George Will "First Steps Republicans Should Take"

[kev_n_jena 89]

Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This creature of the labyrinthine Dodd-Frank law violates John Locke’s dictum: “The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. . . . The power of the legislative . . . [is] only to make laws, and not to make legislators.” The CFPB is empowered to “declare,” with no legislative guidance or institutional inhibitions, that certain business practices are “abusive.” It also embodies progressivism’s authoritarianism by being, unlike any entity Congress has created since 1789, untethered from all oversight mechanisms: Its funding, “determined by the director,” comes from the Federal Reserve.

Repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This expression of the progressive mind is an artifact of the Affordable Care Act and may be the most anti-constitutional measure ever enacted. It certainly violates the first words of the first section of the first article of the Constitution: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.” The board’s purported function is to achieve the act’s purpose of cost-containment by reducing Medicare spending. When the IPAB’s 15 presidential appointees make what the Affordable Care Act calls a “legislative proposal” limiting reimbursements to doctors, this proposal automatically becomes law unless Congress passes a similar measure cutting Medicare spending. Under this constitutional travesty, an executive-branch agency makes laws unless the legislative branch enacts alternative means of achieving the executive agency’s aim. The Affordable Care Act stipulates that no measure for the abolition of the board can be introduced before 2017 or after Feb. 1, 2017, and must be enacted by Aug. 15 of that year. So, one Congress presumed to bind all subsequent Congresses in order to achieve progressivism’s consistent aim — abolishing limited government by emancipating presidents from restraint by the separation of powers. This impertinence by the 111th Congress requires a firm rebuke by the 114th.

Repeal the Affordable Care Act’s tax on medical devices. This $29 billion blow to an industry that provides more than 400,000 jobs is levied not on firms’ profits but on gross revenues, and it comes on top of the federal (the developed world’s highest) corporate income tax, plus state and local taxes. Enough Democrats support repeal that a presidential veto might be overridden.

Improve energy, economic and environmental conditions by authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would reduce the risk of spills by reducing the transportation of oil in railroad tankers.

Mandate completion of the nuclear waste repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The signature achievement of Harry Reid’s waning career has been blocking this project, on which approximately $15 billion has been spent. So, rather than nuclear waste being safely stored in the mountain’s 40 miles of tunnels 1,000 feet underground atop 1,000 feet of rock, more than 160 million Americans live within 75 miles of one or more of the 121 locations where 70,000 tons of waste are stored.

Pass the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. It would require that any regulation with at least a $100 million annual impact on the economy — there are approximately 200 of them in the pipeline — be approved without amendments by a joint resolution of Congress and signed by the president. “In effect,” writes the Hudson Institute’s Christopher DeMuth, “major agency rules would become legislative proposals with fast-track privileges.” By requiring legislative complicity in especially heavy federal burdens, REINS is an ingredient in the recipe for resuscitating Congress, which has been far too eager to cede legislative responsibilities to the executive branch

[kev_n_jena 89]

Is this subject a little too "inside baseball" for this forum? I'll admit I wasn't familiar with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau until I read about it in Will's column.

It seems like the typical well meaning Washington bureaucratic money pit that infests most of our federal system. Does anyone have anything good to say about this "bureau"?

[Karee 4,189]

Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This creature of the labyrinthine Dodd-Frank law violates John Locke’s dictum: “The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. . . . The power of the legislative . . . [is] only to make laws, and not to make legislators.” The CFPB is empowered to “declare,” with no legislative guidance or institutional inhibitions, that certain business practices are “abusive.” It also embodies progressivism’s authoritarianism by being, unlike any entity Congress has created since 1789, untethered from all oversight mechanisms: Its funding, “determined by the director,” comes from the Federal Reserve.

Repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This expression of the progressive mind is an artifact of the Affordable Care Act and may be the most anti-constitutional measure ever enacted. It certainly violates the first words of the first section of the first article of the Constitution: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.” The board’s purported function is to achieve the act’s purpose of cost-containment by reducing Medicare spending. When the IPAB’s 15 presidential appointees make what the Affordable Care Act calls a “legislative proposal” limiting reimbursements to doctors, this proposal automatically becomes law unless Congress passes a similar measure cutting Medicare spending. Under this constitutional travesty, an executive-branch agency makes laws unless the legislative branch enacts alternative means of achieving the executive agency’s aim. The Affordable Care Act stipulates that no measure for the abolition of the board can be introduced before 2017 or after Feb. 1, 2017, and must be enacted by Aug. 15 of that year. So, one Congress presumed to bind all subsequent Congresses in order to achieve progressivism’s consistent aim — abolishing limited government by emancipating presidents from restraint by the separation of powers. This impertinence by the 111th Congress requires a firm rebuke by the 114th.

Repeal the Affordable Care Act’s tax on medical devices. This $29 billion blow to an industry that provides more than 400,000 jobs is levied not on firms’ profits but on gross revenues, and it comes on top of the federal (the developed world’s highest) corporate income tax, plus state and local taxes. Enough Democrats support repeal that a presidential veto might be overridden.

Improve energy, economic and environmental conditions by authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would reduce the risk of spills by reducing the transportation of oil in railroad tankers.

Mandate completion of the nuclear waste repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The signature achievement of Harry Reid’s waning career has been blocking this project, on which approximately $15 billion has been spent. So, rather than nuclear waste being safely stored in the mountain’s 40 miles of tunnels 1,000 feet underground atop 1,000 feet of rock, more than 160 million Americans live within 75 miles of one or more of the 121 locations where 70,000 tons of waste are stored.

Pass the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. It would require that any regulation with at least a $100 million annual impact on the economy — there are approximately 200 of them in the pipeline — be approved without amendments by a joint resolution of Congress and signed by the president. “In effect,” writes the Hudson Institute’s Christopher DeMuth, “major agency rules would become legislative proposals with fast-track privileges.” By requiring legislative complicity in especially heavy federal burdens, REINS is an ingredient in the recipe for resuscitating Congress, which has been far too eager to cede legislative responsibilities to the executive branch

Those all seem like common sense things to do.

[spookyturtle 9,465]

Those all seem like common sense things to do.

That's a guarantee that they won't be done.

[Darnell 8,478]

Well, it's a new session - what's up? any of this stuff get slung into new bills? yes? no?

if no, why no?

[luckytxn 2,263]

Wow this one doesn't even have a link to go read the article anywhere. Hope the author is rich and doesn't like to get paid for his hard work.

[elmcitymaven 9,711]

Here it is: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-first-steps-republicans-should-take/2014/11/05/8c0c0fde-6529-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

[luckytxn 2,263]

You have done this twice now so maybe you just dobn't know that it is not allowed to post an entire article and without a link to the article especially. I have reported this to mods to take the corrective action needed but you need to be more careful inthe future. It sets up the whole site to a lawsuit and fines.

Abolish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. This creature of the labyrinthine Dodd-Frank law violates John Locke’s dictum: “The legislative cannot transfer the power of making laws to any other hands. . . . The power of the legislative . . . [is] only to make laws, and not to make legislators.” The CFPB is empowered to “declare,” with no legislative guidance or institutional inhibitions, that certain business practices are “abusive.” It also embodies progressivism’s authoritarianism by being, unlike any entity Congress has created since 1789, untethered from all oversight mechanisms: Its funding, “determined by the director,” comes from the Federal Reserve.

Repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board. This expression of the progressive mind is an artifact of the Affordable Care Act and may be the most anti-constitutional measure ever enacted. It certainly violates the first words of the first section of the first article of the Constitution: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress.” The board’s purported function is to achieve the act’s purpose of cost-containment by reducing Medicare spending. When the IPAB’s 15 presidential appointees make what the Affordable Care Act calls a “legislative proposal” limiting reimbursements to doctors, this proposal automatically becomes law unless Congress passes a similar measure cutting Medicare spending. Under this constitutional travesty, an executive-branch agency makes laws unless the legislative branch enacts alternative means of achieving the executive agency’s aim. The Affordable Care Act stipulates that no measure for the abolition of the board can be introduced before 2017 or after Feb. 1, 2017, and must be enacted by Aug. 15 of that year. So, one Congress presumed to bind all subsequent Congresses in order to achieve progressivism’s consistent aim — abolishing limited government by emancipating presidents from restraint by the separation of powers. This impertinence by the 111th Congress requires a firm rebuke by the 114th.

Repeal the Affordable Care Act’s tax on medical devices. This $29 billion blow to an industry that provides more than 400,000 jobs is levied not on firms’ profits but on gross revenues, and it comes on top of the federal (the developed world’s highest) corporate income tax, plus state and local taxes. Enough Democrats support repeal that a presidential veto might be overridden.

Improve energy, economic and environmental conditions by authorizing construction of the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would reduce the risk of spills by reducing the transportation of oil in railroad tankers.

Mandate completion of the nuclear waste repository in Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. The signature achievement of Harry Reid’s waning career has been blocking this project, on which approximately $15 billion has been spent. So, rather than nuclear waste being safely stored in the mountain’s 40 miles of tunnels 1,000 feet underground atop 1,000 feet of rock, more than 160 million Americans live within 75 miles of one or more of the 121 locations where 70,000 tons of waste are stored.

Pass the Regulations from the Executive in Need of Scrutiny (REINS) Act. It would require that any regulation with at least a $100 million annual impact on the economy — there are approximately 200 of them in the pipeline — be approved without amendments by a joint resolution of Congress and signed by the president. “In effect,” writes the Hudson Institute’s Christopher DeMuth, “major agency rules would become legislative proposals with fast-track privileges.” By requiring legislative complicity in especially heavy federal burdens, REINS is an ingredient in the recipe for resuscitating Congress, which has been far too eager to cede legislative responsibilities to the executive branch

[Darnell 8,478]

maybe give him a pass on it, since this is from November?

I ressurected it cause there's a new session.

[luckytxn 2,263]

No. Mods need to do their job in the here and now.

[Darnell 8,478]

lucky - it would be interesting to see who shows up, if a lawsuit is filed against the site owner.

why? he's not in the usa and we don't know his name.

since the 'ask a lawyer' menu item was added, i care less and less about normal portal practices here .

[kev_n_jena 89]

You have done this twice now so maybe you just dobn't know that it is not allowed to post an entire article and without a link to the article especially. I have reported this to mods to take the corrective action needed but you need to be more careful inthe future. It sets up the whole site to a lawsuit and fines.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-first-steps-republicans-should-take/2014/11/05/8c0c0fde-6529-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

Happy? Probably not...

BTW, I'm a little busy right now, could you copy and paste the portion of the TOS that I need to be aware of for my future reference? Thanks in advance.

Kevin

Edited February 9, 2015 by kev_n_jena

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-the-first-steps-republicans-should-take/2014/11/05/8c0c0fde-6529-11e4-bb14-4cfea1e742d5_story.html

Happy? Probably not...

BTW, I'm a little busy right now, could you copy and paste the portion of the TOS that I need to be aware of for my future reference? Thanks in advance.

Kevin

But not too lazy to deny clicks to the rightful owner:

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

[kev_n_jena 89]

But not too lazy to deny clicks to the rightful owner:

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html

My gosh, have things really changed that much around here? All I said was that I was a little busy and that was a true statement. I'm at work and now I'm on lunch.

Not posting a link to the original article was an honest mistake on my part and I stand corrected. I don't visit this forum often as you can tell by my post count over 8 years. I happened to see via email notice that someone had quoted a post I made last November so I simply visited to see what was said.

It's amusing to me that after posting on forums for over twenty years I had never been told that someone was going to turn me in to the moderators! Congratulations to luckytxn on being the first!

[I AM NOT THAT GUY 5,715]

My gosh, have things really changed that much around here?

Yes.