THE BANANIZATION OF OUR REPUBLIC CONTINUES

There's a whole lotta shenanigans going on behind closed doors, and hopefully the voters are keeping a list. Apparently the voters have Congress running scared. Scared enough to hide from them behind closed doors, and keep any opposing Republicans out of any negotiations.

In order to perpetuate the lie about deficit neutral, they have [not so] secretly moved $241 BILLION to another bill. How ridiculous is that? It's not like it isn't going to be spent, the numbers just appear to look smaller. Sounds like Enron, move it from one set of book to another set of books to look deceptively better. Are they really that stupid? Well -- maybe Reid.

America is broke. Do you just keep spending when you're broke?

RedState writes:

The Bananization of Our Republic Continues

by Dan Perrin, October 19, 2009

Desperate men do desperate things, and those who have any doubt just how desperate the Dems are over passing health reform should read the Washington Post editorial that puts the lie to what the White House and Senate Majority Leader Reid are attempting to do — put $241 billion in new health reform spending off-budget.

Off-budget is Washington speak for lets-spend-the-money-but-not-count-that-we-are-spending-it. Taking ever so slight liberties with Senator Gregg´s recent comments, this is more bananization of our republic.

President Obama and Majority Leader Ried are lying to make their other lie about health reform not adding to the deficit a less visible lie.

It´s just like printing money, let´s all just pretend that we are not going to spend $241 billion to buy off the American Medical Association´s continued political cover for our politically failing health care reform plan. It´s easy, just declare its off-budget and it does not count.

When RedState starts quoting the Washington Post editorial board, the outrage committed by the White House and Majority Leader Reid must be so great, that even the WaPo editorial board cannot bear it:

IN THE WORLD according to Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), setting Medicare payment levels for doctors has nothing to do with health reform. Really.… Where to start with this? First off, $247 billion — the 10-year cost of the fix — is one whopper of a “discrepancy.” Dealing with that “discrepancy” amounts to more than one-quarter of the cost of health reform. President Obama has vowed that health reform will not add a single dime to the deficit — but he is seemingly unfazed about adding more than a quarter-trillion dollars to the deficit by changing the Medicare reimbursement formula without finding a way to pay for it.

Second, Mr. Reid’s attempt to distinguish the budgetary and regulatory issues is nonsensical….
The so-called doc fix is being rushed to the Senate floor this week in advance of health reform not because it has nothing to do with health reform but because it has everything to do with it. The political imperative is twofold: to make certain that Republicans don’t use the physician payment issue to bring down the larger bill and to placate the American Medical Association.

This latest maneuver only heightens the fiscal irresponsibility of what already was a fiscal sleight of hand. The measure passed by the Senate Finance Committee patched the problem for one year, at a cost just shy of $11 billion. The argument was that the rest of the problem could be dealt with — and, at least in theory, paid for — later. Now, Mr. Reid proposes not to pay for any of it, not even $11 billion, but simply to write a $247 billion IOU.

These are costs — huge costs — that the administration would, for the most part, prefer to assume away [read: pretend]; it wants to exempt itself from the responsibility of having to come up with a way to ensure that dealing with them does not add to the deficit…..

A president who says that he is serious about dealing with the dire fiscal picture cannot credibly begin by charging this one to the national credit card, with no concern for the later generations who will have to pay the bill.

Can you see why the world is running from the U.S. dollar like it´s typhoid Mary? The U.S. government´s official fiscal policy is: let´s pretend. Let´s pretend we are not spending $241 billion. Let´s pretend we have a health reform bill with legislative language. Instead, the American public and the U.S. Senate get a vapor bill.

This sick joke is making a joke of the U.S. dollar. It is making a joke of the White House. It is making a joke of the U.S. and it is making a joke of the U.S. electorate for putting up with the let´s pretend fiscal policies of the White House and the Democratic run Congress.

But it all justified by Dems who are convinced that if the President´s health reform plan fails, greater woes will befall the Republic. They are self-centered, self-agrandizing self-destructive fools.

As one financial world wag from CITIGROUP said recently, things that can´t last, don´t.

King Obama to Congress: "write the legislation I want, or else I will simply enact it by decree"

It is becoming more apparent, that if this administration does not get what they want by majority vote, they will do it anyway. "It's Unconstitutional" does not apply, nor will it, unless our representatives get a backbone.

It is mind-boggling to watch the out-of-control power grab, but elections have consequences. We are witnessing what happens when the power in all three branches of the government is on the left -- a progressive, statist, socialistic take-over.

Where is the Supreme Court is all this?

An exposè from Atlas Shrugs is an excellent description:


King Obama to Congress: "write the legislation I want, or else I will simply enact it by decree"
Commentary by Robert Tracinski, October 2, 2009

1. The Anti-Industrial Coup
It looks like President Obama, facing the failure of his domestic agenda in Congress, is now going to attempt to pull out a victory by threatening Congress with the usurpation of its legislative powers. How? The administration has announced plans to impose sweeping controls on emissions of carbon dioxide by executive fiat, through the EPA, bypassing the legislature altogether.

As I warned early this year,

Under what system of government does the chief executive say to the legislature, in effect, "write the legislation I want, or else I will simply enact it by decree"? The answer: not under a system of representative government and the separation of powers. Barack Obama is proposing to govern, not in the manner of an American president, but in the manner traditionally sought by leftist strongmen like Hugo Chavez.

We've now arrived at that point. This is another step toward the Obama Banana Republic.

Note also one particular detail. The administration is justifying its action under the authority of the Clean Air Act. But the limit it is proposing to place on carbon dioxide emissions is far higher than those mandated by the Clean Air Act on actual pollutants. The more draconian limit required by that Act would not only be an economic disaster; it would be politically unpopular because it would target small businesses and not just unsympathetic big corporations. So the EPA unilaterally altered the Clean Air Act limits. So much for claiming to act under the authority of legislation.

"EPA Moves to Curtail Greenhouse Gas Emissions," John M. Broder, New York Times, September 30

Unwilling to wait for Congress to act, the Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it was moving forward on new rules to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from hundreds of power plants and large industrial facilities.

President Obama has said that he prefers a comprehensive legislative approach to regulating emissions and stemming global warming, not a piecemeal application of rules, and that he is deeply committed to passage of a climate bill this year.

But he has authorized the Environmental Protection Agency to begin moving toward regulation, which could goad lawmakers into reaching an agreement….

"We are not going to continue with business as usual," Lisa P. Jackson, the E.P.A. administrator, said Wednesday in a conference call with reporters. "We have the tools and the technology to move forward today, and we are using them."

The proposed rules, which could take effect as early as 2011, would place the greatest burden on 400 power plants, new ones and those undergoing substantial renovation, by requiring them to prove that they have applied the best available technology to reduce emissions or face penalties….

Ms. Jackson said the proposed rule had been written to exempt small businesses, farms, large office buildings and other relatively small sources of carbon dioxide emissions. But under the rule proposed Wednesday, the EPA would assume authority for the greenhouse gas emissions of 14,000 coal-burning power plants, refineries, and big industrial complexes that produce most of the nation's greenhouse gas pollution….

Senator James M. Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma and an opponent of global warming legislation, called the proposed rule "a backdoor energy tax" that circumvents Congress and violates the terms of the Clean Air Act.