Obamacare: The Second Bite of the Cherry.

Sometimes, I wonder whether America’s esteemed Founding Fathers would look at Washington’s political processes, shake their heads and ask, “How did we create this?”

As readers know, there has always been a tension between the legislative and executive branches of the American government. Frequently, voters elect a Republican to occupy the White House with Democrats controlling both Houses of Congress, or vice versa. When this happens, governing becomes problematical, which was what the Framers intended.

However, the Supreme Court, the so-called “least dangerous branch”, sometimes weighs in to make nonsense of laws which have been approved by both Congress and the President. For example, in 1935, the Court totally wrecked Roosevelt’s New Deal legislation. That’s for another time.

In March this year, the Court will hear arguments in a lawsuit that claims the Administration does not have legal authority to grant tax subsidies to millions of people who have insured their health under the Affordable Care Act. I do not understand why the Court has agreed to take the suit. Surely, the provisions of the Act have already been approved. The Court’s decision may well be political. There is a majority of Republican Supremes on the bench.

The ACA is the centrepiece of President Obama’s presidency. More than ten million Americans now have health insurance as a result of the legislation. Undoubtedly, its benefits will be proclaimed by Democratic candidates in the 2016 elections. Possibly, the Republicans want to remove this advantage. They cannot achieve anything by seeking a repeal of the Act in a Congress which they control. They know the President would veto such a ploy. Sadly, the Democrats do not have the votes in Congress to change the law themselves.

The passage of the Affordable Healthcare Bill in Congress was brutal. Many long fights resulted in the passing of an emasculated law but something was better than nothing if those Americans who could not afford health insurance were to be helped. After the President signed the Bill into law, it became the subject of several law suits, culminating, in 2012, with a Supreme Court approval of the law in a 5-4 decision. After a slow start, more than thirteen million Americans have signed up and now enjoy health insurance.

Since the 2012 decision, the ACA has been under constant attack from Congressional Republicans who would deny healthcare to those who cannot afford it. These people now believe they have found a loophole in the Act, which provides that tax subsidies can be enjoyed by people buying insurance cover in state-run marketplaces but not those who buy from a federal marketplace. The federal government currently operates marketplaces in 34 states, so if the Supremes find for the plaintiff Republicans this time round, the ACA will be gutted because 85% of insured persons under the ACA need the tax credit to pay the premiums.

If the 34 states concerned wished, they could establish their own insurance marketplaces but none have made the effort to do so since the Court announced it would hear the case. Yet in the past two months, 6.5 million Americans have enrolled for health cover. The percentage of uninsured Americans has dropped to 13%, the lowest figure since 2008. Surely, this is the best argument to keep the Act intact.

Both the Supreme Court justices and members of Congress enjoy the best medical health plans available in USA, at the taxpayer’s expense. It would be ironic at best and disgraceful at worst if these people decide that poor and disadvantaged Americans should be denied health insurance because the latter cannot afford insurance without a tax break.

The Republican ideology on this issue is dumbfounding and potentially a vote loser. I can only hope the Supreme Court upholds the needs of the many and maintains its 2012 decision that the ACA is indeed constitutional.

The Theatre of the State of the Union Message

David Fitzsimmons / Arizona Daily Star, Cagle Cartoons

Under the American Constitution, there are comparatively few stated obligations placed on the President. One is that “He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall deem expedient.”

So, by tradition, every January the President comes to Congress and delivers a State of the Union speech to a very crowded chamber. Not only are there present members of the House of Representatives and Senators. All members, bar one, of the Cabinet, all the Supreme Court justices and all Joint Chiefs of the armed forces are seated in the chamber. The First and Second Ladies, guests of senior members and other great and good are seated in the gallery. It is quite a sight. Why is one cabinet member left out? If the Capitol is attacked and all members of the administration present are killed, there will be one left to govern.

Some presidents are not good speakers but since the end of World War II, there have been three exceptions, men who can hold an audience. JFK had the benefit of great scriptwriters but he could really deliver a line. Bill Clinton had a folksy way of grabbing an audience. Who else but Bubba would say in his first SoU, “you play the cards you’re dealt.” However, these men are outclassed by Barak Obama who has almost unprecedented oratorical skills. In set piece situations, arguably no-one has been better.

This year, Mr Obama delivered his sixth State of the Union message and the first when the opposition party holds both Houses of Congress. Would he be conciliatory and appeal to Republicans in Congress to look at a different legislative deal? Would he reach out to the moderates of both parties and to the middle class voters who have struggled since the recession? Would he play to the Democratic base? Well, he did all three.

Briefly, he sought to appeal to the Republicans when he suggested employers should prefer veterans of the armed forces in their employment practices. Then, he took a swing at the rich who enjoy tax privileges, suggesting it was wrong for the middle classes to subsidise the wealthy. He wants a big tax hike on rich Americans. I asked myself, why has it taken the Obama administration six years to get nowhere on this issue? He talked about it in SoU 1.

As for the Democratic base, the president said he would now close “Gitmo.” Guantanamo Bay is a prison, a place of potential war crimes, where inmates have few if any rights. At this announcement, the cameras swung to the Joint Chiefs, all looking like thunder. If Gitmo was a simple matter, it would have been dealt with years ago. Then the President talked about education and the expense of attending college. He announced an intention of making Community College free at the point of service. In the US, there is a long-standing tradition of working one’s way through college. This was something of a fantasy Walter Mitty moment as the funding would evidently come from the tax hike on the rich. But the numbers just don’t work.

At times, men and women in the chamber feel obliged to stand and applaud pronouncements. For those of you who have not seen a SoU message, it’s a little like being in a house of religion or a rock concert, where you stand up and sit down like yo-yos. As this is politics, applause is added. Although legislators can sit where they like in the chamber, it’s usual for party members to sit together, so quite often half the chamber stands, whilst the other half looks glum and sullen. Perhaps the real significance is all rise and applaud, across party lines.

The Republicans became animated when the President said, “I have no more campaigns to fight.” There was laughter and a little cheering from their side but Mr Obama went off script, leered at his opponents and said “You’ll remember that I won my last two.” He was referring to his victories over John McCain and Mitt Romney. This brought the Democrats to their feet.

There was much in the speech to be admired. The theme was expansive government action on scientific research, education and the environment within a fast-growing economy, as well as a desire to seek common ground on voting rights and criminal justice, and a proposal to raise taxes on the wealthy to fund college tuition and paid leave for working parents.

What chances are there that the President’s programs will be passed by this Congress? A snowball’s prospects in hell seem to offer better odds. Mr Obama showed, if nothing else, that he was up for a fight. As for the SoU experience, I like the theatrical so I enjoyed the hour of the President’s speech. Does it mean anything in political terms? I very much doubt it.

The White House Big Block of Cheese Day

 President Andrew Jackson made quite a reputation for himself in the White House. He championed “to the victor the spoils” as he dealt his political opponents one blow after another. He was, of course, the first chief executive who was not part of the Founding Father clique and I suspect he wanted to distance himself from his forebears.

This populist president opened the doors of his White House to ordinary citizens and sought to deal with whatever problems were presented. Naturally, when the news of this largess spread, many people presented themselves at the mansion. Jackson, concerned they might be hungry, provided a big block of cheese on which they could nibble while they waited. Jackson’s opponents argued that the President was luring the people with the offer of free cheese. How small minded can you get? But that’s American politics for you. It seems to travel through the ages.

I confess I had not heard about Big Block of Cheese Day until Leo McGarry, the fictitious Chief of Staff to President Bartlet and one of the scions of The West Wing, ensured that all his staff for one working day made themselves available to members of the public and seek to understand their issues. Leo might have said to them, “today you will give an Edam.” We heard about unidentified flying objects, a 3000 mile road for wolves and a map of the world that needed to be turned upside down, so that Australia was on top. I won’t go into more detail, save to say the episode was hilarious and food for thought, even if a little cheesy.

Last year, the Obama White House revived the custom. However, voters were not invited to the White House to taste the cheddar. Instead, they were asked to raise questions on-line with WH officials about the President’s agenda for the coming year. The event, limited to computer use, seems to me to defeat the high ideals of Big Block. People should come, complain and eat.

The President has repeated the event this year, on the day after the State of the Union address. If the White House wants to promote the executive’s agenda, all well and good but please don’t link it to the Big Block of Cheese tradition.  

Je Suis Charlie

Je Suis Charlie? Maybe. I Am Certainly ACLU

This week, Charlie Hebdo will publish its magazine and feature a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed on its front cover. Is this an act of defiance to challenge what took place at its offices in Paris a week ago? Is it an act of folly as it may endanger other publications and journalists? Is it bravado, knowing that an extreme section of the Muslim community will be offended and might react adversely? It is all these things but, most important, it is a demonstration of the value of freedom of speech, one of the pillars of the way of life enjoyed by those who live by the rules of western liberalism.

I have to admit I had not heard of the French magazine until last week. I have read some of the back issues and find its brand of satire a little hard to take. However, the magazine does not discriminate. It has poked fun at the political right wing, especially France’s National Front led by the Le Pens. It has been merciless about the transgressions of Francois Hollande and Nicholas Sarkozy. It has mocked all religions and their leaders. It does not attack the Muslim faith to the exclusion of others.

However, like other satirist publications, it may on occasion have taken things too far. This is part and parcel of satire. In our free, liberal society, provided what is said or printed is not against the law, anything goes.

The First Amendment to the American Constitution protects freedom of speech. It is arguably the liberty that Americans hold most dear. It is protected by numerous Supreme Court rulings. However, it also has an interest group, the American Civil Liberties Union, whose mission is to defend and preserve individual rights and liberties, guaranteed by the Constitution to all American citizens.

In late 1919, in the face of a “red scare”, US Attorney General Palmer oversaw the rounding up of so-called radicals in what became known as “the Palmer Raids.” Thousands of people were arrested without warrants as constitutional protections were disregarded. The ACLU was created to take a stand against such egregious abuses of civil liberties.

Over the past hundred years, the ACLU has been at the forefront of numerous legal battles. It was a partner with Clarence Darrow in the 1925 Scopes trial, when the state of Tennessee banned the teaching of evolution. After Pearl Harbour when 110,000 Japanese Americans were uprooted from their homes and “relocated” to war camps, the ACLU stood alone, speaking out about this atrocity. In 1954, the ACLU joined forces with the NAACP in Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, the case which led to desegregation of schools, a major victory for racial justice.

The ACLU does not discriminate. In 1978, it defended the rights of a Nazi group which wanted to march through the Chicago suburb of Stokie, Illinois, the home of many Holocaust survivors. The ACLU persuaded a federal court that city ordinances restricted the Nazis’ First Amendment rights.

The decision confirmed and demonstrated the ACLU principle that constitutional rights must apply to even the most unpopular groups and causes if they are to be preserved for everyone. So, for example, those Americans who seek to prevent the burning of the nation’s flag in public would be challenged by ACLU members on grounds that, unpalatable as this act may be, it is the constitutional right of all Americans to freely act in burning the flag, provided no criminal offence takes place at the same time.

This, surely, is the lesson to be learned by those who would challenge freedom of speech rights. The law and individual rights do not apply merely to some citizens and not others. The principle that the law is blind applies. Therefore, it is essential that attacks on freedom of speech be met with the pen, not the sword.

When is a Political Scandal not a Scandal?

Cartoon: Dan Wasserman, Boston Globe

Partisan politics play an important, if unpleasant, role in western democracies. There is entertainment value as the media impress on its public the latest escapades of the targeted politician, to the embarrassment of the victim  and his political party and the schaudenfreude of his political opponents.

Washington DC has played host to many political scandals. Arguably, the greatest was the unseating of Richard Nixon as president in 1974, as the Democrats in Congress made Nixon’s life unbearable, joined by their Republican colleagues when defence of the President became hopeless.

Over the New Year, two scandals were unearthed on Capitol Hill, when the transgressions of two Republican congressmen hit the headlines. The first, Michael Grimm (R-Ohio), pleaded guilty to federal tax-evasion charges. Correctly, the Republican leadership moved quickly to oust Grimm from office. A man who owns up to a felony cannot remain a legislator. So far, so good.

The second individual, Steve Scalise, (R-La), acknowledged that in 2002 he addressed a white-supremacist group. Scalise, the House Majority Whip, received the support of the Republican leadership despite the possibility that yet another racial controversy might have potential political fallout for the 2016 election.

So far, the Democrats have exploited the issue but have not called for Scalise’s ouster. Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority Leader, characterised the incident as “deeply troubling” and cited as racist the Republicans’ recent failure to re-authorise elements of the Voting Rights Act, as well as  their challenge to the President’s executive orders to change immigration policy.

I find myself in a strange position, that of supporting a Republican legislator. Scalise did indeed address the European-American Unity and Rights Organization, founded by ex- Klansman David Duke, at a conference in 2002, when he was a Louisiana legislator. However, there have been no reports of what Scalise actually said. Nor have the Democrats shown that Scalise repeated his attendance of white-supremacy meetings over the ensuing twelve years.

Furthermore, neither the EAURO, nor the KKK, nor even the John Birch Society, are proscribed by the government under American law. Were this to happen, the American Civil Liberties Union would undoubtedly protest and commence a law suit against the government.

American are rightly proud and protective of their right to free speech, even if the words spoken run contra to everything they believe. In 1922, Republican President Warren Harding visited Alabama, where he spoke to an exclusively white audience. He told the group, “If American equality does not mean legal and political equality for blacks, then American democracy is a sham.” Unsurprisingly, the speech enraged the southern press. Who is to say that Scalise did not deliver a similar message? Unlikely, I grant you, as he remained a legislator but the Democrats cannot be on solid ground if they rely solely on Scalise’s attendance to dub him racist.

If this attempt to unseat Scalise is the best the Democrats can do, the Republicans will hardly be shaking in their boots.