September 30, 2016
"to elevate the condition of men--to lift artificial weights from all shoulders, to clear the paths of laudable pursuit for all, to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance, in the race of life." --Abraham Lincoln
Chairman's Note: Don't Settle
Yesterday, the Senate passed a 10-week continuing resolution by a 72-26 vote. I voted against the bill and I want to explain why.
A continuing resolution is a bill that basically keeps the government funded through an autopilot type mechanism. It just keeps the government headed in the same direction. It doesn’t really change much.
Today’s continuing resolution comes just a couple of days before the expiration of the current spending bill that expires on September 30th. The problem with this is that we’ve known for a year that this was going to happen. We’ve known for a year that September 30th would arrive, that at that moment we would have to pass something or risk a government shutdown.
Now there was an effort to fund the government properly through itemized appropriations bills. And that effort was blocked by the Democrats. And they will have to answer for that.
But even if we are going to do it all in one bill, they ought to at least put it on the Senate floor, and allow us to debate it, and discuss it, and amend it, and make changes to it.
Instead, what ends up happening is that you have just a small handful of legislative leaders, negotiating in secret about what is going to be in the bill.
Then at the end of this long mysterious process, they emerge as if coming down from a mountain with stone tablets showing us what they have mysteriously put together. And at that point everyone is given a binary choice that is very unpleasant: either vote to pass this bill and keep the government funded or you vote no and a government shutdown ensues.
Well it doesn’t have to be that way and it shouldn’t be that way. The spending power that Congress has is one of the most important pieces of the constitutional puzzle. It has to mean something. If we allow it to be powerful, if we allow it to do what it was intended to, it really can work well.
James Madison described this power in Federalist 58. He said it was “the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people for obtaining a redress of every grievance and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure.”
But in order for every just and salutary measure to be covered, you have to allow every member an opportunity to offer improvements, to try and change things one way or another.
Anyone who purports to believe in constitutionally limited government ought to care enough about the process to make sure that Congress doesn’t become a rubber stamp for the small handful of legislative leaders who put themselves in charge of this behind-the-scenes, closed-door negotiation process.
We’ve been asked as a people for too long to simply settle. To simply settle for last minute legislation, for a government that’s always expanding, for a government that thinks its there to provide for our every need, that thinks its big enough and smart enough to make every decision for us. We’ve been asked to settle for too long.
Don’t settle.
Issue in Focus: Stopping Another Obamacare Bailout
When President Obama made his case to the American people for Obamacare, he promised that it would both lower health insurance premiums and not add to the national debt.
Neither has been true.
One way Obamacare has been adding to the deficit is through illegal bailouts of insurance companies operating Obamacare plans through the Department of Health and Human Services.
The Government Accountability Office highlighted one bailout scheme yesterday when it released a report finding that since 2014, HHS has been illegally sending billions of “reinsurance” fees to insurance companies instead of sending those dollars to the United States Treasury where they belong.
But that isn’t the only way the Obama administration is plotting to illegally funnel your money to insurance companies.
A separate “risk corridor” program also promised Obamacare insurance companies a safety net if their customers used an unexpectedly high amount of health care. The way it was supposed to work was that those plans with low medical costs would pay into a fund and plans with high medical costs would take out of the fund. In theory, the fund was supposed to be deficit neutral.
But in reality far more plans experienced higher costs than they anticipated leaving HHS with billions in claims from insurance companies but no way to pay them. The Obama administration has asked Congress to appropriate money to bail out these insurance companies, but Congress has rightly refused.
So now HHS is getting creative. On September 9, 2016 HHS issued a memorandum addressing suits filed by insurance companies in federal court demanding risk corridor payments. HHS wrote that, “as in all cases where there is litigation risk, we are open to discussing resolution of those claims,” and that “we are willing to begin such discussions at any time.”
This language appears to suggest that HHS may be trying to illegally funnel money to Obamacare insurers through the Department of Justice’s Judgment Fund. In other words, since Congress has not appropriated money for non-budget neutral risk corridor payments, HHS will just invite insurance companies to sue, and then the DOJ can pay the bill instead.
This week, Sens. Marco Rubio (R-UT), Ben Sasse (R-NE), John Barrasso (R-WY), and I wrote a letter to DOJ and HHS this week to make sure that doesn’t happen. Our letter notes that the Congressional Research Service has already found that the Judgment Fund may not be used to settle risk corridor claims and asks HHS to identify how they plan to pay the risk corridor settlements mentioned in their September 9th letter.
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Sens. Lee and Rubio Call Out “Cultural Imperialism” of OAS
WASHINGTON – Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) today urged the State Department to fully implement the Organization of American States (OAS) Revitalization and Reform Act of 2013 and address concerns about the OAS imposing its cultural views on OAS member states.
The U.S. provided for more than one-third – or 41.7 percent – of the OAS’ 2015 total budget, continuing the historic pattern of the U.S. contributing the largest sum of funds for this multilateral organization. The OAS Revitalization and Reform Act of 2013, requires a multiyear strategy provided to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a quarterly briefing that analyzes the progress made by the OAS. This Lee-Rubio letter says it remains too unclear whether the State Department is implementing the requirements of this law.
The letter also states that senators “have heard from Central and South American officials that their own national sovereignty is threatened by what they view as ‘cultural imperialism’ imposed by an organization that is seemingly more concerned with pushing an ideological agenda than respecting the local rule of law.”
Considering that the U.S. is the largest donor of the OAS, the letter requests an in-person briefing from State Department officials responsible for Western Hemisphere Affairs and U.S. representation to the OAS.
You can read the full letter here.
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Sens. Lee and Rubio Call Out “Cultural Imperialism” of OAS
WASHINGTON – Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) urged the State Department Monday, to re-examine the way U.S. contributions to the Organization of American States (OAS) are utilized in light of ongoing concerns of ideological agenda pushing by the UN-backed entity. Part of this inquiry includes a push to fully implement the Organization of American States (OAS) Revitalization and Reform Act of 2013 and address concerns about the OAS imposing its cultural views on OAS member states.
The letter states that legislators “have heard from Central and South American officials that their own national sovereignty is threatened by what they view as ‘cultural imperialism’ imposed by an organization that is seemingly more concerned with pushing an ideological agenda than respecting the local rule of law.”
The U.S. provided for more than one-third (41.7%) of the OAS’ 2015 total budget, continuing in the historic pattern of the U.S. contributing the largest sum of funds for this entity. The OAS Revitalization and Reform Act of 2013 requires a multiyear strategy be provided to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and a quarterly briefing that analyzes the progress made by the OAS. The letter suggests it is not clear that the Department is implementing the requirements of this law.
Considering that the U.S. is the largest donor of the OAS, the letter requests an in-person briefing from State Department officials responsible for Western Hemisphere Affairs and U.S. representation to the OAS.
You can read the full letter here.
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