18 January 2012

Autocracy In Progress

David Limbaugh had an excellent recap of Chairman Zero's last three years, just in case we on the Right forget, and in the very likely case that the Left never heard it.
"We can endlessly debate whether he is such a devoted ideologue that he's blind to his policy failures, whether he's willing to sacrifice the economy and the fiscal integrity of the United States for his perceived higher good of radical redistribution, or whether he really intends to do harm, but these are moot questions anymore. Under any of these possibilities, the fact remains that he is hellbent on accelerating his present course, not reversing it, on dictating, not working within his constitutional constraints, much less building a bipartisan consensus."
One of the problems with Øbamacare, certainly the one that has received the most press in the last year, has been the constitutionality of the individual mandate.  Mona Charen goes into detail about another:  the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).
"IPAB is a new thing in American government. Unlike most other boards and commissions, the panel’s 15 members (appointed by the president and approved by the Senate) need not be bipartisan. Also unlike other boards, commissions, and federal agencies, the IPAB’s decisions are virtually unreviewable. IPAB doesn’t have to adhere to the notice and comment rules of federal agencies, which permit citizens to respond to proposed rule-makings. IPAB dictates automatically become law unless Congress itself intervenes. Ah, but they’ve thought of that and made it virtually impossible. The law prescribes that Congress has a limited period of time in which it can modify IPAB rulings and then it must do so by a three-fifths majority. Even ratifying treaties and proposing amendments to the Constitution require only two-thirds majorities. As for the courts, forget it. The judiciary is forbidden to review IPAB decisions."

Furthermore, abolition of IPAB is only possible in a narrow time window.

Way to stick it to the people, Dems!

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