Reflection on WSJ's "Boehner's Second Chance"

The Bigger they Are. . .

The Wall Street Journal claims that re-elected House Speaker John Boehner cannot be “ the main party spokesman.” He has hardly been a spokesman at all, even to his own party. He said nothing to influence the Presidential election. Boehner bombed his first chance with the fiscal cliff. He played the cards dealt to him, but poorly. He has caved on revenue increases. He did not even bother to run Plan B by his conference before pushing it on them.

More Congressmen should fill the role of PR for the GOP. Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield, CA) has already produced commercials to inform voters about the deleterious consequences of raising taxes on small business owners. Mick Mulvaney (R-South Carolina) has distinguished “good compromise” with spending cuts vs. bad compromise with spending increases.

Republicans definitely should reprise and revise the tactics of Democrats John Dingell and Henry Waxman, my current Congressman, who for the first time in his career barely won reelection in 2012 in a newly-drawn district.

Oversight Chairman Darrell Issa (R-San Diego, CA) could be the PR for the GOP and grandstand against Waxman, Obama, and their joint signature legislation, which I jokingly refer to as “Obama-WaxmanCare.” Give the liberal-progressives a taste of their own regulatory medicine. Perhaps the media frenzy would invalidate the new and unfunded entitlement so savagely that Congress will postpone enactment. What delicious irony if Issa used his subpoena power to vitiate Obamacare, the same legislation “proudly” drafted by the previous Democratic Oversight Committee Chairman: Congressman Henry Waxman!

"Now I am Very Much in Charge"

Bandwidth Auctions Better than Cap and Trade

http://www.denverpost.com/business/ci_22180261/u-s-lawmakers-say-auction-spectrum-will-leave

Waxman is going after the Internet bandwidths. The auction of space and broadcasting online is a better source of state revenue than Cap and Trade, which will place a Cap on Trade and drive businesses out of this country.

Just look at California.

Now, instead of focusing on  more revenue, when will Waxman go after the spending? The spending remains the problem, no matter what is going on.

When will he leave businesses along and free up the Internet bandwidth market?

Is there nothing that this man will not tax and regulate?

Is there no issue of greater importance than balancing budgets and ensuring that there is a fiscal budget in place for the future generations of this country?

Congressman Waxman's priorities from the beginning have been all about Big Government, Big Spending, and Big Everything else.

This country is founded on limited government, and Big Citizens.

Tell that to your bandwidth!

Obama-WaxmanCare and King Henry Waxman the Taxman

"All those taxes? Well we had to pass
the bill so that you could see what
was in the bill"

You need to know that your arguments fall on deaf ears in Santa Monica. This City has a large majority of registered democrats and we LOVE Henry Waxman. I can't imagine anyone better suited to represent me in congress than Henry Waxman. I actually feel blessed to have him as my representative! His "reign" has been underpinned by a large majority of very satisfied voters. He represents our views, he's effective and responsive. Since you brought up the imperial term "reign", I'll respond with an imperial slogan - "LONG LIVE HENRY WAXMAN!". Ellen Brennan Santa Monica

So, King Waxman the Taxman is showing his true colors for the first time. Over the past few days, the first few of many Obama-WaxmanCare taxes have come into effect.

The medical device surtax of 2.9% has become law, a charge which liberal Senator-elect Elizabeth Warren from liberal Massachusetts opposed. Now, every time a hospital wants to refurbish or replace medical devices, think stints, catheters, and the rest -- the hospital will have to pay more, and so will the patient. In Michigan, a purple state which is tilting slightly to the right, a number of medical device firms will either lay off workers or close down entirely.

A new 3.8% surtax on all capital gains and dividends, including homeowners, will now be levied. Want to invest in anything, you will pay a tax on it. Want to buy or sell any property, you will also pay a tax on it.

The bigger tax does not hit until January 2014, when businesses will either have to provide health insurance, or they will pay a hefty fine. Small businesses are giving up their healthcare plans altogether

Obamacare does not care for the young and still healthy in California, either:

1. Young health insurance recipients will pay higher premiums, even though the older demographics will use uo five times as much health care. Younger drivers pay more for the car insurance, but not because older people get into more accidents or take up more space on the road.

2. Because Obsama-WaxmanCare prohibits insurance companies from establishing annual limits, most universities will no longer offer low-cost health coverage for students since they cannot bear the cost of unending health care.

3. One unnoticed provision in the bill has nationalized the disbursement of student loan dollars. The federal government will print as much as it chooses to, followed by increase college costs, and more borrowing, which will only make a college education all the more unaffordable and unattainable.

4. The Medicaid expansion will crush already overburdened state budgets, which have no money left for education.

5. Young voters will be the diminished workforce of torrow, and they are going to be saddled with today's debt.

Speaking of national debt, Congress just passed a "Satan sandwich" fiscal cliff deal with will raise taxes on all who make more than $400k a year, followed by an extension of unemployment, a deferral of the sequester, and no spending cuts. The deal, hatched and patched in the midnight hour, will add four trillion dollars to the national debt, and the next generation will be paying for it.

When I contacted Congressman Waxman's office (January 3, 2013), the staffer acknowledged that Waxman voted for the fiscal cliff deal. According to the same staffer, Waxman did not approve the deal. He wanted the fiscal matters to be resolved, but he does not want the burden to fall on the middle class.

This noble talk flies in the face of reality, or assumes that his constituents have no knowledge, wisdom, or intelligence. During the previous decade, Congressman Waxman voted against every middle class and working class tax cut. He opposed tax credits for health savings accounts, and he voted against ending the marriage penalty and the death tax.

His signature law, Obama-WaxmanCare, is driving hospitals into bankruptcy while raising premiums and diminishing access. While one glowing website claims that more Americans have "access" to health coverage, the reality is far different. Just because there is more "access" does not mean anyone will get any more coverage. In fact, states must expand their Medicaid rolls, which will force current recipients to fight against the millions of newcomers for care from a wasteful and overburdened program. USNews and World Reports outlined how Obamacare kills job growth. A growing number if businesses are placing workers on part-time status to avoid the excessive healthcare costs associated with Obama-WaxmanCare.

While voters in 2012 may have chimed "Long Live Henry Waxman!", the fate of our health care and our state may not live as long as long as King Henry Waxman the Taxman remains in power. Then next time someone looks for a job, or uses their "access to health insurance" to get health care, they can thank Congressman Waxman for drafting a 2,400 page law which even he could not explain, which had to be passed so we could find all of these taxes in it, which is costing this country and its citizens dearly, and the worst is yet to come.

From YouTube -- Waxman the Progressive

@soapboxlady: California is a case study in what happens when progressives have control over state government. Going from one of the most efficient, educated populations, and well run states into a basket-case in 25 years. A place where everyone believes they are entitled to the fruits of someone else's labor. Well, when everyone wants "someone else" to pay and no one is left to earn the money, you are in serious trouble.

Exactly:

Socialism fails because eventually the government runs out of other people's money to spend.

Congressman Waxman and his President Barack Obama want to expand the power of the state.

The more laws the better, in their opinion. American citizens need as much help as they can get from the government, since individual liberty, responsibility, and  private enterprise are just too much for the average citizen.

Congressman Waxman is pushing the American nation closer down the road to serfdom. When will Democrats wake up and realize that equality is an elusive concept at best, that state force takes away power and liberty for anyone to do anything good for anyone, that the best intentions of the best men can produce the worst outcomes, for no one can overcome human nature by human force or will.

Congressman Waxman is still pushing the same offensive, pervasive nonsense that human beings are basically good, but if they just got a little bit of help, then a little bit more, then a little bit more, that mankind would be better off.

The notion is worse than a "Satan Sandwich", but a "Satan Banquet" which got Lucifer kicked out of heaven to fall into this fallen earth.

Not more government, but less government is what we need, but Congressman Waxman is not having any of it.

Waxman Jumps the Gun on Gun Control

As with many of his views, Congressman Henry Waxman has never been shy about gun control:

Within Firing Range, Nostrils Flaring

"If someone is so fearful that, that they're going to start using their weapons to protect their rights, makes me very nervous that these people have these weapons at all!"

The Bill of Rights does not provide an amendment on the right to bear arms so that Americans can go hunting. The Second Amendment is about protection, not just for the states from foreign invaders, but also for protection from the federal government. The Supreme Court has ruled by dicta (United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez) and by direct opinion (District of Columbia v. Heller) that the right to bear arms belongs to individuals. Does Congressman Waxman have a problem with the Supreme Court? Does he take offense that the Bill of Rights, as such, protects the rights of individuals, as rights cannot be conferred on anyone else and retain any merit or meaning?

Then again, no one should expect anything less from this liberal progressive than the further encroachment of the state, since he was one of the primary proponents of the argument (followed by prolix legislation) that the federal government can compel individuals to purchase health insurance.
The entire Democratic Congressional Delegation, including Waxman, supports reinstating the ban on assault rifles following the Sandy Hook Elementary School disaster. The citizens of Newtown, Connecticut have already been victimized atrociously. It is unfeeling and unthinkable that our leaders refuse to honor the memory of those murdered children and staff with pause and reflection before launching into another gun control tirade.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg callously assumed that this country is suffering from an "epidemic of gun violence".The Aurora, Colorado movie theater shooting remains fresh in the public consciousness, and the terrible Virginia Tech shooting in 2007 still rattles nerves. Yet contrary to media reports, which are clamoring for more gun control, the opposing argument for more concealed carriers deserves more attention. For example, students at Virginia Tech would have preferred more access to firearms so that individual students could have stopped the disgruntled and alienated graduate students' rage-induced massacre.

Despite the emotional backlash of these tragedies, the fault lies more with a media-induced hypersensitivity of exposure and exploitation instead of "an epidemic of gun violence." Now is not the time for our leaders to jump up and down demanding that every gun be confiscated and locked up. Following the just reasoning as suggested by the Virginia Tech survivors, every public school should permit at least one security personnel to have access to a firearm. One of the staff at Sandy Hook could have neutralized Adam Lanza before he wiped out an entire classroom of students.

Research has demonstrated that gun access alone does not lead to more violence. On the other hand, gun control does not diminish gun violence, either. Preventing law-abiding citizens from getting firearms will not stop criminals, thugs, and madmen from getting them and using them. Better to prevent and protect with armed deterrence than hope that the community police force will arrive in time to stop the killing. Instead of restricting guns, our state leaders and national government must permit at least one individual concealed carrier to bring firearms on school campuses.

On another note, Congressman Waxman (like many Democrats and now some Republicans) wants to get firearms off the streets. What about getting our returning and wounded armed forces off the streets, too? With all of the Congressman's letter writing and hand-wringing about guns, especially in the wake of the devastating attack on Sandy Hook Elementary School, Waxman should also demand that our military leaders get our troops out of Afghanistan, then get our returning wounded shelter, provisions, and proper health care at the Brentwood VA.

Instead of "take their guns away", "Dirty Harry" Waxman should show some resilience and mature reflection, leave the Second Amendment alone, and focus on fixing the fiscal cliff, getting our troops out of harms way in Central Asia, and restoring the Brentwood VA to caring and curing our veterans. The individual states must reflect on the proper course of action in the wake of the Sandy Hook tragedy. Hopefully, they will expand the legal limits for concealed carriers so that our public schools and our youth will no longer be easy targets for deranged mass murderers.

Thirty Governors (and Pizza Guys) Resist Obama-WaxmanCare

"I hate federalism!"

As a rule, progressive liberals (or is that progressives and liberals?) hate federalism, the institutional division of power between the states and the federal government. Specifically, Progressives despise the fact that fifty different states in the entire United States union can "go their own way" (to quote Fleetwood Mac) and spend their money and enact legislation as they see fit. By extension, progressives in principle resist the Constitution, for at its essence the national charter inevitably defines the federal government in limited terms, and for the Progressive, the expansion of the state into every corner of society will permit the perfectibility of mankind to take place.


In order to bypass the internal (infernal?) checks and balances within the federal compact between the states and the federal government, to exercise greater power over the states, leaders in Washington have resorted to withholding federal dollars (in effect, state tax dollars collected through the IRS). As states look for more innovate means for their citizens to hold onto their own money as well as diminish the role of the statehouse in the citizen' own house, the federal government will itself losing more money.


Following President Obama's reelection, followed by incremental increases in the House and the Senate, the progressive impulse to spend, expend, and finally expand state power remains as heated as ever. Along with the President, another progressive Democrat who faced a tough reelection, Congressman Henry Waxman, has also returned to office, yet clinching his seat by the lowest victory margin of his career.


From the outset of Obama's first term, Congressman Henry Waxman championed the ObamaCare power grab. Since the legislation is covered with his fingerprints (or red hands), the individual health insurance mandate/tax should be called Obama-WaxmanCare. The West LA Congressman championed this law before, during, and after its passage, yet this past summer he had trouble explaining its basic provisions in a CNN interview. Despite the frustrations of single-payer advocates, Waxman advocated legislation which would impose more regulations and require every person in this country to get health insurance or pay a fine.


Twenty-two states sued the federal government to enjoin enforcement of the law, claiming that the legislation so stretched the elastic clause (necessary and proper). The legal challenges also charged that Obamacare vacated the commerce clause of its original intent by authorizing the federal government to compel individuals to enter into commerce. Critics across the spectrum asked: "If Congress can force me to purchase health insurance, what can't they force me to buy?" Chief Justice John Roberts upheld the individual mandate, but not based on the commerce clause. Using unexpectedly twisted judicial reasoning, the Roberts Court argued that Congress' power to tax authorized the federal government to require every American to have access to affordable health insurance.

The United States does need health care reform. Yet following the passage of Obamacare, health insurance premiums have increased while access has decreased. ObamaCare failed to fight off lawsuit abuse, one of the prime instigators for rising health insurance rates along with the spiraling costs of health care. A simpler reform would have permitted individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines. Health Savings Accounts would encourage people to invest in their own health care over time and grant them a tax credit for any money invested in the fund. Waxman has rebuffed selling health insurance across state lines, and he voted against tax credits for health savings accounts.


One critical feature of Obama-WaxmanCare, the statewide health exchanges, would ensure that enough money was coming into the system to insure anyone who cannot afford health insurance. The IRS reported that their interpretation of the would ignore that heads of households have access to employer funded health insurance, yet most businesses do not cover the rest of the family. Because of the head income earner's salary, they would be priced out of receive the federal subsidy for health insurance.


30 states have opposed implementing Obama-WaxmanCare. Governor Tim Scott of Florida shut down any steps for Obamacare exchanges. So has Governor Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, the first Republican governor to suggest that contraception should be purchased over the counter, beyond the purview of the federal government. Rick Perry and the rest of the expanded GOP governor's conference have taken federalism to the limit, pushing back against Washington power-grabbing. Twenty-nine other states have also told off "Nanny State" Mother Washington that they refuse to implement health exchanges. Their staunch resistance is shooting more holes in this untimely, ill-conceived, and ill-advised legislation.


Chris Christie, Republican Governor of New Jersey, candidly admitted to fellow New Jerseyan Jon Stewart on "The Daily Show": "If the federal government does not know how to run this thing, then why should I waste my state's money to try and put this thing together?" He runs a two-to-one Democratic state with a sometime-sympathetic legislature, at least when it comes to reining in the costs of the public sector union pensions and benefits. His courage to face off against the Obama Administrations officious expansion of power deserves as much regard as his genuine respect for the President's assistance after Superstorm Sandy.


While disquieted independents, conservatives, Republicans, and many Democrats feared the worst following the Supreme Court's ruling to uphold Obama-WaxmanCare, the several states have severed all support for this law, which will further cripple the financial backing anticipated by the law's enthusiasts, including Congressman Waxman. Now the CEO of Dominic's Pizza and Papa John's are also filing lawsuits against the federal government for advancing such a monstrosity upon the states.


Thirty governors rejected the Obama-WaxmanCare health exchanges. Private business leaders are still challenging the law, and already Waxman has expressed concern that the federal government will delay enforcing the law. Perhaps Congressman Waxman would have been better off retiring instead of witnessing his "signature" legislation" stiffen Republican opposition and frustrate the progressive agenda.

Waxman's Whining; Fiscal Cliff Looming

The fiscal cliff is looming in Washington D.C., yet Congressman Henry Waxman has refused to meet with voters in the 33^rd Congressional District. Instead, he frequents Beltway press conferences defending Medicare against any reforms. Waxman remains unrestrained in his belief that the rich should pay “their fair share”, but he refuses to support “means testing” so that richer Medicare recipients pay more for benefits for which they pay practically nothing.

Still, the Congressman is convinced that the United States can solve the fiscal and environmental problems all at once. By resurrecting his abortive Cap and Trade legislation, the federal government can tax businesses and close up the budget shortfalls. Waxman should be taking heavy heat for shedding light on inane issues which the Congress and the country kicked away three years ago. Both Republicans and Democrats put a cap on Cap and Trade in 2009, and in West Virginia’s US Senator Joe Manchin has pledged to “bust a cap” in any legislation which includes such officious provisions.

Despite Waxman’s reputation for blowing hot air, the 33^rd Congressional District deserves more than  whining about global warming, while budget reform is getting no vetting. The federal government is drowning in red ink, yet Waxman is worried about climate change and the rising ocean tides. The tide of public opinion in the Santa Monica Bay should be pushing him into fiscal realities or should push him out of office into the sea with his fellow failed liberal colleagues Howard Berman and Peter Stark.