Amazing — Mitt Romney doubles down on his own personal albatross:
If I were president, on Day One I would issue an executive order paving the way for Obamacare waivers to all 50 states.
This is precisely, exactly what not to do on Day One, governor. On Day One, you make the first order of business signing the total repeal of Obamacare after it passes both houses of the new congress.
The executive order would direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services and all relevant federal officials to return the maximum possible authority to the states to innovate and design health-care solutions that work best for them.
Obamacare wasn’t about health care, governor; it was about power. It was a solution to an essentially non-existent “crisis” that could have been fixed with less regulation and more competition, not more government.
As I have stated time and again, a one-size-fits-all national plan that raises taxes is simply not the answer. Under our federalist system, the states are “laboratories of democracy.” They should be free to experiment. By the way, what works in one state may not be the answer for another.
Where has Mitt been since 2008, in the Social Security lockbox? The battle over Obamacare had nothing to do with states being laboratories of democracy. And as for that “what works in one state” bit, I wonder which state he’s talking about.
Of course, the ultimate goal is to repeal Obamacare and replace it with free-market reforms that promote competition and lower health-care costs. But since an outright repeal would take time, an executive order is the first step in returning power to the states.
Of course.
The governor’s 50-state nullification strategy would be a surrender, not a victory, since it leaves the philosophical premise of Obamacare intact. But it seems to me that what the American people — those living between New Jersey and Nevada, anyway — voted for last November was not finagling around the edges but a head-on assault against the excesses of the Pelosi-Reid Congress and Obamaism.
Obamacare was and remains the first big, ugly, visible manifestation of domestic “fundamental change,” and it hasn’t gotten any prettier in the year it’s been stalking the countryside. That the governor hasn’t figured that out yet tells me he won’t be getting a promotion to president in 2012.
Obviously, Walsh doesn't grasp sarcasm.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMichael,
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseThe President cannot unilaterally repeal Obamacare. He has to have an HR and/or SB before him to sign to do it. He can't do it by executive order -- that would be an Obama-like abuse of power. What he can do, and what he just said he's do, is order the HHS secretary to grant waivers which are within his power.
Mitt seems to be positioning himself as the Big Tent Republican of this election cycle: you know, elephants, clown cars, guy being shot out of a canon, that sort of thing.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOddly the fact that Romney is forced to make a federalism argument makes me more drawn to him. I think Romney would sign a law repealing Obamacare, I am not sure what he was saying about the EOs, but repealing would be the most preferable outcome. I don't think you need 60 votes in the Senate to do that, just 50 and a veep. Reconciliation. It may no longer be the Democrats favorite word.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseDoes Romney intend to rule by decree?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWow. I found Romney's post to be poorly written and incoherent, but Walsh's take on it is even worse. "On Day One, you make the first order of business signing the total repeal of Obamacare"? The President cannot DO that, Michael, at least not on Day One.
Then there's this: "It was a solution to an essentially non-existent “crisis” that could have been fixed with less regulation and more competition..."
Sorry, but you can't argue both of these at once. If the crisis is non-existent, then there is nothing to fix and it is meaningless to discuss solutions. If a crisis does exist, then we can try to figure out how to fix it and try to block ineffective solutions. Mitt's proposed solution at least has the whiff of conservatism about it, whereas Walsh seems to be calling for the abuse of executive power *while simultaneously condemning such abuses*.
I'm a bit amazed to find myself defending Romney, no matter how weakly, but I suppose anything is possible when Walsh flies off the handle like this.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAs I was saying I just like hearing a politician say that he would do things differently as president than as he was Governor. Pols trying to run on their record sometimes end up saying... "...and if you elect me, I will do all the great things I did in -insert state here- for the nation." They shouldn't do that, the roll of president and governor are different.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseMichael,
I agree with SeanB, although I think that a President Romney's first act would be to send a letter to Congress requesting a bill that would repeal Obamacare.
His second act should be the EO.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseRomney's suggestion that granting waivers to every state would be a good way to attack Obamacare is possibly the most clueless thing any politician has ever committed to writing. Letting each state find its own path to fully-socialized, single payer health care financing wouldn't be a step forward.
Maybe a GOP President faced with a determined Democrat Congress might undermine Obamacare by granting blanket waivers to states and businesses. But what Romney suggests would be insane for any Republican who beat Obama and came into office with at least the House in GOP hands.
The new President could kill Obamacare unilaterally on inauguration day. Nobody can make the President implement a law he considers unconstitutional. Why mess about with waivers when you can just announce that the law is a dead letter and refuse to implement it? With his party in control of the House and Obamacare as popular as the clap there's no way a President gets impeached for nullifying it. Any President who would rather use Obamacare than kill it, given the chance, would be part of the problem not part of the solution.
Go away Mitt -- far, far away.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>"On Day One, you make the first order of business signing the total repeal of Obamacare."
That would be an impressive trick indeed. You do understand that it presupposes a Republican super-majority in the Senate along with a majority in the House? And to do it on "Day One" presupposes that these majorities pass the repeal in a matter of hours rather than weeks.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>"Why mess about with waivers when you can just announce that the law is a dead letter and refuse to implement it?"
Cool. Can we do the same thing with the IRS and Social Security?
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseGood job, Michael Walsh.
Keep at it, because the statists, in either party, never get it and never give up. If all we're going to get in response to this catastrophe is everyday Republican janitorial socialism, cleaning up after the aggressive malignant socialists in the other party, then Europe awaits us. I would rather live in America.
We don't need a health care "system." We need individual medical firms competing in a market where the eyes haven't been gouged out of price signals. Not bureaucrats at state or federal levels dithering around with our lives.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI trust that Romney is smart enough to amend his views and behavior to get elected.
I also trust that Romney is unprincipled enough to make his behavior, once elected, an embarrassment to conservatives.
Done with fake conservatives. Either have the courage to run a true conservative against Obama - conservatism winning or losing on the merits - or I'm pulling Barry's lever.
And I ain't joking. If the SCOTUS ends up being restocked with Ginsberg clones, that will be the GOP's fault, not mine.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseOf course the President could abolish the IRS and nullify Social Security -- if the people would put up with it, which they wouldn't.
A President who declared the income tax unconstituitonal and refused to collect it would be impeached, convicted and removed from office if the Vice President and cabinet didn't declare him incompetent first. Ditto a President who stopped sending out Social Security checks on the theory that the SSA is an unconstitutioinal excrescence.
A President who issued an EO declaring Obamacare unconstitutional, firing every bureaucrat hired to implement it and stating that it would have no effect during his presidency would see his poll numbers rise and suffer no negative repercussions at all. A conservative President wouldn't need tamely to implement Obamacare merely because he couldn't get repeal past a filibuster in the Senate. He would have the constitutional power to nullify (that's separation of powers, baby) and he would have the political clout as well.
If the Romneys of this world are prepared to work with Obamacare even if they have the power to destroy it, that means they don't seriously want to destroy it. They like the power it cedes to government. They are the enemy and they must be defeated.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseIt is easy to forget that, much like the stimulus package, Obamacare was the cumulation of of over forty years of Liberal frustration at not getting what they wanted. Forty years of scheming and planning to get single payer healthcare.
Obamacare started with funding included in the stimulus package, followed up with a 2700 page bill plus additional funding hidden in the budget.
Obamacare has spread like a spiders web throughout the government. Nothing less than full repeal will do.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAmazing -- that Walsh has such a limited grasp on how government works that he thinks that a president could sign a bill on day one that has been written, debated, and passed.
Obamacare grants the executive branch (in the person of the HHS Secretary, who works for the president) vast regulatory powers; Romney is simply saying that he would use those powers on day one to stop the federal dictates of that bill that are so damaging to the states. Then he would work with Congress on repeal.
It's not a very difficult concept. I would have expected at least a rudimentary understanding of civics from one who posts to the Corner.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>"Of course the President could abolish the IRS and nullify Social Security -- if the people would put up with it, which they wouldn't"
So much for that "rule of law" business.
Reply to this commentLinkReport Abuse>"I also trust that Romney is unprincipled enough to make his behavior, once elected, an embarrassment to conservatives."
There's one thing worse than an unprincipled Republican, and that is a principled Republican with liberal principles. We've had far too many of those - Nixon and both Bush Sr and Bush Jr come to mind. Somebody who sticks his finger in the air to see which why the wind is blowing would actually be a big step up on the typical Republican President.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseI think we have better choices than Mitt Romney, not least because he bit off on the pernicious idea of the individual mandate and thereby became the architect of Obamacare 1.0. But commenters here need to understand that making something "the first order of business" on day one and expecting to have it accomplished by day two are not close to the same thing.
The problem with Romney's pledge to issue EOs exempting all 50 states is this: he is drafting a strategy in an absence of relevant facts. Here are several facts that anyone with nine brain cells would want to know before deciding how to proceed:
1) How big were Romney's Senate (and to a lesser extent, House) coattails? If he is moving into 1600 Penn with while the Senate is swearing in, say, 55 Republicans, then outright repeal MIGHT be possible even if 60 votes are needed. There might well be 5 Senate Democrats up for re-election in 2014 that will see the wisdom of acquiescing to the demands of the public as expressed in two consecutive elections.
2) Can Obamacare be repealed, as it was passed, through reconciliation, lowering the number of votes needed to 50 plus the Veep?
3) How salient was the Obamacare issue in the 2012 campaign? If it was THE major issue, and if Republicans won the White Hoouse and re-took the Senate, plus even more House seats, then the mandate exists to repeal it. Why whould President Ronmey, under those circumstances, want to relieve the pressure of the issue through EO? I say, push for repeal, and let the Dems block if they dare. That would extend their audacious contempt for the will of the electorate to almost 6 years before the 2014 midterms.
4) What is the state of the Supreme Court's near-certain review of Obamacare? If the whole mess is likely to be tossed out, a la Judge Robert Vinson, then the EO exemptions in the meantime might be a viable route.
Romney's declaration amounts to drafting an endgame strategy four moves into the chess game. It also smacks of secret desperation to find a novel way to address what even he realizes is very likely a disqualifying element of his resume.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseWalsh rewrote his comment (without acknowledging that he'd done so) in order to add an explicit reference to Congress. His post still doesn't work, however, since Romney of course has no way to guarantee that such a bill will be passed. Somehow it's not very Presidential, or rhetorically effective for that matter, to say "Well, if, after the election, the Senate and House composition are such that the passage of repeal is possible, and if in fact they do get around to passing an appeal before I'm inaugurated, and if in fact it says what I want it to say instead of being filled with loopholes, then by golly I'll sign it!"
Note that Romney does say that he wants to repeal Obamacare; he just acknowledges that he can't do it immediately. Walsh simply dismisses this statement without substantive criticism.
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