Freedom Line Blog

And the hits just keep on coming.

After news broke that the leadership in both the House and Senate were conspiring to exempt themselves from ObamaCare’s costly insurance exchanges, we’re told that the problem isn’t Congress shirking responsibility for a law it passed.

It’s worse.

The real issue, according to reporting by health policy expert Ezra Klein, is that Congress is too stupid to write a law clear enough to know what it does.

Per Klein:

“Here’s how it happened: Back during the Affordable Care Act negotiations, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) proposed an amendment forcing all members of Congress and all of their staffs to enter the exchanges. The purpose of the amendment was to embarrass the Democrats. But in a bit of jujitsu of which they were inordinately proud, Democrats instead embraced the amendment and added it to the law.
…
“So Grassley’s amendment means that the largest employer in the country is required to put some of its employees — the ones working for Congress — on the exchanges. But the exchanges don’t have any procedures for handling premium contributions for large employers.

“That’s where the problem comes in. This was an offhand amendment that was supposed to be rejected. It’s not clear that the federal government has the authority to pay for congressional staffers on the exchanges, the way it pays for them now in the federal benefits program. That could lead to a lot of staffers quitting Congress because they can’t afford to shoulder 100 percent of their premiums.”

Got that?

Rather than think through how an amendment would alter the structure of a law that, as one of its architects put it recently, “is probably the most complex piece of legislation ever passed by the United States Congress,” Democrats opted to play games. No wonder the lead author of the law sees “a huge train wreck coming down.”

Whether it’s a fine that’s really a tax, a “family glitch,” or now an ambiguous gap in coverage, ObamaCare’s so-called drafting errors are making it one of the worst written laws ever.

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Renee Giachino discusses the president’s budget proposal and how its calls for even higher taxes, higher spending, bigger government and more empty promises will do nothing to get us out of the Obama recession.

Read all about it at The American Spectator. It comes from Obama and starts at the FAA, and then on from there.

David Bossie of Citizens United has come out swinging against Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez. Not only does Bossie hit Perez for things I’ve mentioned in the past, such as unlawful use of private e-mails for government business (and then testifying falsely about the same), but Bossie also notes this:

Thomas Perez has also waged war against people of faith and the pro-life movement. For example, he brought a case against Mary Susan Pine in Florida Federal Court. Pine is a woman who for more than two decades engaged in friendly sidewalk counseling for women seeking abortions in West Palm Beach. While engaging in this ministry, Ms. Pine was notified by police that she had violated city and state traffic laws on one particular day, then the Justice Department brought charges under Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE). However, because FACE allows an exemption for peaceful demonstration, it was immediately tossed out of court and Perez’s division was charged court and attorney fees.

When it says Perez’ “division” had to pay court fees, what it means is that American taxpayers had to pay the fees and penalties for Perez’ improper attempt to prosecute a peaceful, innocent woman.

As I’ve noted before, Perez and his team have quite a losing streak in court. Not only are they radical and dishonest, but they are bad lawyers, too:

Indeed, Perez doesn’t even seem to be a very good lawyer at all: His positions also have been rebuked by courts in Arkansas (about the Civil Rights for Institutionalized Persons Act), again in the D.C. District Court, in New York on an education case (U.S. v. Brennan), in a Florida abortion case where Perez’ team was abusively prosecuting peaceful protesters, and most particularly in a major Perez loss in Florida when trying to force the state not to remove non-citizens from its voter rolls.

Perez is a loser and a fraud.

Two weeks ago I wrote here (in part) about the efforts of Alabama reformers to escape from the Common Core national educational standards. Now comes Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation to explain why Alabama really ought to make such as escape.

Here’s the key section:

In fact, the state standards Alabama eschewed in order to adopt Common Core standards were quite good, receiving high marks from the Fordham Institute and Education Week’s Quality Counts survey. Alabama students would be well-served by returning to the standards and assessments that were in place before the state signed on to Common Core and working to improve upon those standards in a way that meets the unique needs of local schools and students.

Across the country, policymakers, teachers, parents, and taxpayers are waking up to the numerous problems Common Core national standards present. The loss of classic literature, the mediocre mathematics standards, the significant costs to taxpayers, the elimination of competitive pressure to increase standards of excellence, and, most troubling, the massive federal intervention and further disenfranchisement of parents.

This is a big deal. As this peer-reviewed study indicates, Common Core is a trap.

The reformist public interest group Cause of Action released a very interesting report last week, one which I had hoped to have time by now to write about at greater length. For immediate purposes, though, time doesn’t allow, so here’s the short version: Through the infamous 2009 “stimulus” bill, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Centers for Disease Control allocated at least $94 million worth of grants that, to quote the CoA press release, “supported lobbyists and public relations companies who used taxpayer dollars to push laws and agendas that would lead to tax increases on tobacco and sugar sweetened products—violating federal law as well as HHS and Office of Management and Budget guidelines.”

Asked CoA Executive Director Dan Epstein: “With a program whose funding is expected to grow into the billions, how much more lobbying will the taxpayers be on the hook for before Kathleen Sebelius decides that it’s time to be accountable?”

There’s lot of good stuff in the report, most of it important but less than, uh, sexy. But, as is often the case, amidst the straightforward details there is one particular absurdity sure to attract guffaws.  It seems that one grantee actually conducted a focus group, on the effects of a proposed smoking ban, with nine “exotic dancers.” The strippers, according to the report, said that a “smoke-free adult entertainment establishment” would lead to a loss of income.

Gotta love using federal taxpayers to discover that patrons won’t look at what’s hot unless they have smoke. (Does this mean that where there’s no smoke, there’s no heat?)

Jokes aside, the rest of the CoA report documents misuse of tax funds that, even if not quite so nakedly absurd, are equally objectionable from a legal standpoint. Every bureaucrat and grantee is supposed to know that using federal funds to lobby government is strictly verboten — but HHS seems uninterested in providing the oversight necessary to make sure the rule is enforced.

Coming from an agency whose Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, already was found to have improperly campaigned on government time, in violation of the Hatch Act, this is further evidence of the Obamites’ rampant politicization of the bureaucracy.  (Surprise, surprise: The White House declined to punish her.)

Again, the whole report is here.

And now the other shoe drops.

Less than a week after telling HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius that her implementation of ObamaCare’s costly and confusing health care system is a “train wreck,” U.S. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT) announces he’s retiring.

Baucus’s comments caused a stir because they met the Washington, D.C. definition of a gaffe – telling the truth in public.  With the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and lead ObamaCare author, on record as criticizing the President’s signature policy, it looked like it might finally be acceptable for Democrats in Congress to admit the obvious: ObamaCare is a disaster in the making.

But rather than stick around and fight to reform the law, Baucus is choosing to bow out of a tough reelection campaign in 2014. The decision could make it much easier for Republicans to pick up the seat, potentially adding another vote to the conservative-led repeal caucus.

Whatever the spin, this much is clear. Last week Baucus let it be known he could no longer defend the law. Now, it’s clear he can’t win with it either.

Hopefully, it’s the start of a trend.

Well, this will come as unwelcome news in the Obama White House.  Their “Blame Bush” raison detre never held merit intellectually.  Even if it did, however, someone willing to blame Bush for Obama’s failures at this point would by logic have to blame Clinton for Bush’s failures.  Now, a new poll from The Washington Post and ABC News suggests that it’s no longer a workable political strategy regardless of logic.  Specifically, almost as many people now approve of Bush’s performance as disapprove, and he now equals Obama:

The new poll found 47 percent saying they approve and 50 percent saying they disapprove. Among registered voters, his approval rating today is equal to President Obama’s, at 47 percent, according to the latest Post-ABC surveys.”

So “Blame Bush” is running on fumes, and exploiting the Newtown victims’ parents as political props failed him.  To which ploy will Obama stoop next?

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez. 

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Join CFIF Corporate Counsel and Senior Vice President Renee Giachino today from 4:00 p.m. CDT to 6:00 p.m. CDT (that’s 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. EDT) on Northwest Florida’s 1330 AM WEBY, as she hosts her radio show, “Your Turn: Meeting Nonsense with Commonsense.”  Today’s guest lineup includes:

4:00 CDT/5:00 pm EDT:  Matt Patterson, Senior Fellow, Center for Economic Freedom at the Competitive Enterprise Institute – UAW Sets Sights South;

4:30 CDT/5:30 pm EDT:  Phil Kerpen, President of American Commitment – Tax Dollars Illegally Funding Lobbying;

5:00 CDT/6:00 pm EDT:  Charlotte Hays, Director of Cultural Programs at the Independent Women’s Forum – The Lean In Debate; and

5:30 CDT/6:30 pm EDT:  Tyler Kercher, Florida State Association Director for Skills USA – Florida State Leadership and Skills Conference.

Listen live on the Internet here.   Call in to share your comments or ask questions of today’s guests at (850) 623-1330.

This won’t make California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown happy.

On the same day a state court blessed a settlement between Brown’s high-speed rail authority and Central Valley farmers that clears the way to begin construction on a Los Angeles-to-San Francisco bullet train, the federal Surface Transportation Board announced it is claiming jurisdiction over the multi-billion dollar project, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

California officials have filed for an exemption, but that might not be an easy sell since the state has angered environmental activists by seeking exemptions from several state regulations already. I wouldn’t be surprised if the assertion of jurisdiction by STB is the result of some closed door lobbying at the federal level to slow down Brown & Co.’s runaway rail project.

Either way, California taxpayers may get an unexpected ally if STB maintains a presence. Originally approved by voters in 2008 with an advertised price tag of $10 billion, the proposed rail line is now estimated to cost at least $68 billion. If the project is made to comply with the federal versions of state regulations California has exempted itself from, the cost of the program will climb higher still.

Further cost overruns and delays could become California’s version of ObamaCare – an idea with a cost structure too big to work that gives partisans on both sides something to hate.

If conservatives want to make headway in Golden State politics, cheering on the train wreck that is Governor Brown’s high-speed rail boondoggle could be one of the ways to start.

In an interview with CFIF, Sally Pipes, president, CEO and Taube Fellow in Health Care Studies at the Pacific Research Institute, discusses how ObamaCare is prompting doctors to make plans to retire early or depart from the current system of third-party payment, and what that means for patients.

Listen to the interview here.

Robert Costa says that if the Senate passes the Gang of Eight’s comprehensive immigration reform bill, the House of Representatives stands ready to put the brakes on the latest piece of “must pass” legislation. Their mechanism: Regulator order.

“Regular order” allows House Republicans to dictate the pace of legislation and makes “grand bargains” of any sort harder to pass. Consider immigration. Several sources close to the leadership say that even if the Senate passes something on immigration, the bill will be immediately sent to the committees, and then either sent back to the Senate with changes, or rewritten in a bicameral conference committee. This means that the chance of the Senate’s Gang of Eight bill coming to the House floor, as is , is nearly non-existent. House Republicans would first have to mull it, schedule hearings, and then tinker with its legislative language .

That tweaking process could take months, which is just fine with many Republicans, who’d like the public to have as much time as possible to chew over the controversial elements of Obama’s prized bills. The caucus consensus is: The more time Congress takes to consider a bill, the more time the public has to sour on its components.

Unlike ObamaCare where Nancy Pelosi’s Democratic majority rubberstamped the Senate’s rewrite of the nation’s health insurance market, House Republicans want to make sure they know exactly what’s in the Gang’s immigration bill before voting on it.

If necessary, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) is even floating the idea of breaking the Gang’s carefully balanced 1,500 page bill into separate pieces. That way, the most popular measures – such as enhanced border security measures – would likely become law, leaving less desirous elements out until supporters can figure out a way to sell them to the American people.

For a caucus that runs only one-half of one branch of government, regular order sounds like a good strategy to employ.

Hat tip to Investor’s Business Daily for pouncing on what will be a very unpopular unintended consequence of passing the Senate Gang of Eight’s immigration reform bill:

Under the immigration reform bill, some employers would have an incentive of up to $3,000 per year to hire a newly legalized immigrant over a U.S. citizen.

In avoiding one controversy — the cost of providing millions of newly legalized immigrants with ObamaCare subsidies — the Senate “Gang of Eight” may have risked walking into another.

The bipartisan legislation released Wednesday dictates that those granted provisional legal immigrant status would be treated the same as those “not lawfully present” are treated under the 2010 health law.

That means they would neither be eligible for ObamaCare tax credits nor required to pay an individual tax penalty for failing to obtain qualifying health coverage. It also means some employers would face no penalty for failing to provide such workers affordable health coverage.

So, in order to avoid the charge that legalization would give illegal immigrants citizen-like access to ObamaCare subsidies, the Gang of Eight simply bars them from access. But that means that legalized immigrants are cheaper to hire than comparable native-born workers who will be competing with more people for less jobs.

There may be a fix, but it will be messy.

Good luck with that.

Labor Secretary nominee Thomas Perez, about whom I have written here several times, has his nomination hearing in Senate committee tomorrow. The opponents are getting geared up, with a new video out, with a damaging, related hearing Tuesday in the House, and with lots of other activity. At that House hearing, former DoJ whistleblower J. Christian Adams had lots of interesting things to say, including this:

Unfortunately, over the last few years, the Civil Rights Division at the Justice Department has seen instances of embezzlement, employee abuse, harassment, theft, and perjury. Little to nothing has been done by Division management in response. In some cases, Division management has defended, promoted or given awards to the wrongdoers. The Division has implemented hiring practices which, according to the Justice Department Inspector General, have created the perception of an ideologically lopsided workforce. Division management has rejected the recommendations of the Inspector General and resisted making changes to ensure non-ideological hiring at the Division.

And, specifically about Perez, he noted this:

Mr. Perez has repeatedly provided false or inaccurate testimony under oath on two important matters: First, which Justice Department officials were involved in the decision to dismiss the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party; and, second, whether or not he knew that a corrosive and abusive atmosphere existed inside his Division toward employees willing to enforce voting laws without regard to the race of the victims. On both counts, Mr. Perez provided wholly inaccurate testimony under oath.

And:

The Inspector General omitted entirely from the IG Report a second and far more serious instance of Mr. Perez’s inaccurate testimony – namely his false testimony under oath about an open and pervasive hostility toward race neutral enforcement of the law throughout the Civil Rights Division.

This hostility toward race neutral enforcement of civil rights laws – namely that the race of the victim and defendant should have no relevance in enforcement decisions – went far beyond mere policy decisions. The pervasive hostility festered into abuse, name calling, harassment, and racial attacks on DOJ employees – both black and white – who were willing to enforce the law in a race neutral fashion.

The Inspector General omitted entirely from the IG Report a second and far more serious instance of Mr. Perez’s inaccurate testimony – namely his false testimony under oath about an open and pervasive hostility toward race neutral enforcement of the law throughout the Civil Rights Division.

This hostility toward race neutral enforcement of civil rights laws – namely that the race of the victim and defendant should have no relevance in enforcement decisions – went far beyond mere policy decisions. The pervasive hostility festered into abuse, name calling, harassment, and racial attacks on DOJ employees – both black and white – who were willing to enforce the law in a race neutral fashion.

I should have more on this soon.

Now that the Gang of Eight’s immigration reform bill has been slowed down a bit, it’s worth pausing for a moment to consider what economic trade-offs might occur if millions of illegal immigrants become eligible to enter the job market. Since many of these newly eligible workers are low-skilled, they’ll be competing with low-skilled, low-wage native workers in an economy with 7.6 percent unemployment.

Members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights are taking notice, says Byron York:

Last week, three members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights wrote to Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcia Fudge, chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, arguing that legalizing currently illegal immigrants will have far-reaching effects on African-Americans.

“Such grant of legal status will likely disproportionately harm lower-skilled African-Americans by making it more difficult for them to obtain employment and depressing their wages when they do obtain employment,” the commissioners wrote. “The increased employment difficulties will likely have negative consequences that extend far beyond economics.” Among those consequences, according to the commissioners: increased crime, incarceration, family breakdown, and more.

A recent review of the academic literature by Harvard economist George Borjas confirms the negative impact mass legalization will have on low-skilled native wages:

For American workers, immigration is primarily a redistributive policy. Economic theory predicts that immigration will redistribute income by lowering the wages of competing American workers and increasing the wages of complementary American workers as well as profits for business owners and other “users” of immigrant labor. Although the overall net impact on the native-born is small, the loss or gain for particular groups of the population can be substantial.

The best empirical research that tries to examine what has actually happened in the U.S. labor market aligns well with economy theory: An increase in the number of workers leads to lower wages.

If you increase the supply of something, you lower its value. If they want a way to frame opposition in positive terms, expect to see Republican opponents of the Gang of Eight’s reform bill to become the champions of the forgotten working class.

On Friday, Chris Stirewalt of Fox News, one of journalism’s true good guys, put me on his show, Power Play, to discuss the achievements and challenges of the Tea Party movement in their first four years, and where they go from here. Key takeaway: The Tea Parties are focusing more and more on state and local issues, and having some real success there.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez. 

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.