are doing so openly. The impact is two-fold:
fewer hours means less pay while also losing our current health benefits. Second,
millions of Americans are covered by non-profit health insurance plans like the
ones in which most of our members participate. These non-profit plans are
governed jointly by unions and companies under the Taft-Hartley Act. Our health
plans have been built over decades by working men and women. Under the ACA as
interpreted by the Administration, our employees will be treated differently
and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens. As such, many
employees will be relegated to second-class status and shut out of the help the
law offers to for-profit insurance plans.
And
finally, even though non-profit plans like ours won’t receive the same
subsidies as for-profit plans, they’ll be taxed to pay for those subsidies.
Taken together, these restrictions will make non-profit plans like ours
unsustainable, and will undermine the health-care market of viable alternatives
to the big health insurance companies. On behalf of the millions of working men
and women we represent and the families they support, we can no longer stand
silent in the face of elements of the Affordable Care Act that will destroy the
very health and well-being of our members along with millions of other
hardworking Americans.
~~~~~~
"History
affords us many instances of the ruin of states, by the prosecution of measures
ill suited to the temper and genius of their people. The ordaining of laws in
favor of one part of the nation, to the prejudice and oppression of another, is
certainly the most erroneous and mistaken policy. An equal dispensation of
protection, rights, privileges, and advantages, is what every part is entitled
to, and ought to enjoy... These measures never fail to create great and violent
jealousies and animosities between the people favored and the people oppressed;
whence a total separation of affections, interests, political obligations, and
all manner of connections, by which the whole state is weakened."--Benjamin Franklin, Emblematical
Representations"No people will tamely surrender their Liberties, nor can any be easily subdued, when knowledge is diffusd and Virtue is preservd. On the Contrary, when People are universally ignorant, and debauchd in their Manners, they will sink under their own weight without the Aid of foreign Invaders."--Samuel Adams, letter to James Warren, 1775
"Liberty cannot be preserved without a general knowledge among the people, who have a right, from the frame of their nature, to knowledge, as their great Creator, who does nothing in vain, has given them understandings, and a desire to know; but besides this, they have a right, an indisputable, unalienable, indefeasible, divine right to that most dreaded and envied kind of knowledge; I mean, of the characters and conduct of their rulers." --John Adams, Dissertation on Canon and Feudal Law, 1765
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