\nFolks,<\/p>\n
\tI don’t know if you follow George Will; he often makes sense.
\n\tHis stuff is not always practical; but, this time I think he has it right.<\/p>\n
\n\tBy George F. Will Opinion writer November 5 at 7:38 PM <\/p>\n
\tUnlike the dog that chased the car until, to its consternation, he caught it, Republicans know what to do with what they have caught. Having completed their capture of control of the legislative branch, they should start with the following six measures concerning practical governance and constitutional equilibrium: <\/p>\n
\t\u25cf Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This creature of the labyrinthine Dodd-Frank law violates John Locke\u2019s dictum: \u201cThe legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. .\u2009.\u2009. The power of the legislative .\u2009.\u2009. [is] only to make laws, and not to make legislators.\u201d The CFPB is empowered to \u201cdeclare,\u201d with no legislative guidance or institutional inhibitions, that certain business practices are \u201cabusive.\u201d It also embodies progressivism\u2019s authoritarianism by being, unlike any entity Congress has created since 1789, untethered from all oversight mechanisms: Its funding, \u201cdetermined by the director,\u201d comes from the Federal Reserve<\/p>\n
\t\u25cf Repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This expression of the progressive mind is an artifact of the Affordable Care Act and may be the most anti-constitutional measure ever enacted. It certainly violates the first words of the first section of the first article of the Constitution: \u201cAll legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.\u201d The board\u2019s purported function is to achieve the act\u2019s purpose of cost-containment by reducing Medicare spending. When the IPAB\u2019s 15 presidential appointees make what the Affordable Care Act calls a \u201clegislative proposal\u201d limiting reimbursements to doctors, this proposal automatically becomes law unless Congress passes a similar measure cutting Medicare spending. Under this constitutional travesty, an executive-branch agency makes laws unless the legislative branch enacts alternative means of achieving the executive agency\u2019s aim. The Affordable Care Act stipulates that no measure for the abolition of the board can be introduced before 2017 or after Feb. 1, 2017, and must be enacted by Aug. 15 of that year. So, one Congress presumed to bind all subsequent Congresses in order to achieve progressivism\u2019s consistent aim \u2014 abolishing limited government by emancipating presidents from restraint by the separation of powers. This impertinence by the 111th Congress requires a firm rebuke by the 114th.<\/p>\n
\t\u25cf Repeal the Affordable Care Act\u2019s tax on medical devices. This $29 billion blow to an industry that provides more than 400,000 jobs is levied not on firms\u2019 profits but on gross revenues, and it comes on top of the federal (the developed world\u2019s highest) corporate income tax, plus state and local taxes. Enough Democrats support repeal that a presidential veto might be overridden.<\/p>\n
\t\u25cf Improve energy, economic and environmental conditions by authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would reduce the risk of spills by reducing the transportation of oil in railroad tankers. <\/p>\n
\t\u25cf Mandate completion of the nuclear waste repository in Nevada\u2019s Yucca Mountain. The signature achievement of Harry Reid\u2019s waning career has been blocking this project, on which approximately $15 billion has been spent. So, rather than nuclear waste being safely stored in the mountain\u2019s 40 miles of tunnels 1,000 feet underground atop 1,000 feet of rock, more than 160 million Americans live within 75 miles of one or more of the 121 locations where 70,000 tons of waste are stored.<\/p>\n
\t\u25cf Pass the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. It would require that any regulation with at least a $100 million annual impact on the economy \u2014 there are approximately 200 of them in the pipeline \u2014 be approved without amendments by a joint resolution of Congress and signed by the president. \u201cIn effect,\u201d writes the Hudson Institute\u2019s Christopher DeMuth, \u201cmajor agency rules would become legislative proposals with fast-track privileges.\u201d By requiring legislative complicity in especially heavy federal burdens, REINS is an ingredient in the recipe for resuscitating Congress, which has been far too eager to cede legislative responsibilities to the executive branch.<\/p>\n
\tSuch measures may be too granular to satisfy the grandiose aspirations of those conservatives who, sharing progressives\u2019 impatience with our constitutional architecture, aspire to have their way completely while wielding just one branch of government. But if, as is likely, the result of Congress doing these and similar things is a blizzard of presidential vetoes, even this would be constructive. The 2016 presidential election would follow a two-year demonstration of how reactionary progressivism is in opposing changes to the nation\u2019s trajectory. Congressional actions provoking executive rejections would frame the argument about progressivism. And as Margaret Thatcher advised, first you win the argument, then you win the vote.<\/p>\n
Posted by:<\/strong> OneMoonCircles on November 7, 2014, 3:56 am<\/p>\n \tOMC<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n Posted by:<\/strong> Dr Crapology on November 7, 2014, 3:06 pm<\/p>\n \tA sales tax would tax what we spend. A multi-millionaire would certainly pay a higher tax on a Mercedes while a person of less means would pay a much smaller tax on a used Chevy. AND both would be contributing to fund government. Everyone needs to contributing something in the way of taxes. PLUS the so called "underground" economy of cash transactions would eliminate these people paying nothing. <\/p>\n \tJust my $.02 worth. <\/p>\n \tDoc<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Folks, I don’t know if you follow George Will; he often makes sense. His stuff is not always practical; but, this time I think he has it right. By George F. Will Opinion writer November 5 at 7:38 PM Unlike…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8266","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-we-live-in"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8266\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumarchives.tmsites.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\tdownsizing government, restructuring Obamacare and there are a host of other things that could really help our country. I hope it is not just a dream.<\/p>\n