Walker promises to rule like king the first day: let the
Executive Orders fly….
I hope the media finally comes to the realization that Obama’s
vilified use of executive orders has more to do with race than the phony outrage
over supposedly bypassing congress and acting like a king. Detect a little resentment?
Scott Walker’s promise to issue executive orders on his
first day will not surprisingly get support from angry Republican voters because they have as a party, a much higher purpose. Even executive orders are okay if in the end, they
reverse the liberal socialist agenda.
That’s where repealing the Affordable Care Act with an
executive order comes in (stripping subsidies from government staff), an entry
level device Walker will use again and again to usher in a whole list of
surprising uncompromising policy edicts. AP:
In announcing his plan, Walker vowed: "On Day One, I will sign an executive order removing President Obama's special deal for Congress.”
This is no small revelation. Republicans have been pounding
Obama on every one of his executive orders.
Walker's campaign says his executive order actually would direct Cabinet officials to "undertake rulemaking" — typically a drawn-out process … he would first strip away the federal health insurance subsidies that they and their staff get as government employees. That, he says, would expose them to the same premium increases that many Americans have to pay and prompt Congress to act on his plan. Walker said undoing the rule, and essentially raising insurance costs for members of Congress and their staffs, would serve as the motivation for lawmakers to repeal the health law and replace it with his plan.
But government employees would see the same kind of
subsidies everyone else is seeing, which is no
horror story, unless they’re making too much to get the tax credits (the
tax credits should have been phased out more slowly).
Will the Political Elite now have to Shop for Insurance? I’m now waiting to hear Walker tell Washington politicians
to not just give up their government paid subsidies for ObamaCare, but to get out into the marketplace, where those supposed “patient centered” junk policies will be available to all.
Would members of Congress really rally around his initiative after seeing their health subsidies disappear? And can he really end those subsidies without congressional action, as he vows he would do with an executive order on his first day as president?
"It shouldn't be taken seriously," Tim Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia and an expert on the health law, said of Walker's plan. "It's just a political talking point."
But absent a national emergency, Walker wouldn't have the legal authority to amend the rule to remove the subsidy, said Jost, a supporter of the health care law. And even if the rule were changed, it wouldn't hurt members of Congress because most lawmakers are either independently wealthy, have coverage through their spouses or are old enough to quality for Medicare, Jost said. That would leave their staff members stuck with higher insurance costs, Jost said.
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