How about passing a bill that is about one page long.
It just says that any person or entity that requests a waiver of Obamacare can have it upon written request.
Since Obama is giving these out to his pals, just let everyone have it if they want.
Would this be a great issue or what?
Put it up for a vote and make the Democrats defend the bill and the waiver process.
Great idea, but the Congressional Republicans may be too stupid and/or corrupt to do it. Maybe Sarah Palin could put it out on her Facebook page.
It only takes one member to introduce a bill.
Have at it.
I can’t have at it.
But a member of Congress could have at it.
That’s what I meant.
Know one who would answer a phone call from you?
(I don’t)
There’s always the alternative of typing out your case in block capitals and mass-emailing it. In the unlikely event this doesn’t get results you could try a blog post.
I am enjoying this conversation tremendously. Thank you both.
Fantastic.
Dude. This IS a blog post.
Ladies, ask your Congresspeople to do this.
Dude. This IS a blog post.
That’s what I meant.
But I already tried a blog post.
But, no groundswell, no nothin’, yet anyway.
Now what?
This conversation seems somehow familiar.
I really like this idea!
The smart Democrats would go along with it and then make the approval process about as easy as getting the IRS to approve the TSA’s approval of your HMO’s approval of that “unnecessay” heart surgery. “Try the herbal tea instead!” they would say.
The Bureaucracy would still be the gatekeeper and Obama would still have control of the keys. And take the issue away.
Here’s a thought experiment: Imagine that a tyrannical government has enacted laws that prescribe the death penalty for even the most trivial of crimes. Put your trash cans at the curb too early? Off with your head. Arrive late to work at your government job? Up against the wall.
Now imagine how valuable the time and attention of the parole board and the dictator’s pardon advisers would be.
To extend the metaphor, think about punitive marginal tax rates and the value of tailored tax exemptions. Think about restrictions on the availability of medical care and the value of good relations with the gatekeepers. Think about trade union guild structures, when admission to the guild depends on relatives or friends in the union. These are not hypotheticals. The first example is how tax shelters are made. The second example occurred in Canada, and served to open up their government medical monopoly. The third kept blacks out of union jobs for most of the 20th century.
The whole point of centralized allocation schemes is to make the allocators more prosperous and powerful. Exemptions from restrictions imposed on the masses are one of the basic tools of allocation.
Your proposed bill, as I am sure you are aware, would constitute an immediate devaluation of the power of the governing class.
A great idea, political fuel that keeps burning.
Soon enough the cronies in both parties will complain.
I hereby draft Lexington Green for public office. I bet he could find a simple platform that suits a fine statesman.
Your proposed bill, as I am sure you are aware, would constitute an immediate devaluation of the power of the governing class.
Yeah, isn’t it great? If we could make statist pols bear more of the blame they deserve for imposing this socialist crap on the rest of us they might change their behavior.
“… an immediate devaluation of the power of the governing class.”
Feature.
You may have misunderstood what I was trying to say. Lex’s proposal is along the lines of musing “Wouldn’t it be nice if my mortal enemy were to hang himself?” While that might be a pleasant reverie, it is not a plan.
The distributive state stays in power by its ability to reward and punish according to its interests. The original balance of our founding was to be maintained by competing power centers, but they have now effectively merged. You can start as a congressional aide and join a lobbying firm, an NGO/GSE, an executive branch secretariat, a Big Law firm, or Wall Street. In fact, you can start from any of the above and shift to the others while improving your position to congressman, head of a “consulting” practice, NGO executive, Fannie/Freddie pirate, or member of the judiciary. Power, money, and your choice of all the female apes in your troop.
The puzzle is not just how to get them to stop saying “You can have this but not that; he can have this but they cannot.” We must make it impossible for them to do so. It is the statists who always insist that the whole problem is the wrong people in power (good Lenin, bad Stalin), not the concentration of power itself. They always insist that the solution to bad statism is good statism.
We have to make it easy for the most venal and self-interested people in power to do what is most advantageous to the people who entrusted that power to them, and make it difficult and unrewarding to harm them. The governing class must be stripped of its internal incentive structure and forced to compete with outside rivals, but how?
My idea here was that the GOP might do this out of political self interest.
Or that dome faction within the GOP could propose and promote it out of political self interest.
Excellent idea. The White House will flip; HHS will lose their minds over it; what’s not to like? Then, have them explain and defend the unique overweighting of waivers to unions and Pelosi’s district. Great theater; great politics; good for the country.