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Posts Tagged ‘Kathleen Sebelius’
January 18th, 2015 at 10:00 pm
Key ObamaCare Implementer Resigning

Marilyn Tavenner, the chief administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), announced in an email last Friday to staff that she is stepping down at the end of February.

The move comes as something of a surprise, but the timing is similar to that of Tavenner’s former boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Last year, Sebelius said she was leaving her post after ObamaCare’s initial enrollment period ended. Tavenner’s resignation is effective when the controversial health law’s second enrollment period concludes.

Tavenner’s time in office was marred by a glitch-ridden rollout of Healthcare.gov, the federal ObamaCare website that earned the ire of millions of Americans. She also came under fire for overstating ObamaCare’s enrollment figures by inaccurately including 400,000 dental plans that have never been counted toward health insurance numbers.

With Republicans in control of the Senate that will confirm Tavenner’s replacement, it will be interesting to see who President Barack Obama taps to fill her shoes.

April 26th, 2014 at 5:57 pm
Bad News: Holder Says He’s Staying

Any hopes the GOP had that Kathleen Sebelius’ resignation as HHS Secretary might convince fellow Obama Cabinet member Eric Holder to do the same were quashed on Friday.

“The Attorney General does not plan to leave before the mid-terms,” said a Justice Department official. “That does not mean that he is definitely leaving after the mid-terms, just that he is at least staying through that time.”

Prior to Sebelius taking the fall for ObamaCare’s disastrous rollout, it was Holder who was the face of bureaucratic scandal. Though voted in Contempt of Congress by the House of Representatives, Holder continues to stonewall investigators on details surrounding the “Fast and Furious” program that led to the deaths of at least one American and dozens of Mexicans.

Credit Sebelius with this much – At least the department she ran wasn’t responsible for killing anyone on her watch.

December 9th, 2013 at 6:32 pm
O-Care PR Disaster Lacked Truth, Success and Credibility

A consensus is forming in the public relations world about what went wrong with Obamacare’s horrendous Healthcare.gov rollout.

In what Politico calls “a case study for crisis management consultants and their clients of what not to do,” three problems are clear.

First, the Obama administration wasn’t truthful. By downplaying the website’s crashes and error messages as “glitches” due to heavier-than-expected traffic, the White House misled the public on how bad the system actually was.

Second, updates lacked success stories. That’s probably because only 6 people successfully enrolled via the website on its first day.

Finally, despite more than three years to get ready Obamacare still lacks an effective spokesperson.

But that’s not quite right.

Until recently, President Barack Obama was a very effective spokesman when he told anyone who would listen that his signature bill would expand coverage, reduce costs and improve quality – all without requiring anyone to forfeit their current plans, doctors and hospitals.

Though the criticisms from PR consultants of the Obama administration’s handling of its latest fiasco are well-deserved, the problem with Obamacare runs much deeper than a textbook failure of crisis management. The problem with Obamacare is that it was designed by ideologues, implemented by amateurs and sold on a lie.

No amount of spin or surrogacy can fix that.

October 22nd, 2013 at 5:16 pm
Company Behind Failed Obamacare Website Wins Award for Steering People Away From Obamacare

Generation Opportunity, a national organization of young people focused on promoting liberty, presented the main contractor behind HealthCare.gov – the Obamacare website – with the first ever Youth Defender Award.

In a deliciously tongue-in-cheek press announcement released on Monday, Generation Opportunity noted that CGI Federal, the American subsidiary of the Canadian multinational CGI Group, has done “more than anyone to date to save young people from the increased costs and privacy invasions of Obamacare.”

Generation Opportunity continues:

“Sure, CGI is billing the government over 300% of their original contract, and taxpayers could be on the hook for $292 million dollars for the healthcare equivalent of Project ORCA. But no cost is too much to bear to help young people avoid this expensive and creepy law.

Generation Opportunity congratulates all the worthy candidates, including the runner-up, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who reminded young people on The Daily Show that they can get the same exemption from Obamacare as businesses by opting out and paying the penalty. After all, Sebelius had the foresight to hire CGI knowing they had a track record of protecting patients from government-run health care. The Canadian government had previously fired CGI’s parent company for failing to create a functioning website for Ontario’s medical registry.

Generation Opportunity developed the awesomely sardonic award in order to promote its OptOut.org website, which encourages young Americans to choose health insurance plans outside of the Obamacare exchanges.

The young folks at Generation Opportunity deserve an award themselves – for providing those of us who despise Obamacare with a big laugh.

June 5th, 2013 at 10:19 am
HHS: Yep, We Lied
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If you’re a member of the Obama Administration who’s engaged in some official malfeasance, now is the time to come clean. With the orgy of Administration-related scandals in the news right now, there’s a decent chance no one will notice. And if they do, they’ll likely be so numb to the pervasive impropriety that they’ll just ignore it and move on. That seems to be the thinking at the Department of Health and Human Services, where Secretary Kathleen Sebelius suddenly decided to become a little more forthcoming yesterday. From the New York Times:

Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, disclosed on Tuesday that she had made telephone calls to three companies regulated by her department and urged them to help a nonprofit group promote President Obama’s health care law.

She identified the companies as Johnson & Johnson, the drug maker; Ascension Health, a large Roman Catholic health care system; and Kaiser Permanente, the health insurance plan.

At a hearing of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Ms. Sebelius said she did not explicitly ask the companies for money, but urged them to support the work of the nonprofit group, Enroll America.

The group, led by former Obama administration officials, is working with the White House to publicize the 2010 health care law and help uninsured people sign up for coverage.

Here’s the deal: News of the Secretary’s freelancing had already gone public a few weeks ago, but the defense at the time was that she had only solicited money from a couple of companies that weren’t regulated by HHS. Now she concedes that she was hitting up companies under her department’s jurisdiction but wants you to believe that it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Here’s the problem: Congress refused to fully fund an extensive PR campaign for Obamacare (as it should have — this is a government health program, not the rollout of a new SUV), leading a bunch of Obama flaks to create the aforementioned Enroll America. Now you have the HHS Secretary — who has the power to bring down the hammer on these companies — ever-so-gently suggesting that they “support the work” of Enroll. She could well be telling the truth about not explicitly asking them for money — because she wouldn’t have to. None of these companies need to be told outright that if mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.

The dissembling from HHS is bad enough, but it’s representative of a deeper problem. At every turn, Obamacare creates precisely this kind of nexus between government and the private sector. It’s an invitation to corruption. And it looks like the RSVPs are starting to come in.

May 24th, 2013 at 2:39 pm
Insurance Companies Solicited by Sebelius Now Questioned by Congress

The Hill reports that the plot is thickening as key members of Congress ask 15 insurance companies to turn over any records related to potentially illegal fundraising to support ObamaCare by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The request went to industry giants Aetna, Blue Shield of California, Cigna, Coventry Health Care, H&R Block, HCSC Group, Highmark, Humana, Independence Blue Cross, Kaiser Permanente, United Healthcare, WellPoint, America’s Health Insurance Plans, BlueCross BlueShield Association, and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.

The controversy first surfaced when the Washington Post confirmed that HHS Secretary Sebelius is personally contacting private members of the health care industry – including insurance providers – to ask that they donate six- to seven-figure sums to Enroll America, a pro-ObamaCare non-profit advocacy group running a national summer and fall ad campaign to promote enrollment in state-based insurance exchanges.

H&R Block, one of the companies contacted by both Sebelius and Congress, has already committed to donating $500,000 to fund Enroll America’s efforts, according to the New York Times.

With its records request, you can bet that Congress wants to know what exactly was said/indicated/promised in the Sebelius-H&R Block conversation, as well as any other communications between top health insurance companies and their chief regulator.

If those requests aren’t honored voluntarily, expect to see subpoenas follow very quickly.

May 16th, 2013 at 8:05 pm
Sebelius’s ObamaCare Lobbying Funds Liberal Political Groups

As I discuss in my column this week, the primary beneficiary of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’s legally suspect lobbying of private health companies is the non-profit community organizing outfit Enroll America.

The group’s Advisory Council includes several members of the liberal establishment such as NAACP, La Raza, Planned Parenthood, and the Service Employees International Union (SEIU).

But wait, there’s more:

“Enroll America’s board of directors is made up of insurers and hospital organizations that will benefit from enrolling millions of people in Obamacare. But its management is 100 percent political. Its president is Anne Filipic, formerly deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, where she networked with community organizers. Before that, she had a top job at the Democratic National Committee, and before that she managed Obama’s victorious 2008 Iowa Caucus bid,” according to the Boston Herald.

“To design a media campaign, Enroll America hired Lake Research, which also manages messaging for ACORN, MoveOn.org, LaRaza and 39 members of Congress, all Democrats”

At least now we know how Sebelius is feathering her post-HHS nest – by funneling money to just about every radical liberal group in America.

May 16th, 2013 at 7:39 pm
Congressional Republicans Demand Investigation of Sebelius

A group of powerful Republicans in the House and Senate is demanding an investigation into potentially illegal fundraising calls by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to private health companies.

In a letter to the Government Accountability Office, three House committee chairmen and two Senate ranking members said, “The Secretary’s actions show an apparent disregard for constitutional principles and may violate the Antideficiency Act, the prohibition against augmenting congressional appropriations, and executive branch ethics laws,” according to reporting by Politico.

As I explain in my column this week, Sebelius has been caught quoting specific dollar amounts that private companies should donate to a pro-ObamaCare community organizing group getting ready to promote the law ahead of this year’s October enrollment.

Whatever GAO decides to do, it’s a near certainty that the relevant Republican-led House committees with jurisdiction over this scandal will soon launch investigations into Sebelius’s conduct.

May 13th, 2013 at 5:46 pm
Sebelius Already Raised at Least $10.5 Million from Health Industry

On the heels of a Washington Post report that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is actively soliciting health industry executives for six- to seven-figure “donations” to help publicize ObamaCare, the New York Times reveals how much she’s netted in pledges so far: $10.5 million.

And that’s just from two groups. One is the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation which bills itself as the largest public health philanthropy. It pledged $10 million. The other is the for-profit tax preparation company H&R Block who, according to the Times, “sees a large role for itself in helping low- and middle-income people apply for tax credits that can be used to buy private health insurance.” It promised $500,000 for the propaganda outreach effort.

An unbiased observer could look at this and easily see at least the probability if not the certainty of a quid pro quo arrangement where payment to an HHS-backed initiative now means preferential treatment later.

And remember, these two transactions are only the tip of the iceberg. Once more health industry entities confirm their involvement Sebelius’ project we’ll be able to see which firms will reap the lion’s share of benefits of ObamaCare’s corrupt pay-to-play scheme.

Crony capitalism is alive and well in the Obama Administration.

May 11th, 2013 at 8:03 pm
Sebelius Pressuring Health Companies to Promote ObamaCare

Earlier this year Michael Barone catalogued a litany of abuses to the rule of law perpetuated under the Obama Administration. “Gangster Government” is the term Barone coined to describe the behavior.

As of Friday, Barone needs to update his list.

Sarah Kliff broke the news that Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, has been calling health care executives, “asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law…”

Imagine the conversation. A health care CEO gets a personal call from the chief regulator of his business suggesting that the company and the people it employs make financial donations to promote a law administered by the regulator.

Sounds like a suggestion that can’t be refused, right?

As Barone would say, this is Gangster Government.

Republicans in Congress need to push back hard on this abuse of power by Sebelius.

The people running businesses are there to make profits, not spend precious resources on ruinous fights with thugs spending taxpayer money.

If Sebelius can get away with coercing businesses to “donate” money to promote a law that increases her power over them, an awful precedent will be set. She – and any of her successors – will be able to tax, fine and now “fundraise” the very people they regulate.

Fail to pay enough, and say goodbye to your livelihood.

Congress needs to put a stop to Sebelius’ abuse of power. Now.

April 23rd, 2013 at 4:13 pm
Using Stimulus for Polling Strippers

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.

April 23rd, 2013 at 1:52 pm
Dem Senator Retires After Calling ObamaCare “Train Wreck”

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.

April 12th, 2013 at 1:28 pm
ObamaCare Crack-up Looms as Next GOP Messaging Disaster

Don’t look now, but with ObamaCare failing to deliver on its promises before it even takes effect, Democrats are already starting to lay the blame on the one party least responsible for this policy monstrosity: Republicans.

Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services and the point person for ObamaCare’s implementation, told a Harvard School of Public Health audience that instead of saying, “let’s get on board, let’s make this work,” Republican opponents coerced her into fighting “state-by-state political battles.” Sebelius complained, “The politics has been relentless,” according to Investor’s Business Daily.

This from the woman whose refusal to honor the conscience rights of religious employers elevates the right to “free” contraception over the First Amendment.

But just because Sebelius’ charge that ObamaCare’s completely foreseen failure is actually Republicans’ fault is laughable to anyone who knows the facts, don’t assume that the GOP communications apparatus can be counted on to frame those facts effectively.

After all, this is the same universe of consultants and staff that got outmaneuvered last election season on liberal talking points like the GOP’s “War on Women,” and Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” comment.

If the Left wants to present Sandra Fluke and “The Life of Julia” as exemplars of modern feminism, why can’t the Right counter with the common sense observation that what liberals really want is a government sugar-daddy who pays for sex and then subsidizes any consequences thereafter?

And rather than deny that 47 percent of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, why don’t Republicans instead hit back with the explosive growth of food stamps and the unprecedented extension of unemployment benefits in the Age of Obama?  Throw in the Obama Phone mentality, and people will start to understand that there are real costs to the liberal vision of welfare.

All this to say I hope Republicans have learned their lesson about how to contest Democratic smear campaigns.  It would be a shame if when ObamaCare comes off the rails next year the GOP fails to capitalize electorally because no one clearly makes the case that only liberals are to blame for the mess they created.

August 14th, 2012 at 11:46 am
More on Obama, Ryan, and Medicare
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Ashton’s post yesterday brings up an important point about the Obama Administration’s handling of Medicare. The worst aspect of the cuts he cites, however, is the complete duplicity of the math involved. Basically, the Administration has attempted to claim the same money both as savings and expenditures. The best interpretation is total mathematical illiteracy. The worst is accounting fraud.

Paul Ryan ripped the Administration for this in his famous showdown with the president at the Blair House health care summit in 2010. For an even more bracing version of this dispute, see this exchange between Congressman John Shimkus (R-IL) and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, in which the Secretary, having reached a fork in the road, takes it:

October 14th, 2011 at 8:45 pm
Obama’s CLASS-less Budget Deficit

Aside from being unconstitutional, Obamacare is also financially unsustainable.  Of course, everyone except the White House and their drones at HHS acknowledged this when the law passed.  Now, fiscal reality has forced the Obama Administration to scrap a program that was supposed to provide half of the fallacious budget savings from passing Obamacare.  Per Phillip Klein of the DC Examiner:

As Obamacare’s critics noted at the time, Democrats’ deficit reduction claims were based on a series of accounting gimmicks. One of the most obvious was the inclusion of the Community Living Assistance and Support Services Act, a program that was slated to collect five years of premiums before paying out any benefits. Though it was unsustainable over time, on paper it produced surpluses during the Congressional Budget Office’s 10-year budget window.

At the time of final passage, the CBO found that the health care law would reduce deficits by $143 billion, and $70 billion of that was attributable to the CLASS program.

Earlier, I noted a new HHS report recomending against implementing the program. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has now sent a letter to Congress conceding that there’s no path forward.

Republicans are still rightly moving to formally repeal the CLASS Act from federal law.  Let’s hope they keep pressing for a complete elimination.

October 7th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Time to “Occupy” the White House

With the unwashed masses “occupying” Wall Street and other financial centers throughout the country, Community-Organizer-in-Chief Barack Obama is trying to convince the protesters of crony capitalism that their grievance is really his.  From today’s Wall Street Journal:

Asked about the demonstrations that have spread to cities across the U.S., Mr. Obama empathized with protesters’ frustrations without embracing the movement: “The American people understand that not everybody has been following the rules; that Wall Street is an example of that.”

Haven’t been following the rules? How’s this for a list of people not following the rules:

  • Energy Secretary Steven Chu rubber stamps another taxpayer subsidy to Solyndra after the company defaulted on a $535 million loan (the company couldn’t get sufficient venture capital funding but did grease the skids to get taxpayer money thanks to an Obama fundraiser – who was also an investor – pulling strings)
  • Attorney General Eric Holder lies to Congress about allowing a criminally stupid ‘gun-walking’ program at ATF to continue that sends 2,000 guns to Mexican drug cartels, killing a Border Patrol Agent
  • Education Secretary Arne Duncan violates the No Child Left Behind law by unilaterally issuing waivers that require recipients to accept White House dictated regulations that cannot get through Congress – an unheard of abuse of the waiver process

I could go on, but I think the point is made.  The American people are viscerally aware of a politically connected elite waging war on the rule of law.  But it’s the Tea Party, not those squatting outside America’s nodes of commerce, that has identified the biggest threat to prosperity.  It’s time to occupy the White House and the Cabinet with people who not only respect the law, but also know how to grow the economy in a real, free market fashion.

May 17th, 2011 at 4:56 pm
Obamacare Waiver Corruption Continues
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Ever since its inception, it’s been clear that the waiver program being run by the Obama Administration’s Department of Health and Human Services represents that age-old liberal trend: suffering for thee, but not for me. The waivers allow certain institutions to bypass the onerous requirements put in place by Obamacare. But since they are dispensed according to the whims of the Obama HHS, the recipients tend to be interests favored by the White House — a process that makes a mockery of the rule of law.

A piece in today’s Daily Caller reports yet another suspicious trend:

Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.

Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers.

Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments. But Pelosi’s district’s waivers are the first major examples of luxurious, gourmet restaurants and hotels getting a year-long pass from Obamacare.

All hail the Democrats, party of the working man — assuming he works in a San Francisco bistro.

February 1st, 2011 at 2:19 pm
61% Say All Businesses Should Get ObamaCare Waivers

How great a law could ObamaCare be if companies like McDonald’s need a compliance waiver?  The surge in waivers granted by Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is fast-approaching 800, or a little more than two a day since the law went into effect.  At some point, exceptional cases swallow the rule.  This seems to be the thinking behind today’s Rasmussen Reports poll:

Sixty-one percent (61%), in fact, think that if selected companies receive an exemption from certain aspects of the health care law, all companies should be treated the same way. Twenty percent (20%) now disagree and say all companies should not be given that exemption, but 19% more are undecided. These findings are comparable to the previous survey.

Where’s the fairness in granting waivers only to a few?  Aren’t we all in this socialized health care pool together?  Or are some companies too big to comply?  If liberals had the courage of their convictions, they’d implement their health care takeover immediately so people would know exactly what it does.  Since the law and its proponents would go down in flames in that scenario, instead we’ll continue to see HHS boil the economy slowly, hoping “only” 61% of the people notice.

January 27th, 2011 at 7:48 pm
HHS Waiver-gate Adds Another 500 Exemptions

Perhaps the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) should get credit for making the road to serfdom a little easier to travel.  Beset by criticisms that ObamaCare grants HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius “dictatorship” status with powers including on whom to bestow compliance waivers, HHS confirmed it handed out 500 new get-out-jail-free cards.

The purpose of the year-long waivers is to provide a compliance-free bridge for employers who would otherwise opt to pay the penalty for canceling out-of-compliance insurance plans.  That bridge only extends to 2014.

Alex Cortes at The Daily Caller notes that the waivers (averaging about two a day so far for 729 total) will only be granted until 2014 when ObamaCare’s state-run insurance exchanges come online.  Then, companies that stop offering insurance will pay the fine, but their employees will be able (i.e. forced) to use the exchanges or be fined themselves for ignoring the individual mandate.

Until then, private sector employers and employees must go hat-in-hand begging for a waiver from Comrade Sebelius.  Don’t worry, says a HHS spokesman, the number of waiver requests denied is “more than a handful, but not a big number.”  How benevolent.

November 11th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
When the Media, Majorities in Both Houses of Congress, and Liberal Activist Groups Aren’t Enough…

…turn a taxpayer-funded federal website into a self-serving online petition! That’s exactly what Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has done with the front page of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Between links to FLU.gov and another to Stop Medicare Fraud, there is an icon under HealthReform.Gov where a visitor can “State Your Support” for health reform this year.

According to Connie Hair at Human Events, HHS’s solicitation of support for Democratic health reform is likely in violation of federal law because it spends money for a purpose other than what Congress intended. In a legal opinion requested by Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), and written by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), CRS points out that:

Under the United States Constitution, no funds may be expended by federal agencies, or their officers or employees in the executive branch, except by way of an appropriation made by an act of Congress. The “Appropriations Clause” of the Constitution is not only an express assignment of appropriations authority to the Congress, but has also, as explained by a unanimous Supreme Court, been long understood “as a restriction upon the disbursing authority of the Executive department…”

Hair reports further that:

Congress has made it clear that federal agencies are not to use public funds to finance campaign tactics and grassroots propaganda. By law, official HHS funds cannot be used “for publicity or propaganda purposes … designed to support or defeat legislation pending before the Congress … ,” according to and Section 503(a) of Division F and Section 717 of Division D of the 2009 Omnibus Appropriations Act or for “printed or written matter, or other device, intended or designed to influence in any manner … an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose, by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy … ,” according to 18 U.S.C. § 1913.”

In other words, HHS can’t spend taxpayer money to solicit support for partisan legislation. Although there’s little chance of mounting a successful lawsuit against the “State Your Support” link, signers of the petition should be aware that they are doing much more than giving their name. They’re also permitting the Obama Administration to retain their email and postal addresses for future contacts and solicitations, perhaps even for financial contributions. Of course, we can be sure that none of the names and numbers given will be misused or passed along to third parties, right?