Category: Government Overreach

The piece is entitled “The Case for Killing Granny“, so you know you’re in for it. The very lede identifies the core issue of a government health plan:

My mother wanted to die, but the doctors wouldn’t let her. At least that’s the way it seemed to me as I stood by her bed in an intensive-care unit at a hospital in Hilton Head, S.C., five years ago. My mother was 79, a longtime smoker who was dying of emphysema. She knew that her quality of life was increasingly tethered to an oxygen tank, that she was losing her ability to get about, and that she was slowly drowning. The doctors at her bedside were recommending various tests and procedures to keep her alive, but my mother, with a certain firmness I recognized, said no. She seemed puzzled and a bit frustrated that she had to be so insistent on her own demise.

This anecdote in defense of a government system wherein appointed or hired officials rethink the health care decisions for you removes all choice from the patient.

It gives the author’s mommy the outcome she wanted. But someone who wants to fight on and hope for a miracle? No, sorry, you get to choose death anyway.

President Obama’s remarks last night:

We are the only democracy — the only advanced democracy on Earth — the only wealthy nation — that allows such hardship for millions of its people.

Question: Does India not count as a democracy or a suitably advanced democracy? Does it suit this characterization because it has hundreds of millions whose health care is not provided by the government? Or does the President’s speechwriters ignorant of things non-European?

Now Congress has legislation in the pipeline to give the Attorney General the ability to identify and intern terrorists on his say-so.

Funny, they told me the Republicans wanted this sort of power. But Alcee Hastings is not a Republican.

The Constitution of the United States, Article 2, section 1:

The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States; he may require the Opinion, in writing, of the principal Officer in each of the executive Departments, upon any Subject relating to the Duties of their respective Offices, and he shall have Power to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment.

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, Judges of the supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments.

The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.

The Obama administration:

With the clock running out on a new US-Russian arms treaty before the previous Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or START, expires on December 5, a senior White House official said Sunday said that the difficulty of the task might mean temporarily bypassing the Senate’s constitutional role in ratifying treaties by enforcing certain aspects of a new deal on an executive levels and a “provisional basis” until the Senate ratifies the treaty.

“The most ideal situation would be to finish it in time that it could be submitted to the Senate so that it can be ratified,” said White House Coordinator for Weapons of Mass Destruction, Security and Arms Control Gary Samore. “If we’re not able to do that, we’ll have to look at arrangements to continue some of the inspection provisions, keep them enforced in a provisional basis, while the Senate considers the treaty.”

Samore said administration lawyers are exploring the “different options that are available. One option is that both sides could agree to continue the inspections by executive agreement; that would work on our side. On the Russian side, as I understand it, that would require Duma approval.”

So, do you think our legislative branch of government will stop this power-grab by the executive branch? Aw, hell, no. That’s just one more actual responsibility removed from their plate so they can convene show hearings, pontificate, and abdicate their Constitutional duties for easy busy work.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

Obama Blueprint Deepens Federal Role in Markets:

The Obama administration last night detailed a series of proposals to involve the government more deeply in private markets, from helping to steer borrowers into affordable mortgage loans to imposing new limits on the largest financial companies, in a sweeping effort to curb the kinds of reckless risk-taking that sparked the economic crisis.

How long until the government actually holds the paper on your home, and you live in it at its pleasure? That’s called state property, ain’t it?

As it so often seems to be, any federal plan is the nose in the tent. On purpose.

How’s that competitive passenger rail thing working out for you?

(Link seen on Gateway Pundit.)

Beyond AIG: A bill to let Big Government set your salary:

It was nearly two weeks ago that the House of Representatives, acting in a near-frenzy after the disclosure of bonuses paid to executives of AIG, passed a bill that would impose a 90 percent retroactive tax on those bonuses. Despite the overwhelming 328-93 vote, support for the measure began to collapse almost immediately. Within days, the Obama White House backed away from it, as did the Senate Democratic leadership. The bill stalled, and the populist storm that spawned it seemed to pass.

But now, in a little-noticed move, the House Financial Services Committee, led by chairman Barney Frank, has approved a measure that would, in some key ways, go beyond the most draconian features of the original AIG bill. The new legislation, the “Pay for Performance Act of 2009,” would impose government controls on the pay of all employees — not just top executives — of companies that have received a capital investment from the U.S. government. It would, like the tax measure, be retroactive, changing the terms of compensation agreements already in place. And it would give Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner extraordinary power to determine the pay of thousands of employees of American companies.

So what do you think happens when Congress starts cutting salaries and then realizes that it’s cutting the revenue from income taxes? Higher taxes for everyone, duh!

You know, the unintended consequences are so obvious sometimes that I think our oligarchs call them hidden-from-the-mindless-masses benefits.

Just back from the Post Office. Foolish to go on a morning after a holiday, I know, but I had the time, so I tried it.

There were 18 numbers ahead of my ticket and a dozen or so people waiting around. There was one window open.

I waited for about five minutes. It looked as though a second window would open, but instead a postal employee with a fake tan just looked at the crowd that gathered to adore her. I left after the five minutes because the one open window had processed one customer shipping one package in the time I was there, and the guy leaning on the table in front of me had about 60 Priority Mail envelopes.

I cannot wait until our federal government does the same to our medical industry. And once it does, I will wait, hardly.

In a shocking turn of events, governments lack perspective and priorities when it comes to spending tax money. Cities pay huge salaries despite fiscal crises:

In Vallejo, a midsize city of 121,000, there were 292 municipal employees who earned more than $100,000 last year. But in Oakland, with roughly three times more residents, 1,333 city workers were paid six figures in the same period. San Jose, a city of almost a million people, had 2,312. And San Francisco, which serves as a city and county government for its 809,000 residents, had more than 8,000.

None of the region’s largest cities faces the imminent threat of bankruptcy, but all are weathering their own financial crises – even as firefighters and police officers often earn more than City Hall department heads.

You think that institutions that think they can spend themselves out of bad times or can spur development by taking out risky mortgages instead of reducing barriers to entry and regulation would foolishly line the pockets of the participants even when financial times are tight?

If not, you’re obviously not cynical enough or you’re trying to save your phony baloney job by diverting the attention of the citizens. How about a sports team to distract them?

A nighttime no-knock raid because a parent didn’t take a child to the hospital after bumping its head? Hey, we don’t have SWAT teams for nothing:

The Garfield County All Hazards Response Team broke down Tom Shiflett’s door Friday night and, following a court order, took his son for medical treatment.

The doctor’s recommendation: Take Tylenol and apply ice to the bruises. The boy was back home a few hours later.

Authorities said they had reason to believe Shiflett mistreated his 11-year-old son, Jon, by failing to provide him proper medical care for a head injury. But Shiflett says his privacy and his rights were invaded, and that he has the right and the skill to treat his son himself. Shiflett, 62, said he served as a medic in Vietnam during the Tet Offensive.

Read the whole thing, and weep. Find how an anonymous neighbor can tip police and caseworkers onto you, and how the report of a hematoma (that is, a bruise can be grounds for a court order and no-knock raid if you’re a praying sort of family.

(Link seen on Books, Bikes, and Boomsticks.)

The other day, I commented that Ronald Reagan allowed for a federal gas tax 25 years ago because of the state of the interstate highway infrastructure. I made the comment that transportation budgets are always diverted to other things, and she jumped on my “always.” However, I think I have a better insight into government nature than she does.

This column enumerates some of the ways transportation,that is, gas tax, money is spent that doesn’t involve maintaining roadways:

As recently as July 25, Mr. Oberstar sent out a press release boasting that he had “secured more than $12 million in funding” for his state in a recent federal transportation and housing bill. But $10 million of that was dedicated to a commuter rail line, $250,000 for the “Isanti Bike/Walk Trail,” $200,000 to bus services in Duluth, and $150,000 for the Mesabi Academy of Kidspeace in Buhl. None of it went for bridge repair.

And:

Minnesota spends $1.6 billion a year on transportation–enough to build a new bridge over the Mississippi River every four months. But nearly $1 billion of that has been diverted from road and bridge repair to the state’s light rail network that has a negligible impact on traffic congestion. Last year part of a sales tax revenue stream that is supposed to be dedicated for road and bridge construction was re-routed to mass transit. The Minnesota Department of Economic Development reports that only 2.8% of the state’s commuters ride buses or rail to get to work, but these projects get up to 25% of the funding.

Here’s how it works:

1. Government get general tax revenue.
2. Government spends tax revenue on shiny things, not maintaining core government services (law enforcement) or infrastructure (roads).
3. Shortfall in core services funding becomes an emergency requiring raised taxes/dedicated taxes.
4. Government gets dedicated tax revenue in addition to general tax revenue.
5. Government spends general tax revenue on shiny things and new dedicated tax revenue on shiny things, not on core services or infrastructure.
6. Shortfall in core services funding becomes emergency requiring raised taxes.

The problem does not lie in the amount the government is getting and spending; it lies in the things the government buys.

But don’t tell the government or our elected/unelected “leaders” that. They like shiny things.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

One more reason not to live in Colorado: Denver has declared all Pit Bulls illegal and is now rounding them up and killing them:

It has to be one of the dumbest laws, ever. And I don’t even own or like pit bulls. It’s nothing personal, only that I’d never keep any animal that eats as much or more than I do.

Still, I can weep for the pit bulls of Denver, particularly for the puppies that never did anything other than get born into the breed.

Yet here we have the city of Denver, newly sprung from legislative and judicial restraint, rounding up pits over the past couple of days and killing them like rats during The Plague.

A uniformed officer arrives at a home. “I’ll get him,” she announces to her partner. Rather than fight it all, a distraught man emerges, weighs going to jail and a fine, and in the end hands over his dog.

Well, there you have it again. The government confiscates and destroys things which are abused, mishandled, misbehave, or misused by a few. For the Children, no doubt. Soon, the government will only allow us to have nice foam (not polyurethane, which is flammable, but something more spongebobby). For everything.

(Link seen on The Agitator.)

UPDATE: Wait! I have a sudden bad governance inspiration! Couple your pit bull confiscation with this lunacy, and it’s own an illegal pit bull, lose your house!

Vote for me. I am worse than the rest of them.