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The Nebraska Medicaid exemption. Someone else asks, 'Is it legal?'

Tue, 12/22/2009 - 09:53 — Dr. Zaius

Yesterday, I wondered if the bribe Sen Ben Nelson received for his vote for ObamaCare was legal — a step beyond normal scuzzy horse-trading.

But this debacle has me wondering: Is inserting language into a "managers amendment" that exempts one state from the Medicaid increases that every other state will have to suck up even legal? I'm wondering if we'll see some kind of lawsuit challenging this bit of the "compromise."

The meme is picking up steam. John Steele Gordon writes today in a Contentions blog post titled "The Cornhusker Highjack and the Constitution":

Such bribery has a long history in Congress, but so far as I know (and I’d be delighted to hear of other, earlier instances), bribes always came in the form of highways, post offices, bridges to nowhere, and other infrastructure, or in offers of higher office for the person being bribed. They were not in the form of a special deal allowing a particular, not impoverished state to have a lower share of costs in an ongoing federal program. There are, of course, plenty of the old-fashioned sorts of bribes in this bill. Connecticut will get a new hospital at federal expense, for instance.

But is it constitutional for the federal government to give some states a better deal on a national program than it does other states? It is not obviously unconstitutional, as, say, having a lower federal income tax rate for Nebraska would be, since Art. I, Sec. 8, requires that “all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States.” However, one could argue that Nebraskans will be getting what amounts to a rebate on federal taxes through the back door of lower state taxes.

Gordon explores in more detail the particular constitutional questions at play here, and suggests that a state (rather than a citizen) would have the best shot at establishing standing to challenge a law that relieves only Nebraskans from the tax implications of the health care bill. It's an interesting post worth reading in full.

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Tue, 12/22/2009 - 16:18 — ronaldalau

They don't care

It ok as long as they say its ok.

Tue, 12/22/2009 - 17:55 — ronaldalau

Liberal Pride and other horrors

Here is the most depressing/hysterical thing about Bill Nelson:

Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, after securing a sweetheart deal for his state as part of the health insurance reform bill, said Tuesday that three other senators have told him they want to bargain for the same kind of special treatment.

Well DUH! Another example of how people love free money.

According to the article, Bill Nelson said he never asked for the full federal funding. Huh?

"This is the way Senate leadership chose to handle it. I never asked for 100 percent funding," he said. Nelson has maintained that the only reason he even brought up Medicaid was that Nebraska Republican Gov. Dave Heineman put him up to it.

What? A DNC Senator takes orders from a GOP Governor? Not according to the GOP Governor:

"Under no circumstances did I have anything to do with Senator Nelson's compromise," the governor said in a written statement. "The responsibility for this special deal lies solely on the shoulders of Senator Ben Nelson."

What? Who? Where?

And Nelson defends it by saying: "Why should states be forced to pay for a (federal) unfunded mandate?"

Huh? When did we enter Lunatic Land? How the hell does the Fed pay for Nebraska's part of a Federal un-funded Mandate? THEY TAX CITIZENS! Everywhere! Every state will now fund Nebraska and Florida!

And to top it all off, Nelson sold his pro-life position for this lunacy. Who can believe him now? (Besides Liberals I mean)

So 60 votes were achieved by bribing Senator with other people's money, to move a bill forward that does nothing to reform anything, cost everyone more money, tax the hell out of anyone and anything, has 60% or more of the population opposed to it, will make insurance out of reach for more people than before, doesn't go into effect till 2014, and attacks the constitution. All while its supporters lie and obscure about what it will do and what its intent is.

And the Liberals are happy. Nay, they are proud of their 'achievement'. That's the modern American Liberal, working to make America a socialist nation by any means necessary, all the while saying that they are 'patriots' against all history to the contrary.

This administration, its HC bill, and all of their supporters are like a Suicide Bomber. They snuck in, and wormed their way as close to the heart of the nation as possible before being discovered. And when the cry of alarm went up, they dropped all (pretense) outer coverings and raced to their target. Now that they are as close as possible (but not as close as they wanted) they are pressing the button. The material supporters of the bomber (house democrats) are now told to hide (not fight the senate version) so that they can be available to help the next Suicide Bomber (Amnesty), with threats that they will have their own throats cut if they don't.

Liars and Cowards, all of them.

Here is what a Patriot sounds like:


Tue, 12/22/2009 - 18:10 — ronaldalau

And get this

Last night on the Senate floor:

SENATOR DEMINT: There's one provision that I found particularly troubling, and it's under Section C titled, "Limitation on changes to this subsection." And I quote: "It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection." This is not legislation, it's not law. This is a rule change. It's a pretty big deal. We will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a Senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law.

So the liberals in the US Senate are now deciding they can be dictators. Traitors I say, and violators of their oath to protect and defend the constitution. All 60 of them.

Tue, 12/22/2009 - 18:16 — ronaldalau

A liberal screws up and tells the truth