Questions about Medicaid that Are Never Asked by Laurence M. Vance August 4, 2017 One of the problems that Democrats had with the feeble (and now failed) Republican efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare was that the Republican plans “cut” Medicaid spending. This is almost a mirror image of what happened in 2010 when the Democratic-controlled Congress passed Obamacare in the first place. After the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “cut” Medicare spending (i.e., it slowed the rate at which spending was increased), some Republicans accused Democrats of cutting a vital health-care program for the elderly. Medicaid is government-funded health care for poor Americans of any age and people with certain disabilities. It is the third-largest federal domestic program (after Social Security and Medicare) and the primary source of health-insurance coverage for low-income populations and nursing-home long-term care. Medicaid is a means-tested welfare program jointly financed by the federal government and the states, but designed and administered by the states within federal guidelines. The federal government pays states a specified percentage of program expenditures ...
Why Planned Parenthood Should Be Defunded by Laurence M. Vance July 21, 2017 For years now Republicans in Congress have expressed their intention to repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood. Although they failed to accomplish either goal individually, they came up with the bright idea of introducing a bill that would jointly achieve their objectives. If it passes. Because the Republicans had nearly absolute control of the government once Donald Trump was sworn into office, they could have had a bill to repeal Obamacare waiting on his desk in the oval office for his signature on Inauguration Day. A simple one-sentence bill is all that was necessary: “The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PL 111-148, 124 Stat. 119 through 124 Stat. 1025) is hereby repealed.” But because the Republicans were fixated on the need to “repeal and replace” Obamacare instead of just getting rid of Obama’s collection of tax increases masquerading as a health-care bill, back in March they introduced a replacement for Obamacare called the American Health Care Act of 2017 (AHCA). Their ...
How Not to Cut Welfare Spending by Laurence M. Vance July 1, 2017 The U.S. federal budget is now in the neighborhood of $4 trillion. Just ten years ago it wasn’t even $3 trillion. It was “only” $2 trillion in 2002, and didn’t reach the trillion dollar mark until 1987. The greatest component of the federal budget is spending on the welfare state. Welfare programs There are in the United States about 80 means-tested welfare programs. These are programs that limit benefits or payments on the basis of the beneficiary’s income or assets. The best-known of these programs are Medicaid; the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP); the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP ); Women, Infants, and Children (WIC); Section 8 housing vouchers, Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF); Pell grants; farm subsidies; subsidized student loans; Head Start; Healthy Start; Supplemental Security Income (SSI); school breakfast and lunch programs; and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP). The most egregious of these programs is the TANF program — formerly known ...
Trump’s Democratic Budget by Laurence M. Vance June 2, 2017 Although the Constitution doesn’t mention a federal budget, according to the Budget and Accounting Act of 1921, the president must annually submit a proposed federal budget to Congress for the next fiscal year by the first Monday in February. Because the government’s fiscal year runs from October 1 to September 30, the budget submitted in February is actually for ...
The Irrelevancy of Trump’s Cabinet Picks by Laurence M. Vance May 1, 2017 President Trump has nominated the members of his cabinet and they have gone through the Senate confirmation process. Democrats, predictably, have been critical of many of his appointments. Conservatives, and some libertarians, have praised some of Trump’s appointments for things that they have done and statements they have made that seem to be at odds with the mission of ...
Repealing Obamacare Is Not Enough by Laurence M. Vance April 7, 2017 Republicare is dead; Obamacare yet lives. The Republican bill to replace Obamacare — the American Health Care Act (AHCA), better known as Republicare — was withdrawn after the House Republican leadership realized that they did not have enough Republican votes to pass it. Too many Republicans wanted a simple bill to repeal Obamacare and not replace it with ...
Republicare by Laurence M. Vance March 16, 2017 The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as the PPACA or Obamacare, was signed into law by Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, without a single Republican vote. It was fitting that Obamacare’s first requirement was a new tax, since the new law was in large part just a collection of tax increases masquerading as a health-care law. ...
The Seasonal Republican Welfare Program by Laurence M. Vance February 23, 2017 The period from about the last week in February to the end of March is like a second Christmas season for some businesses. It is the time when millions of Americans receive their income tax refunds and suddenly have extra hundreds, and even thousands, of dollars to spend. But all tax refunds are not created equal. Many Americans will ...
Let the States Decide by Laurence M. Vance February 10, 2017 The federal minimum wage was instituted by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The rate was initially set at $0.25 an hour. By 1961, it had quadrupled to $1.00 an hour. The federal minimum has been at $7.25 an hour since 2009 — the result of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 that raised the federal minimum ...
It Is Congress That Needs to Be Limited by Laurence M. Vance January 1, 2017 Standing near the Long Island Expressway (LIE) — with tractor-trailers zooming by — U.S. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called on the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to swiftly finalize a proposed rule that would require electronic speed-limiting devices in large trucks, buses, and school buses that weigh more than 26,000 pounds. Said the senator in a press release, For ...
The Change America Needs Is Libertarianism by Laurence M. Vance November 1, 2016 The French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr (1808–1890) famously said that “the more things change, the more they stay the same.” This epigram is a perfect description of the American electoral process. Americans elect a new president every four years. Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have a two-year term. U.S. senators are elected for six years. That means that ...
Does the Second Amendment Even Exist? by Laurence M. Vance October 1, 2016 Gun control was going to be a campaign issue even before the Orlando Pulse nightclub shooting back on June 12. Donald Trump was endorsed by the National Rifle Association (NRA) after he spoke at the group’s convention in May and remarked that “the Second Amendment is under threat like never before” and that “crooked Hillary Clinton is the most anti-gun, ...
