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Human Events...
Obama Skirts Rule of
Law to Reward Pals, Punish Enemies
by Michael Barone
05/26/2011
Question: What do the following have in common? Eckert Cold Storage
Co., Kerly Homes of Yuma, Classic Party Rentals, West Coast Turf Inc.,
Ellenbecker Investment Group Inc., Only in San Francisco, Hotel Nikko,
International Pacific Halibut Commission, City of Puyallup, Local 485
Health and Welfare Fund, Chicago Plastering Institute Health &
Welfare Fund, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee, Teamsters Local 522
Fund Welfare Fund Roofers Division, StayWell Saipan Basic Plan, CIGNA,
Caribbean Workers’ Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Health and Welfare
Plan.
Answer: They are all among the 1,372 businesses, state and local
governments, labor unions and insurers, covering 3,095,593 individuals
or families, that have been granted a waiver from Obamacare by
Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius.
All of which raises another question: If Obamacare is so great, why do
so many people want to get out from under it?
More specifically, why are more than half of those 3,095,593 in plans
run by labor unions, which were among Obamacare’s biggest political
supporters? Union members are only 12 percent of all employees but have
gotten 50.3 percent of Obamacare waivers.
Just in April, Sebelius granted 38 waivers to restaurants, nightclubs,
spas and hotels in former Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco
congressional district. Pelosi’s office said she had nothing to do with
it.
On its website, HHS pledges that the waiver process will be
transparent. But it doesn’t list those whose requests for waivers have
been denied.
It does say that requests are “reviewed on a case by case basis by
Department officials who look at a series of factors including” -- and
then listing two factors. And it refers you to another website that
says that “several factors ... may be considered” -- and then lists six
factors.
What other factors may be considered? Political contributions or
connections? (Unions contributed $400 million to Democrats in the 2008
campaign cycle.) The websites don’t say.
In his new book, “The Origins of Political Order,” Francis Fukuyama
identifies the chief building blocks of liberal democracy as a strong
central state, a society strong enough to hold the state accountable
and -- equally crucial -- the rule of law.
One basic principle of the rule of law is that laws apply to everybody.
If the sign says “No Parking,” you’re not supposed to park there even
if you’re a pal of the alderman.
Another principle of the rule of law is that government can’t make up
new rules to help its cronies and hurt its adversaries except through
due process, such as getting a legislature to pass a new law.
The Obamacare waiver process appears to violate that first rule. Two
other recent Obama administration actions appear to violate the second.
One example is the National Labor Relations Board general counsel’s
action to prevent Boeing from building a $2 billion assembly plant for
the 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina, which has a right-to-work law
barring compulsory union membership. The NLRB says Boeing has to
assemble the planes in non-right-to-work Washington state.
“I don’t agree,” says William Gould IV, NLRB chairman during the Bill
Clinton years. “The Boeing case is unprecedented.”
The other example is the Internal Revenue Service’s attempt to levy a
gift tax on donors to certain 501(c)(4) organizations that just happen
to have spent money to elect Republicans.
A gift tax is normally assessed on transfers to children and other
heirs that are designed to avoid estate taxes. It has been applied to
political donations “rarely, if ever,” according to New York Times
reporter Stephanie Strom.
“The timing of the agency’s moves, as the 2012 election cycle gets
underway,” continues Strom, is prompting some tax law and campaign
finance experts to question whether the IRS could be sending a signal
in an effort to curtail big donations.”
In a Univision radio interview during the 2010 election cycle, Barack
Obama urged Latinos not “to sit out the election instead of saying,
‘We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re going to reward our
friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.’”
Punishing enemies and rewarding friends -- politics Chicago style --
seems to be the unfiying principle that helps explain the Obamacare
waivers, the NLRB action against Boeing and IRS’s gift tax assault on
501(c)(4) donors.
They look like examples of crony capitalism, bailout favoritism and
gangster government.
One thing they don’t look like is the rule of law.
Read it at Human Events
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