What just happened?

Wednesday-March 16, 2011

What just happened?

Yesterday, the House of Representatives voted to pass a continuing resolution that would keep the government functioning and would also provide the funding to continue ObamaCare.

John Conyers (D-MI) said that Obama care is the platform for a future single payer healthcare program. I might remind you that, John Conyers’ wife is serving out a sentence in jail, she is a convicted felon for her role in bribery as a City of Detroit Councilwoman. This has nothing to do with Obama care, but it has everything to do with who we choose to represent us.

The House passed this provision only to review it again in three weeks. Freshman Republicans and a few seasoned Republicans voted against it. Even if it was voted down in the House, it would have passed in the Senate and get the president’s signature. You might say we didn’t have a chance to begin with, because of Harry Reid’s minions in the Senate. With the House passage of the continuing resolution, it signaled that there could be a weakness on Speaker Boehner’s part.

It signaled that the victory in November, which changed the House leadership and majority, didn’t make any difference. It signaled that the Republicans will let Obama care move in the direction of implementation, because the money is still there and it will be spent. It signaled that the House, like the White House, is not paying attention to Federal Judge Vinson’s ruling that Obama care in unconstitutional. It signaled that the House leadership will throw the Constitution out the window like the Democrats before them. It signaled that the House leadership does not want to stop the spending that will cripple future generations with debt.

In the two hundred and thirty five (235) years that this country has been around - one third (1/3) of our debt has occurred in the last three years.

What would make the House leadership buckle under and vote to continue spending? You might say that the House bargained to pass the resolution, while reducing spending by 9 billion dollars. You might say that this is a beginning. It very well could be.

Since January, the new House majority has voted to fully repeal the $2.6 trillion Obama care law; to defund the law as part of H.R. 1; and to repeal the job-destroying 1099 small business mandate. The House has also started the process of replacing the health care law with common-sense solutions that would protect jobs and bring down costs for families and small businesses.
Any upcoming effort to repeal Obama care’s slush funds is “part of a broad assault on wasteful mandatory spending programs that began last week with passage of two bills saving taxpayers as much as $9 billion.” One of last week’s bills, for example, began the process of shutting down the TARP bailout program. There’s a similar bill on the House floor this week that makes additional cuts – and there are many more to come.

Why aren’t these slush funds repealed in today’s short-term continuing resolution? Continuing resolutions “can only be used for discretionary spending cuts and not changes to mandatory spending accounts.” In other words, it would require “resorting to Pelosi-style rules abuses of the sort that enraged Americans last year” – remember “we have to pass the bill, so you can find out what’s in it?”

Repealing this wasteful mandatory spending can happen without resorting to the sorts of abuses Speaker Boehner and the new majority pledged to end. Speaker Boehner said, “If the Senate won’t join us in passing a bill that repeals ObamaCare all at once, we will work to repeal it step-by-step” and “do everything we can to stop this gravy train and ensure this job-crushing health care law is never fully implemented.”

I hope that we can depend on the House Republicans to make good on Speaker Boehner’s commitment. Our debt, as a nation, and our personal freedom is at risk. There are now less than two years that this president will remain in office. He can and will continue in his efforts to destroy our traditions and our security. We will continue to pay for the damage he has caused well into his retirement years. It is now a matter of reducing that risk.

So, when you ask what just happened, you might want take a close look and trust that a strategy is in place to reduce the risk of a young president who will spend recklessly, but will not take the time to lead the free world.

When you ask the question, what just happened, ask your Congressman.

Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote: In three weeks, I hope we can ask the same question and get the answer we are looking for.