Nearly a week ago President Obama signed into law the much argued over healthcare bill. The new law still has a few hurdles to jump with procedural voting in the Senate but it seems its future is now secure. I have written a number of blogs on this subject yet shockingly it appears my eloquent arguments failed to carry much weight in Congress. Still, I refuse to allow a little thing like being completely irrelevant to the greater world to stop me from loudly expressing my opinions anyway to anyone who wants to hear them, or to anyone who only kind of wants to hear them, or to anyone who really doesn’t want to hear them but is pretending to listen in order to be polite, or…Anyway.
There is a very inconvenient fact of life known as the law of unintended consequences. No matter how well researched you are about a particular decision it is inevitable that that decision will have a number of consequences, good or bad, that you did not foresee. If you do your job like Congress, of course, you take the Law of Unintended Consequences and turn it into a massive cyborg ninja Law that looks a little like this:
Seriously, what can go wrong when the Speaker of the House says that we have to pass a bill in order to figure out what’s actually in it? If that wasn’t enough to start the blood shooting from your eyes we can actually delve into the bill a tad.
There is a requirement hidden away in the gargantuan bill that, according to the AP, forces any chain restaurant with 20 or more locations to put accurate calorie counts of all menu items actually on the menu where morons like you and me can’t possibly miss them. I am now informed that the triple decker Big Bacon Beef & Cheese burger may not be a healthy diet choice. Thanks Congress!
You might ask why I have a problem with a provision like this. It is so tiny in the grand scheme of things, and after all, shouldn’t the customer be informed? That can’t be a bad thing! There is no way that the government interfering with the
State Controlled
Free market without invitation or need could possibly turn out bad!
This provision, like many others in this bill, looks good at first glance. If you have the attention span of a sheep with ADD, and don’t bother to look behind the curtain at the implications, then this appears harmless. Fortunately, the folks at Hotair.com have the attention span of two sheep with ADD, and broke down some the problems with this piece of legislation.
It works like this. The super huge chains very nearly comply with this legislation already. It is not difficult for McDonalds or BK to publish, usually on a website, accurate calorie counts for all their standardized menu options. To move that calorie count to the menu itself will be irritating, but probably not much more than that. For the tiny Mom n’ Pop stores there is no problem, because they are exempt for having far less than 20 stores. The rub comes at the chain that hovers right around 20 restaurants. From Hotair (some emphasis added by me.):
Strange…You mean to tell me evil corporations like Pizza Hut are giving the customers what they want in terms of information without government interference simply because they asked for it!? Poppycock!
This ties neatly into one of my favorite soap boxes:
Axe Bodywash
States' Rights. The commerce clause of the Constitution (Motto: Being deftly misinterpreted to grow Federal power at obscene rates since the mid-19th century!) is being invoked once again in order to allow travesties like the one described above to go on. It is sad that it is become so normal, so routine, for this clause to be waved about like a magic wand wielded by a moody teenager with a lightning bolt scar that it doesn’t even get examined. The clause allows for the regulation of interstate commerce, yet there is no mind given to whether or not anything inside it crosses State lines.
Yet another slap in the face to We the People comes in the form of the mandate that will require every man, woman, and child in America to have insurance by the year 2016 or face a fine of $695, or 2.5% of income, whichever is higher (and it will be higher for anyone who makes more than $28k a year).
Pause for a moment and think about this. An insurance policy is a product, a service provided by a private company, sold to a private citizen. In this way insurance is exactly the same as, say, a Snicker’s bar or a snazzy T-shirt. Purchasing insurance is the same fundamental transaction as buying any other thing you possess or service you receive. Imagine if the headline read like this: “Congress passes law mandating that every American purchase Skittles by 2016, or face hefty fines”. For the government to step in and demand you purchase anything simply because it thinks you need it is insulting, infuriating, and infrightening. (I couldn't think of a good "in-" word to finish it with. Sue me.)
Fourteen states have filed suits against the legislation on this particular issue. The list includes my own state, Virginia, as well as Florida, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Washington. The legal battle will likely take years to fully resolve.
I have this strange notion that we should treat the Constitution of the United States as more than an excessively wrinkled welcome mat and actually try to follow it every once in a while. In particular, I point to the 10th amendment, which states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
There is a process in place to amend the Constitution when the situation calls for it. This process is long, drawn out, and very difficult. It is made that way for a reason. If the times have changed to a point where the Constitution is not adequate in an area to our needs then we ought to be honest and go through the proper procedures to change it.
I believe that the times have not made this necessary. Why? Because there will never be a time where necessity dictates the Federal government should routinely and repeatedly disregard the rights and wishes of the people it governs.
There is a very inconvenient fact of life known as the law of unintended consequences. No matter how well researched you are about a particular decision it is inevitable that that decision will have a number of consequences, good or bad, that you did not foresee. If you do your job like Congress, of course, you take the Law of Unintended Consequences and turn it into a massive cyborg ninja Law that looks a little like this:
Seriously, what can go wrong when the Speaker of the House says that we have to pass a bill in order to figure out what’s actually in it? If that wasn’t enough to start the blood shooting from your eyes we can actually delve into the bill a tad.
There is a requirement hidden away in the gargantuan bill that, according to the AP, forces any chain restaurant with 20 or more locations to put accurate calorie counts of all menu items actually on the menu where morons like you and me can’t possibly miss them. I am now informed that the triple decker Big Bacon Beef & Cheese burger may not be a healthy diet choice. Thanks Congress!
You might ask why I have a problem with a provision like this. It is so tiny in the grand scheme of things, and after all, shouldn’t the customer be informed? That can’t be a bad thing! There is no way that the government interfering with the
State Controlled
Free market without invitation or need could possibly turn out bad!
This provision, like many others in this bill, looks good at first glance. If you have the attention span of a sheep with ADD, and don’t bother to look behind the curtain at the implications, then this appears harmless. Fortunately, the folks at Hotair.com have the attention span of two sheep with ADD, and broke down some the problems with this piece of legislation.
It works like this. The super huge chains very nearly comply with this legislation already. It is not difficult for McDonalds or BK to publish, usually on a website, accurate calorie counts for all their standardized menu options. To move that calorie count to the menu itself will be irritating, but probably not much more than that. For the tiny Mom n’ Pop stores there is no problem, because they are exempt for having far less than 20 stores. The rub comes at the chain that hovers right around 20 restaurants. From Hotair (some emphasis added by me.):
“Davanni’s, a local pizzeria-sandwich restaurant with 22 locations around the Twin Cities, will now have to comply with this mandate… it will cost Davanni’s approximately $200,000 to comply with the new mandate — just to start. Every menu change will require Davanni’s to have the new or modified items re-analyzed, which means that Davanni’s will probably resist adding new options for their customers. Meanwhile, larger chains with more economy of scale for such efforts such as Pizza Hut can do the tests once for all of their locations, keeping their prices lower for their customers — which they already do, thanks to consumer demand for the information.”
Strange…You mean to tell me evil corporations like Pizza Hut are giving the customers what they want in terms of information without government interference simply because they asked for it!? Poppycock!
“Under those circumstances, will Davanni’s feel compelled to keep the extra three locations open, or to scale back to 19 to avoid the mandate? Even if they do keep all of their locations, that $200,000 will now get spent on something other than new jobs for teenagers and adults, and customers will pay higher prices for their food. Local and regional chains with 15-19 locations have a big economic disincentive to expand any further. I don’t know much about Davanni’s bottom line, but I’m pretty sure that even though they make some of the best pizza and hoagies in the area, they don’t have $200,000 lying around the pizza sauce to blow on lab analyses this year, or any other.
This is a fundamentally anti-growth policy…That’s not even considering the question of jurisdiction on chains like Davanni’s which don’t cross state lines, and therefore shouldn’t have to answer to federal regulators at all.”
This ties neatly into one of my favorite soap boxes:
Axe Bodywash
States' Rights. The commerce clause of the Constitution (Motto: Being deftly misinterpreted to grow Federal power at obscene rates since the mid-19th century!) is being invoked once again in order to allow travesties like the one described above to go on. It is sad that it is become so normal, so routine, for this clause to be waved about like a magic wand wielded by a moody teenager with a lightning bolt scar that it doesn’t even get examined. The clause allows for the regulation of interstate commerce, yet there is no mind given to whether or not anything inside it crosses State lines.
Yet another slap in the face to We the People comes in the form of the mandate that will require every man, woman, and child in America to have insurance by the year 2016 or face a fine of $695, or 2.5% of income, whichever is higher (and it will be higher for anyone who makes more than $28k a year).
Pause for a moment and think about this. An insurance policy is a product, a service provided by a private company, sold to a private citizen. In this way insurance is exactly the same as, say, a Snicker’s bar or a snazzy T-shirt. Purchasing insurance is the same fundamental transaction as buying any other thing you possess or service you receive. Imagine if the headline read like this: “Congress passes law mandating that every American purchase Skittles by 2016, or face hefty fines”. For the government to step in and demand you purchase anything simply because it thinks you need it is insulting, infuriating, and infrightening. (I couldn't think of a good "in-" word to finish it with. Sue me.)
Fourteen states have filed suits against the legislation on this particular issue. The list includes my own state, Virginia, as well as Florida, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Washington. The legal battle will likely take years to fully resolve.
I have this strange notion that we should treat the Constitution of the United States as more than an excessively wrinkled welcome mat and actually try to follow it every once in a while. In particular, I point to the 10th amendment, which states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
There is a process in place to amend the Constitution when the situation calls for it. This process is long, drawn out, and very difficult. It is made that way for a reason. If the times have changed to a point where the Constitution is not adequate in an area to our needs then we ought to be honest and go through the proper procedures to change it.
I believe that the times have not made this necessary. Why? Because there will never be a time where necessity dictates the Federal government should routinely and repeatedly disregard the rights and wishes of the people it governs.
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