Spend Mo Money!

Can you believe this clown?  Spend our way out of debt? No holds barred?  I guess he’s going to start pulling money out of his butt now. My comments in RED.

New Obama plans: ’spend our way out’ of downturn

Dec 8 12:35 PM US/Eastern
By PHILIP ELLIOTT
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama outlined new multibillion-dollar stimulus and jobs proposals Tuesday, saying the nation must continue to “spend our way out of this recession” until more Americans are back at work.  ***NO SUCH LUCK BO, THE MORE YOU SPEND, THE MORE CAPITALISM DIES***

Without giving a price tag, Obama proposed a package of new spending for highway, bridge and other infrastructure projects, deeper tax breaks for small businesses and tax incentives to encourage people to make their homes more energy efficient.

//

//

“We avoided the depression many feared,” Obama said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. But, he added, “Our work is far from done.”

For the third time in a week, Obama sought to focus on job creation, noting that the unemployment rate was still at 10 percent in November, though down slightly from its 10.2 percent peak. He said “a staggering” 7 million Americans have lost jobs since the recession began two years ago. ***AND THAT’S NOT COUNTING THOSE WHO ARE OUT OF FUNDS THAT AREN’T REPORTING****

While his proposal did not include the kind of direct federal public works jobs that were created in the 1930s, he said government could set the stage for more job creation by private businesses.

A major part of his package is new incentives for small businesses, which account for two-thirds of the nation’s work force. He proposed a new tax cut for small businesses that hire in 2010 and an elimination for one year of the capital gains tax on profits from small-business investments. ***BUT WHAT ABOUT THE CRAP CHARGES FOR HEALTH CARE, THE INCREASE TO BUSINESS FOR THE RAISE IN MINIMUM WAGE, THE NEW FULL TIME AT 30 HOUR PROVISION, ETC…MAYBE IT WOULD HELP IF THOSE WERE CUT FIRST***

Obama also proposed an elimination of fees on loans to small businesses, coupled with federal guarantees of those loans through the end of next year. ***AND THEN ANOTHER CRASH OF THE FINANCIAL SECTOR BECAUSE THE LENDERS AREN’T MAKING ANYTHING ON THOSE LOANS?***

He called for more government spending on infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and water projects and for new tax breaks for consumers who invest in energy-efficient retrofits in their homes. This could be what some administration officials have called a “Cash for Caulkers” program modeled on the now-expired Cash for Clunkers program of tax rebates for people who turned in old cars for more fuel-efficient models.

The administration also is eyeing ways to get money still not spent in the $787 billion stimulus bill passed last winter into projects more quickly.

Obama did not characterize his new proposals as another stimulus program like that mammoth measure, but Republican critics have called it just that and have said it will increase a federal deficit that is already at a record level.

Obama included sharp criticism for Republicans in his speech, accusing them of opposing economic stimulus efforts and his health care overhaul while supporting tax cuts and spending that have ballooned the deficit. ***EXCUSE ME, WHO HAS SPENT MORE MONEY THAN ALL THE PRESIDENT’S COMBINED?***

He said that soon after taking office, he and congressional Democrats took “a series of difficult steps” to try to stabilize the financial system and pull the economy out of a deep recession.

“And we were forced to take those steps largely without the help of an opposition party which, unfortunately, after having presided over the decision-making that led to the crisis, decided to hand it to others to solve.”

Obama did not say how much his proposals would cost, although congressional Democrats are eyeing a $70 billion package to help create jobs and to provide aid to hard-pressed state and local governments. Administration aides suggested that the part of the package dealing with roads, bridges and other infrastructure could total about $50 billion.

While acknowledging increasing concerns in Congress and among the public over the nation’s growing debt, Obama said critics present a “false choice” between paying down deficits and investing in job creation and economic growth. ***AIN’T THAT THE POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK?***

To pay for the new programs, the administration is citing the Treasury Department’s report on Monday that it expects to get back $200 billion in taxpayer-approved bank bailout funds faster than expected.

Obama suggested this windfall would both help the government spend money on job creation while also paying down the nation’s debt, which now totals $12 trillion.

Obama called the bank bailout, under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), “galling.”

“There has rarely been a less loved—or more necessary—emergency program,” Obama said. The program is expected to go out of business at the end of this year unless extended by Congress.

Since the program is costing taxpayers at least $200 billion less than expected, Obama said, “This gives us a chance to pay down the deficit faster than we thought possible and to shift funds that would have gone to help the banks on Wall Street to help create jobs on Main Street.”

But Republicans continued to insist that the leftover and repaid TARP money must be used exclusively for deficit reduction and not for a new jobs program.

“The president’s announcement is further proof that TARP has morphed from an emergency injection of liquidity to thaw frozen credit markets into a $700 billion revolving slush fund to promote the Democrats’ political, social and economic agenda,” said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas.

Obama said he is backing the measures he outlined because they “will generate the greatest number of jobs while generating the greatest value for our economy.”

“These targeted initiatives are right, and they are needed,” he said.

Obama to accept peace prize as war president

What? Obama ran his presidential campaign to stop the war in Iraq. Now he’s accepting the Nobel Peace Prize as a “war president”? Yep! He also said he’d make government more transparent, but a lot of the health care plan is being discussed behind closed doors and he said he was against the Patriot Act, but now he’s extended it instead of letting it expire. So it’s beginning to appear that whatever Obama says, the opposite is the truth.

US President Barack Obama, seen here atthe White House, will accept his Nobel peace prize this week as a war president, and will address the awkward timing of his Afghan troop surge announcement head on, the White House said Monday.

AFP – President Barack Obama will accept his Nobel peace prize this week as a war president, and will address the awkward timing of his Afghan troop surge announcement head on, the White House said Monday.

Obama will leave for Oslo on Wednesday and accept the surprise award the next day, on a delicate mission on which he must juggle the status of the prize with his so far limited foreign policy record.(Not to mention he got the nomination just one month after taking office and had done nothing yet and had ran on stopping the war, not expanding it.)

“We’ll address directly the notion, I think, that many have wondered, which is the juxtaposition of the timing for the Nobel Peace Prize and his commitment to add more troops into Afghanistan,” said Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs.

“That’s obviously something that he will address,” Gibbs said. Asked whether Obama would accept the prize as a “war president,” Gibbs replied “Exactly.”

The choice of Obama as Nobel peace laureate, and his Afghan troop decision, has sparked anger among some critics and spurred activists to plan demonstrations in Oslo which have prompted a massive security operation.

Earlier, in Norway, Benjamin Endre Larsen, the head of umbrella organization Fredsinitiativet organising a demonstration, told AFP “the Peace Prize creates obligations.”

“The decision to send additional troops to Afghanistan is sad and cynical and this shows that Obama has not understood his obligations.”

“We think that Obama received the prize prematurely, but now that he has it he has to prove himself worthy,” he added.

The Norwegian government has earmarked 92 million kroner (10.9 million euros, 16 million dollars) to cover security needs during Obama’s visit — more than 10 times the prize money awarded to the Peace Prize laureate.

France24.com

EPA Declares Carbon Dioxide a Poisonous Hazard

Do tell! Well today we have more insanity from the Obama administration. Just before going to Copenhagen he does something to get a feather in his hat. Since they haven’t even started on the Cap & Trade bill yet Obama needed something before the Climate Summit at Copenhagen. So as if we didn’t know CO2 is hazardous to our health. Duh! Just another way to kill any recovery of the economy and small businesses. Who’s side is this man on?

Obama and crew will not wait for the outcome of Copenhagen or the passage of the Waxman-Markey climate bill, predicted for 2010 at the earliest. Obama will declare carbon dioxide a dangerous pollutant this week.

We exhale carbon dioxide. Does that mean that we will  have to register with the government as being a polluting entity? Plants grow faster with more co2 and  they need less water and can stand higher temperatures. What is amazing  is that co2 compared to all other gases in the atmosphere only comprises .054% of the all gasses available. (That’s 45 thousandths of 1%)

The Environmental Protection Agency has declared carbon dioxide dangerous (duh!) and this will probably result in the government requiring businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other “greenhouse gases” to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions. Congress need not be consulted and no law need be enacted.

An EPA “endangerment finding” would allow the federal agency to use the federal Clean Air Act to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions.

EPA action would signal to the United Nations, the Copenhagen globalists and their phalanx of NGOs that Obama is serious about eliminating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and sending western civilization back to the Dark Ages.

Business Fumes Over Carbon Dioxide Rule by EPA

An “endangerment” finding by the Environmental Protection Agency could pave the way for the government to require businesses that emit carbon dioxide and five other greenhouse gases to make costly changes in machinery to reduce emissions — even if Congress doesn’t pass pending climate-change legislation. EPA action to regulate emissions could affect the U.S. economy more directly, and more quickly, than any global deal inked in the Danish capital, where no binding agreement is expected.

Many business groups are opposed to EPA efforts to curb a gas as ubiquitous as carbon dioxide.

China’s factory chimneys pour out smoke in Shanghai, China.Despite a global economic slump, worldwide carbon dioxide pollution jumped 2 percent last year, most of it from China, new figures show. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

An EPA endangerment finding “could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce President Thomas Donohue said in a statement. “The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don’t stifle our economic recovery,” he said, noting that the group supports federal legislation.

EPA action won’t do much to combat climate change, and “is certain to come at a huge cost to the economy,” said the National Association of Manufacturers, a trade group that stands as a proxy for U.S. industry.

EPA action would give President Barack Obama something to show leaders from other nations when he attends the Copenhagen conference on Dec. 18 and tries to persuade them that the U.S. is serious about cutting its contribution to global greenhouse-gas emissions.

The oil industry has warned that climate legislation could force some U.S. refineries to shut down, because importing gasoline from countries without emission caps could be cheaper than making the gasoline on domestic soil.

The issue of how curbing emissions would affect jobs in developed countries (like India & China which are the worse polluters) is likely to erupt in Copenhagen in the battle over how much rich countries should pony up for cleaner technologies in developing nations.(again like India & China~spreading the wealth)

The vast majority of increased greenhouse-gas emissions is expected to come from developing countries such as China and India, not from rich countries like the U.S. But developing countries have made it clear that their willingness to reduce growth in emissions will depend on what rich countries do first. That puts a geopolitical spotlight on the U.S.

online.WSJ.com

Obama Administration Willing to Dishonor Dead U.S. Marines To Not Offend Iran

 

Oops ! I don’t remember hearing anything about this on mainstream media. Obama lawyers going to defend Iran? I thought this was a president for change?

Obama Administration is willing to turn his back on families of the dead U.S. Marines so as not to offend Iranian Terrorist-in-Chief.

The Obama administration is going to court to try to block payments from Iranian assets that lawyers for the dead Marines’ families want seized as restitution for the terrorist attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983. Obama is contending that “it would jeopardize sensitive negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program and establish a potentially damaging precedent.”

Adding insult to infamy, 26 years after the attack on Marine barracks in Beirut, families are stymied again in their bid for restitution, this time by Barack HUSSEIN Obama.

On Veterans Day, Christine Devlin stood in the cold in Westwood for the unveiling of a new memorial to local soldiers lost overseas, including her son Michael, one of the 241 servicemen killed in the bombing of the US Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983.

Devlin is among 30 Massachusetts relatives of victims of the Beirut attack who have been fighting for more than a decade to get compensation for what many consider the first major terrorist attack against the United States. After a federal judge ruled in 2007 that Iran was liable for $2.65 billion in damages to be shared by 150 families seeking restitution, they believed they were on the cusp of victory.

In a little-noticed filing in federal court, the Justice Department is arguing that giving the money to the victims “can have significant, detrimental impact on our foreign relations, as well as the reciprocal treatment of the United States and its extensive overseas property holdings.”

The Obama administration’s position is a blow to those like Devlin, who still waits for some measure of justice for her son.  Michael was 21 when Hezbollah terrorists rammed a suicide truck bomb into the peacekeepers’ headquarters.

“It is offensive that our government – the government that [the Marines] were fighting for, who sent them there – are against us collecting from Iran,” Devlin said in an interview this week. “I felt justice was going to be served, but so far it hasn’t.”

The lawsuit, specialists say, also demonstrates the enormous difficulty for terrorism victims in general to collect damages. Despite a host of court rulings in its favor and legislation passed by Congress to make it possible to sue foreign governments that sponsor terrorism, the executive branch has long resisted such payments, arguing that seizing the assets of another country could restrict the president’s ability to conduct diplomacy. There are also significant legal disagreements over what kind of assets can be seized.

Two branches are supporting [the families'] position and the executive branch is directly trying to undermine them. Even the courts have grown frustrated. Royce C. Lamberth, chief judge of the US District Court in Washington who ruled in favor of the Beirut families, wrote in a Sept. 30 opinion that “these case have consumed substantial judicial resources while achieving few tangible results for the victims.”  

Boston.com

 

New EU President Rompuy announces 2009 as “first year of global governance”

Many of us already knew this was what the G-20 and other groups were working on, while others called us conspiracy theorists. Now they just come out in the open and tell you, “we now have global government” (1m:56sec  into video) and most hardly noticed the change. Just as they denied the Council on Foreign Relations existing and now you see them on TV all the time as a “think tank”.

New EU President Rompuy announces 2009 as “first year of global governance”
Sees Copenhagen as additional step towards global management

By Daniel Taylor

The new EU President, Herman Van Rompuy, has proclaimed 2009 as the “first year of global governance.” During Rompuy’s intervention as President on November 19th, he stated,

“2009 is also the first year of global governance, with the establishment of the G20 in the middle of the financial crisis. The climate conference in Copenhagen is another step towards the global management of our planet.”

Rompuy attended a Bilderberg dinner at Hertoginnendal, Brussels on November 15th, during which he announced a plan to implement EU wide taxes that will be paid directly to Brussels. Recently Mario Borghezio (Italy), member of the European Parliament, spoke openly against the influence of globalist organizations such as the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission. “Is it possible that no one has noticed that all 3 (EU Presidential candidates) frequently attend Bilderberg or Trilateral meetings?,” asked Borghezio. Rompuy will undoubtedly serve globalist interests during his reign of the European Union.

OldThinkerNews.com

 

Is FCC Declaring ‘Open Season’ on Internet Freedom?

How can we ever hope to influence China, Iran and other undemocratic regimes to provide more Internet access and freedom to their citizens and businesses when our FCC is proposing a radical take back of existing Internet freedoms without legitimate authority or justification?

The FCC, in proposing to change the definition of an “open Internet” from competition-driven to government-driven is setting a very dangerous precedent; that it is acceptable for countries to preemptively regulate the Internet for what might happen in the future, even if they lack the legitimacy of constitutional or legal authority to do so, or even if there is thinnest of justification or evidence to support it.

How can we ever hope to influence China, Iran and other undemocratic regimes to provide more Internet access and freedom to their citizens and businesses when our FCC is proposing a radical take back of existing Internet freedoms without legitimate authority or justification?

The grave mistake the FCC is making in the broader international context is claiming that private companies are the primary threat to Internet freedom and free speech, and not governments. History and common sense tell us only Governments have the effective coercive power to dictate real censorship.

The FCC is effectively declaring “open season” on well-established Internet freedoms.

It is perversely providing legitimacy, justification and political cover for undemocratic countries like China and Iran to hunt down dissidents online and censor free speech while using the Orwellian doublespeak of regulating to “preserve an open Internet.” Undemocratic regimes are always looking for “openings” and excuses to further crack down on their people’s freedom of speech and assembly. Surely, the FCC must appreciate that internationally, actions speak louder than words.

The FCC’s proposed “Open Internet” regulations are illegitimate. First, they offend constitutional due process in that they assume companies are guilty of anticompetitive behavior until proven innocent; the FCC would regulate roughly 2,000 companies, for what one has admitted it did, and for what the FCC alleges another has done. Second, they offend constitutional equal protection in that they treat similar companies very unequally. Third, they offend constitutional protection against Government takings because they ban competitive companies from pursuing business models that are legal today. Fourth, they offend constitutional free speech because the FCC apparently does not agree with the Supreme Court that companies have constitutionally-protected freedom of speech.

The FCC’s proposed rules also overstep the FCC’s legal authority. Without congressional authorization of net neutrality legislation, the FCC is granting itself near limitless jurisdiction over the Internet. Moreover, the FCC’s proposed rules are arbitrary and capricious. They would arbitrarily reverse FCC precedent and factual determinations; arbitrarily move the competitive goalposts mid-game; and regulate competitive companies’ business practices more strictly than any monopoly in the last 75 years.

Further undermining America’s credibility to lead on the Internet policy going forward is that the proposed Internet regulations are not justified. They are a solution in search of a problem. The near perfect voluntary industry compliance over the last several years simply does not warrant a permanent ban on legal business behavior. To top all this off, the FCC has offered no evidence of market failure to justify regulating this competitive marketplace.

In sum, America risks both Internet freedoms and its Internet policy leadership when it proposes such a radical policy change without the legitimacy of constitutional or legal authority or the justification of facts. International Credibility 101 says: if you want others to follow your lead, be worthy of following.

BigGovernment.com

Napolitano Announces Obama Administration Plan to Give Amnesty to Illegal Aliens

Well here we go again, just as his predecessor G.W., Obama will push for amnesty for illegals. So making sure illegals aren’t covered in the new health care bill is more smoke and mirrors, because they won’t be illegals anymore.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said Friday that the Obama administration will push for “immigration reform” by giving the estimated 14 million people who are in the United States illegally “fair pathway to earned legal status.”

“A tough and fair pathway to earned legal status will mandate that illegal immigrants meet a number of requirements—including registering, paying a fine, passing a criminal background check, fully paying all taxes and learning English,” Napolitano said Friday at a panel discussion at the liberal Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C.

“These are substantial requirements that will make sure this population gets right with the law,” Napolitano said. “It will help fix our broken system.”

Napolitano said the Obama administration is working to end the recession and put Americans back to work but said giving legal status to illegal aliens will “strengthen our economy.”

“Requiring illegal immigrants to register to earn legal status, as I discussed earlier, will strengthen our economy as these immigrants become full-paying taxpayers,” Napolitano said. “As labor leaders have made clear to me, immigration reform will be a boon to American workers.

Napolitano said that she has seen a “major shift” in the immigration landscape, which the Obama administration hopes will make it easier for Congress to pass new immigration laws.

Included in that shift, Napolitano said, is a more secure border between the United States and Mexico, tougher law enforcement that has resulted in more arrests of criminal illegal immigrants and confiscation of contraband, and fewer people coming into the country illegally because of current economic conditions.

“For starters, the security of the Southwest border has been transformed from where it was in 2007,” Napolitano said. “The federal government has dedicated unprecedented resources to the Mexican border in terms of manpower, technology and infrastructure—and it’s made a real difference.

“Compared to last year, seizures in all categories—drugs, smuggled cash, and illegal weapons—are up dramatically. For example, just looking at bulk cash, Customs and Border Protection has seized at the border more than $34 million in cash being smuggled southbound so far this year—more than four times as much as at this time last year.

“Moreover, the immigration debate in 2007 happened during a period of historically high levels of illegal entry into the United States. Two years later, because of better enforcement and the current economic circumstances, those numbers have fallen sharply. The flow has reduced significantly – by more than half from the busiest years, proving we are in a much different environment than we were before.

“These are major differences that should change the immigration conversation,” Napolitano said.

The secretary said the Obama administration is “committed to this issue.”

“When Congress is ready to act, we will be ready to support them,” Napolitano said.

CNSNews.com

The Push Back Begins:Health Care Freedom in Virginia

Well here’s another example of the 10th amendment in action as the founding fathers intended and federal nullification because of another  overbearing unconstitutional  bill possibly coming from Congress/Senate. Arizona has also done the same thing with their Arizona Health Care Freedom Act , the Health Care Freedom for Alaska, as well as Kansas with their Kansas Health Care Freedom Amendment. The health care vote yesterday is far from the end of things – and  even when it passes the Senate (which I assume some version will), it’s still not the end of the road for freedom.

The real way to resist DC is not by begging politicians and judges in Washington to allow us to exercise our rights…it’s to exercise our rights whether they want to give us “permission” to or not.

Nullification – state-level resistance to unconstitutional federal laws – is the way forward.  It’s peaceful, effective, and has a long history in the American tradition.

Better yet, we expect to see 20-25 states considering legislation to effectively ban national health care in their state in the 2010 legislative session. That same number of states has been able to effectively prevent the Real ID Act of 2005 from being implemented without ever being repealed or challenged in court.

The bottom line?  If you want to make real change; if you want to really do something for liberty and for the Constitution…focus on local activism and your state governments.

No more marches on Washington – they don’t work.

And on the 2nd amendment we have Tennessee,Montana and now Kentucky passing their Firearms Freedom Acts. These things happening is making me believe what the Russian man said several months ago now I am starting to believe may com true. “Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S by Civil War breaking it up into six pieces”.

Health Care Freedom in Virgina

The Campaign for Liberty has stepped to the plate big time in Virginia, getting out ahead of the feds and finding a sponsor for the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act, to be introduced in 2010.

The Act reads, in part:

Neither the Governor nor the Department of Health, the Department of Public Welfare or any other Commonwealth agency shall participate in the compliance with any Federal law, regulation or policy that would compromise the freedom of choice in health care of any resident of this Commonwealth.

Man, just copying and pasting that feels great.

Delegate Bob Marshall (VA-13) deserves credit for agreeing to carry this critical legislation. Now is the time for Virginians to start contacting their state representatives to inform them about the measure and ask for their support should ObamaCare make it out of the Senate.

Credit is also due to Delegate Charles Carrico (VA-5), who has agreed to carry the Virginia Firearms Freedom Act, which is similar to recent measures adopted in Tennessee and Montana.

In marked contrast to the health care “reform” legislation recently passed by the House, neither of these bills exceeds three pages.

This is great news for those in Virginia who still cling to the Constitution, but introducing these bills is just the beginning. Victory will require inexhaustible passion and energy since, as always, we must give our state legislators the courage to defend our freedoms.

And it will take political courage. Nancy Pelosi has already said that even if such measures pass at the state level, the federal government has the authority to impose its will upon the voters anyway. (No they don’t!) Then stick us with the bill, of course.

Try finding that one in the Constitution.

Thanks, but no thanks, Nancy.

Like the signs say: We’ll keep our money, guns, and freedom; you keep the change.

TenthAmendmentCenter.com

Pay Czar Kenneth Feinberg’s compensation limits on private companies unconstitutional

I’m glad someone else sees this as well………..

Pay Czar compensation limits unconstitutional

Many Americans think it’s great that somebody in the government is finally doing something about excessive executive pay. The recent forced pay cuts for executives at AIG, Bank of America and other companies that accepted TARP money strummed a populist chord and brought many cheering to their feet. (They are not trying to apply this to companies that didn’t even get TARP money……the government can’t do that!)

In the meantime, Barney Frank and others in Congress have proposed expanding federal oversight to companies that never took any government money. They argue that the feds should exert control over any company that may pose a “systemic risk” to the U.S. economy. (What? ….this is a free market system…..not communist!)

This represents a huge overstep of government power and a threat to basic liberty. Pay regulations place the government between employer and employee, destroying the sanctity of the  private contract.

The founders of the United States understood the threat to liberty posed by a powerful government and devised a system of checks and balances to limit federal power. The Obama administration circumvents these checks by utilizing “Czars” appointed by the President without Senate confirmation or oversight.

Obama is not the first president to utilize “Czars”. The Bush administration had them as well. But the power wielded by these unaccountable appointees continues to grow. Unconstitutional actions by previous administrations do not justify the continuation of those policies and certainly shouldn’t spur us to expand such practices.

Michael W. McConnell, a law professor at Stanford University Law School and a former federal judge, wrote an outstanding piece on the constitutionality of the “Pay Czar.”

“The power to set compensation at large American businesses is especially subject to potential abuse, favoritism, arbitrariness, or political manipulation. It is no reflection on Kenneth Feinberg, who has a sterling reputation and who appears to have approached these sensitive duties with a spirit of commendable integrity, to say that the checks and balances of the Constitution should be scrupulously observed. They were not. Because he is not a properly appointed officer of the United States, Mr. Feinberg’s executive compensation decisions were unconstitutional.”

Examiner.com

Is National Health Care Constitutional

I’m glad to see this question being asked by a prominent person like Orin Hatch and I think the honest answer to this is NO forced national health care is not Constitutional. But whether a court will have the political guts to rule as such is a different matter.

Sen. Hatch Questions Constitutionality of Obamacare:

If Feds Can Force Us to Buy Health Insurance ‘Then There’s Literally Nothing the Federal Government Can’t Force Us to Do’ ( Maybe Congress should pass a law that everyone has to buy at least $10,000 worth of life insurance or buy a new car this year or buy a new HD television or a computer –where does this stuff stop? I think it stops at the question, Is this Constitutional? In this case I don’t think it is.)

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R.-Utah) (Congressional photo)

(CNSNews.com) – Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, who has served in the Senate for 33 years and is a longtime member of the Judiciary Committee, told CNSNews.com that he does not believe the Democrats’ health-care reform plan is constitutionally justifiable, noting that if the federal government can force Americans to buy health insurance “then there is literally nothing the federal government can’t force us to do.”

Both the House and Senate versions of the health-care reform plan would force all individuals who are citizens or legal residents of the United States to buy health insurance. President Obama has endorsed this provision.

Hatch said if the federal government starts ordering Americans to purchase specific products without being able to plausibly justify that mandate through the Commerce Clause of the Constitution which empowers Congress to regulate interstate commerce, it will mean “we’ve lost our freedoms, and that means the federal government can do anything it wants to do to us.”

The Commerce Clause, found in Section 8 of Article 1 of the Constitution, says: “The Congress shall have power to … regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.”

Hatch said this constitutional language authorizes Congress to regulate some types of commercial “activity,” which is different from authorizing Congress to force an individual American to engage in a commercial activity he or she is not presently engaged in and–as a free person–does not want to engage in. He said that “not one” of his Democratic colleagues has given a coherent constitutional argument to explain where Congress would derive the authority to do the latter.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the federal government has never before mandated that Americans buy any good or service.

In 1994, when Congress was considering a universal health care plan formulated by then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, the Congressional Budget Office studied that plan’s provision that would have forced individuals to buy health insurance and determined it was an unprecedented act.

“A mandate requiring all individuals to purchase health insurance would be an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States,” the CBO concluded.  “An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

“I think there’s a real constitutional issue there,” Hatch said on the CNSNews.com program “Online with Terry Jeffrey.”

“Well, keep in mind the General Welfare Clause hasn’t been used for years, except through the Commerce Clause–Article I, Section 8,” said Hatch. “And frankly the Commerce Clause affects, quote, ‘activities,’ unquote. And, you know, the government telling you you have to buy health insurance–mandating that you have to buy health insurance–is not an activity. That’s telling you you got to do something you don’t want to do.

“Well, let’s put it this way,” said Hatch. “If that is held constitutional–for them to be able to tell us we have to purchase health insurance–then there is literally nothing that the federal government can’t force us to do. Nothing.”

When CNSNews.com asked Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.) where the Constitution authorizes Congress to force Americans to buy health insurance, Leahy would not directly answer the question, claiming that “nobody” questioned Congress’s authority to do this.

“We have plenty of authority. Are you saying there is no authority?” Leahy told CNSNews.com reporter Matt Cover. ”Why would you say there is no authority? I mean, there’s no question there’s authority. Nobody questions that.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was equally dismissive of the question of where the Constitution authorized Congress to force Americans to buy health insurance. When reporter Matt Cover asked her the question, she said: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs similarly dismissed the issue without directly saying where the Constitution authorized the federal government to force people to buy health insurance. When CNSNews.com White House Correspondent Fred Lucas asked Gibbs to comment on the fact that some Republicans were questioning the constitutionality of forcing Americans to buy health insurance, Gibbs said: “I won’t be confused as a constitutional scholar, but I don’t believe there’s a lot of–I don’t believe there’s a lot of case law that would demonstrate the veracity of what they’re commentating on.”

Hatch said that if Congress claimed the power to tell Americans what things they must buy there would be “no limit” to the power of the federal government over the lives of Americans.

CNS News.com