Elections Have Consequences. Will GOP Victory = ‘Consequences’ Consequences?

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by Smitty

You’ve got to love The Week: “Why the GOP must pass a real ObamaCare replacement after it wins the Senate“. That sounds like ‘bargaining’ on the Kübler-Ross Model.

Keep in mind that ObamaCare is the new plantation. To hell with this Commie thinking that we can’t reject this plantation without moving onto a new one.

The bigger danger is that the Republican reticence signals an interest in power, with no corresponding interest in reform. This could really blow the lid off of our single, Progressive Party system in time for Her Majesty’s coronation in 2017.

90 comments

  1. Acceptable options for the Republican Senate re: Obamacare:

    1) Burn it with fire and salt the earth where it stood.

    2) Nuke it from orbit.

    3) Fry it with lasers, then napalm the fuck out of it.

  2. How about the House and Senate repeal Obamacare and let Obama veto that? How about the House and Senate pass a lot of things that the President can then veto? Things that will define him and his wanna be successor Hillary “I can out Red Lizzy Warren” Clinton?

  3. Electing a RINO led Congress isn’t going to make any difference at all. They will still confirm Obamas nominees.

  5. It will make a difference in some of the more radical nominees. The big thing is controlling Senate voting on issues. Harry “Pederast” Reid can bottle things up right now. Of course McConnell is about as useful as tits on a boar hog (he probably looks like a boar hog with tits when he is naked).

  6. A Republican Senate could refuse to confirm any Obama nominee at all, and can stay in session so there isn’t a Recess break to allow a recess appointment. They won’t do either because:

    1. They are too spineless.
    2. They are too lazy.

  7. So they’re still saying, “You can’t appeal Obamacare! What will you replace it with?!?!?!?!?”

    Which is still like saying “You can’t put out that forest fire! Uh…wait, what?”

  9. The one reason they will be slightly better is because the MSM will not cover for Republicans. Quite the opposite.

  10. Whenever lefties push this “get used to it” meme online, here’s my response:
    It took 13 years to repeal Prohibition, and that wasn’t just an ordinary law, it was a Constitutional Amendment. Obamacare is an ordinary, if quite UNPOPULAR law. It will be repealed.

  11. Simply pass a flat tax and kill 98% of the IRS would be far better. Shrinking FedGov will put an end to most of what’s wrong if you get it back into its constitutional cage.

  15. If they have enough heft to prevent Obola from granting blanket amnesty to 30 million Central American peasants that will be worth voting for the GOP

  16. The political problem with a flat tax is you will increase taxes for 90% of the electorate. Good luck with that. You could cut all of defense and discretionary spending and still be in the negative hole on entitlements. But therein lies the problem, entitlements are greatly above what our tax revenue can support.

  17. I’m fond of Mr. Gobry’s writing, but it’s generally a poor idea to try to tell people how to run their businesses, though someone from the outside might have some insights that would not have occurred to someone on the inside. Politicians understand something of political gamesmanship and salesmanship; opinion journalists (or, in Mr. Gobry’s case, businessmen moonlighting as opinion journalists) can seldom tell them much of value.

    Obamacare is an architecture of health care finance. It’s a bad archictecture. If demolishing the architecture allows the antecedent state of affairs to re-emerge without a hitch, than demolition may be advisable. It it would induce a worse mess, some other course of action would be advisable.

    Medical care finance has had pathological elements incorporated within it for some time and there have always been deficiencies (which is why third party payment and public financing had a constituency). One possible solution would be that suggested by Milton Friedman 15 years ago and made use of in Singapore – comprehensive public insurance with a high deductible conjoined to medical savings accounts. You could structure such a program to fix public expenditure on medical care at a particular percentage of personal income so as to avoid escalating claims on available revenues. The thing is, such a program would incorporate an insight into its practice: that first-dollar coverage of medical expenses is not economically sustainable. That’s going to be a tough sell (which is perhaps why working politicians are loath to advocate it).

  18. The political problem with a flat tax is you will increase taxes for 90% of the electorate.

    With a strict flat-tax, there will be problems along those lines (do not know about the 90% figure, though). With a modified flat tax, no. The modification might take the form of a large per-person exemption or take the form of a countervailing per-person credit.

    An important benefit of tax reform is that you extinguish rent-seeking opportunities which arise from haphazard sets of preferences for one sector or another (and reduce the role of the central government in allocating capital). Worry about the contours of the tax base first, the rate architecture second.

  20. The Week knows what you don’t, Smitty: the GOP will not repeal Obamacare. Boehner and McConnell have already flatout said so.

  22. Everyone should contribute something, even it’s a dime. People need to realize there is nothing “free” about government. The “Rottsa Ruck” aspect of it makes it hard, but not insurmountable.

    Entitlements must go. They are simply illegal for FedGov to engage in.

  23. That’s also how you get corporate money out of politics. If there’s no ”Special Favors ‘R’ Us” store on capital hill there won’t be any customers lobbying about. Probably do wonders for Senators and House reps waistlines.

  24. Any kind of consumption tax will be borne by consumers and producers alike, in proportions which depend on characteristics of the utility functions of the one and production functions of the latter. Social Security taxes are borne by the whole working population.

  27. I doubt they ever wanted to. All the outrage around the time of it’s passage was over not being given a seat at the ”stakeholder’s table”

  28. 3. They agree w/the appointment (see Holder/McCain et al)
    4. They want more wise latinas w/their Lady Parts working ” the levers of power” (see Kagan/McCain et al)
    5. they think we’ve slide far enough off the Progressive-ly slippery cliff that the GOProgressives no longer need to brake conservative/constitutionalist animating ardor.
    6. ALL 5 of the above (btw that’s the most likely scenario…)

  29. Quite right. Most Republicans who are called RINOs epitomize the mindset of the party. It’s the Ted Cruzs’, etc, who are the outliers. That’s why DeMint left, he knew ti was fruitless trying to effect change working within the party.

  32. Here, for starters, on Boehner: http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2014/03/boehner-brags-of-easy-reelection-wont.html

    McConnell has been waffling because the potential loss of 500,000 Kentuckians’ medical coverage since the last election.

    But he’s said this: http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/new-roosevelt/why-republicans-wont-repeal-affordable-care-act-hint-its-about-money-politics

    Both men have also been reported as telling gatherings of donors that there will be no repeal, I’m still trying to track that down.

  35. The problem for the Republicans in repealing Obaminablecare is that they will be excoriated for taking health care away from people who can’t pay for it on their own, if they don’t replace it with something. I, personally, am willing to do that, and I’m willing to say that if someone doesn’t have health insurance and can’t pay for care on his own, he shouldn’t get it, even if that means he dies in the street, but damned few politicians are.

  37. There have been numerous articles, white papers, and other expositions on the VAT/Consumption taxes of Europe.

    In short, they cause endless problems! It seems that government minions can find endless crevices to stuff increases into “consumption-type” taxes, especially VATs!

    Worse, b/c of the structure of VATs, there’s no effective way to push to lower them. Also, it seems, in Europe at least, that w/o honest government participation in the tracking process it’s exceedingly difficult to know how much taxing is actually occurring. Several highly focused studies were able – after a long arduous and intensive effort – able to show “widespread”¹ malfeasance, error and corruption in the government’s setting, reporting, and handling the taxes.
    ¹ : “widespread” in quotes b/c it was ubiquitous in the highly focused and narrow slice the study concerned itself with.

    However that said, a properly hedged consumption tax would be much better than the current system simply b/c it will dissolve the Infernal Revenge Society.

    What I’d like to see is all taxes collected at the state level! Perhaps federal taxation on individuals could be permanently removed and
    the fed could “head tax” states for revenue.

    Between that and returning to the “appointment system” for senators— making senators in effect creatures of their respective states— would go along way towards restoring the balance between the federal and state governments.

  39. That’s why the Dems and insurance companies were smart enough to take coverage away from millions who already had it. Hostages…

  40. The only way I can see is threatening impeachment in cohort with the House and precipitate a Constitutional crisis. Of course that means being surgically removed from their Chamber of Commerce puppet masters.
    If they had the cojones to do it, they might rile the public up enough to start a movement. The public is pretty overwhelmingly anti-amnesty.

  43. Speaking of which, Obamacare is like having your neighbor setting your house on fire and then screaming “What are you going to replace the fire with?!?!?” as you try to put it out.

  45. That’s a link to a website maintained by one Doug Ross and the brief paraphrase of Boehner does not support your contention.

  46. That’s a four year old quotation cum paraphrase of remarks of a then-freshman senator who is as we speak on none of the relevant committees.

  47. I’m willing to say that if someone doesn’t have health insurance and
    can’t pay for care on his own, he shouldn’t get it, even if that means
    he dies in the street, but damned few politicians are.

    Damn few people are. If you want the Republican Party to try to sell Ayn Rand’s bad attitude, you’re likely to be disappointed.

  48. The woman is a political temporizer to the left of about 95% of the Congressional Republican caucus. She’s never going to be anything than an irritant to party whips. Wherever you have a distribution, you have people in the tails. Susan Collins is one, Richard Hanna is another.

  50. The European Value Added Tax adds a tax at each individual stage of production. A consumption tax doesn’t have to be structured that way.

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