Posted on 02/17/2014 12:39:35 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
America is unraveling at a stunning speed and to a staggering degree. This decline is breathtaking, and the prognosis is dim.
For starters, Obama now rules by decree. Reportedly for the 27th time, he has changed the rules of Obamacare singlehandedly, with neither congressional approval nor even ceremonial resolutions to limit his actions. Obama needs no such frivolities.
“That’s the good thing about being president,” Obama joked on February 10. “I can do whatever I want.” In an especially bitter irony, Obama uttered these despicable words while guiding French president François Hollande through Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson — a key architect of America’s foundation of limited government.
That very day, Obama decreed that the Obamacare mandate for employers with 50 to 99 workers would be postponed until 2016 (beyond an earlier extension to 2015), well past the November 2014 midterm elections. This eases the pressure on Democrats, whose campaigns would suffer if voters saw their company health plans canceled due to Obamacare’s unnecessary, expensive, mandatory benefits — e.g. maternity coverage for men.
So, by fiat, Obama has postponed the employer mandate. When Senator Ted Cruz (R., Texas) effectively tried to do this through legislation last fall, Democrats virtually lassoed and branded him.
Also by decree last week, Obama decided unilaterally to soften political-asylum rules. Refugees and other immigrants who provide terrorists “limited material support” now can come to America. So what if someone merely clothed and fed Mohamed Atta or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? After all, garments and meals don’t blow up. Welcome to America, Mustafa!
Meanwhile, the Justice Department is working hard to revoke the asylum of and deport the Romeikes....
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
By your own example, they have every shipping business guilty of not scanning by x-rays. The government has played cyoa.
Just bet that if someone ships in some mass killing device, that the company will be checked for its x-ray files.
You can’t drive over 55 in a 55 zone, but everyone drives 56-64 until some cop someday wants to stop you at 56. Give them enough time and they’ll find a law you’re breaking.
There's nobody "guilty" of anything. The law was preposterous on its face, and everyone involved in the shipping industry said so. It was passed and signed into law by that dopey George W. Bush as nothing more than an act of political grandstanding.
Just bet that if someone ships in some mass killing device, that the company will be checked for its x-ray files.
Nothing of the sort will happen, and this is just one reason why the law was idiotic to begin with. For one thing, there is no point in scanning cargo for a "mass killing device" after it has already arrived here in the U.S. So the law actually required this scanning to be done at the port of departure, which is a foreign country for almost every container that is shipped into the U.S.
So let's just think about this for a moment. You had the U.S. Congress and the President of the United States passing a law that required foreign countries to meet U.S. screening requirements for cargo that was being shipped to the U.S. on vessels that are all sailing under foreign flags. In addition to the impracticality of screening 100% of shipping containers (this would be the equivalent of doing a full body cavity search on every airline passenger), this also meant that the U.S. government was asserting itself in places where it has no jurisdiction at all.
If a "mass killing device" was shipped to the U.S. and the U.S. government demanded to see the scanning records of the vessel owner/operator and the foreign port where the load was shipped from, both the foreign government and the foreign company that owns the vessel would tell Uncle Sam to go 'eff himself.
This "100% cargo screening requirement" was nothing more than a pathetic response to an alarmist diatribe by U.S. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) in one of his regular weekly news conferences.
It is the United States Government that is in violation of the x-ray law. However it is the businesses who do not insure their employees that are in violation of the ACA. They can be fined. Most likely if they are not in compliance then they will be fined. The waivers by Obama are invalid on their face.
I strongly disagree, AC. If that law hasn’t been repealed, then it is still the law. It is in place to be used against whomever when the necessity arises. The point is to have all of us guilty of something.
Examples to ponder:
“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”
“If you like your plan, you can keep your plan.”
“This act will lower your premium by an average of $2500 per year for a family of 4.”
“If your business does not comply with the ACA then you can have a waiver for a year.”
This is what a I found online. Don’t know how authoritative it is. It is from Informed Trade International, import/export
http://www.itintl.com/the-5-percent-myth-vs-us-customs-and-border-protection-reality.html
***Key Facts Which Did Not Exist Before 9-11:
The 95-percent figure is misleading and falsely implies that we do nothing to inspect cargo containers arriving at our seaports. We use intelligence to review information on 100 % of all cargo information entering U.S. ports, and all cargo that presents a risk to our country is inspected using large x-ray and radiation detection equipment.
Following 9/11, under the leadership of President Bush we developed and implemented a smart cargo container security strategy to identify, target, and inspect cargo containers before they reach U.S. ports. Under this strategy:
100 % of all containers identified as posing a terrorist risk are inspected using x-ray scans and radiation detection equipment. (i.e. anything identified as having the potential for concealment of terrorist weapons or terrorists.)
The Administration requires that advance information be given to our border agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), about all containers well before they arrive. In fact, the information is required 24 hours before they are loaded on to vessels at foreign seaports (24-Hour Rule).
Containers posing a potential terrorist threat are identified and targeted before they arrive at U.S. seaports by the National Targeting Center (NTC). The NTC was established as the centralized coordination point for all of CBPs anti-terrorism efforts. Prior to 9/11, no national-level targeting of people or goods crossing our borders existed.
NTC uses intelligence and terrorist indicators to review advance information for all cargo, passengers, and imported food shipments before arrival into the U.S. NTC coordinates with other federal agencies such as U.S. Coast Guard, Federal Air Marshals, FBI, Transportation Security Administration, and the Departments of Energy and Agriculture, as well as the intelligence community.
The Administration works with our foreign partners to allow U.S. officers working at major international seaports, currently 26, to identify and inspect containers prior to being loaded onto ships destined for the U.S. Container Security Initiative (CSI)
The Administration created a public-private and international partnership with over 7,000 businesses, including most of the largest U.S. importers — the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT). Under this program, legitimate companies that do regular business with the U.S. have increased their own security to prevent terrorists from infiltrating their shipments. (We check not only the company shipping the goods, but also the companies that provided them with any services.)
Approximately 40 % of all cargo headed for the U.S. is transported by C-TPAT partners and is therefore better secured.
Additional technology has been added, including Radiation Portal Monitors, Isotope Identifiers, and Personal Radiation Monitors. For the first time CBP is also using chemical and explosive detector dogs to inspect cargo.***
Congress passed a law a few years ago requiring all U.S. railroads to implement a safety measure called a Positive Train Control (PTC) system on any route where passenger railroads and/or the movement of hazardous materials by rail. This was done in response to a disaster in southern California where two trains collided while one of the engineers was sending text messages on his cell phone. A PTC system works by having automatic safety measures triggered whenever certain types of accidents are about to occur on the railroad (a train exceeds the posted speed for a section of track, runs a red signal, or enters a section of track occupied by an oncoming train, for example).
Many passenger rail systems have had some variation of this in place for years. The problem is that AMTRAK operates most of its trains across the U.S. on lines owned by freight railroads -- which meant this technology had to be installed on tens of thousands of miles of track, and on thousands of railroad locomotives all across the country. I've seen estimates for the cost of meeting this mandate, and they range from $12 billion to $15 billion for the railroad industry as a whole.
Of course the railroad industry has objected to this, and for good reason: not only was this a massive unfunded mandate, but it isn't even a sound investment by the railroad industry as a safety measure. For $12 billion to $15 billion the industry would be much better off closing off or upgrading grade crossings all over the country -- which are by far the single biggest risk to human life and safety in the railroad industry.
Long story short ... Congress imposed a 2015 deadline for the implementation of PTC systems nationwide. Nobody is going to meet this deadline, mainly because the law basically mandated something that didn't even exist at the time and hasn't been tested at all -- namely, PTC systems for each railroad operator that has interoperability with all the other railroads that share its track. In addition, the railroad locomotive manufacturers can't manufacture new locomotives and retrofit old ones fast enough to meet the 2015 deadline. I read somewhere that the Union Pacific Railroad alone has something like 9,000 locomotives that need to be instrumented, and the entire locomotive industry can't do more than a few dozen of these every month.
By the time the entire industry meets this mandate it will probably be 2020 at the earliest, and I'm sure all of these railroads will be pushing to have this idiocy legislated out of existence before then.
You'll notice that there's no reference in that article to the stupid 2007 law I referenced. That's because mandating 100% X-ray screening for all containers shipped to the U.S. is not much different than having Congress outlaw winter weather by legislative fiat.
When this hits the courts (and the inevitable IRS audits), no business that failed to comply will be able to argue that he had a valid waiver. Obama's dicta is nothing more than words printed in a newspaper. They have NO force of law.
Any business that does not insure their employees can and probably will face fines despite their reliance on Obama's promises.
The waivers by Obama for the law whose common reference bears his own name are a stark admission that the law is idiotic, unenforceable, and is likely to incentivize businesses to do things to circumvent the law (legally) that are going to have serious adverse consequences ... like laying off thousands of employees, turning all of their employees into part-time staff working 29 hours a week, etc.
That dope signed the 2007 act of Congress -- which included mandates that could never have been followed by industry -- into law. "Substantial compliance," my @ss. ROFL.
I agree with you.
The written law is STILL the law. Obama, any big government predecessor, some court/judge will use the text of the law AGAINST those they wish to use it against.
“Anything (you say)....WILL be used against you...”
Can you think of ANY reason why businesses with 50-99 employees cannot comply with the ACA?
It is not an impossibility. It is an inconvenience. And the penalties are specifically spelled out in the LAW for non-compliance. And the enforcement agency is the IRS.
So your arguing about laws that were impossible to implement are irrelevant to what Obama is doing with his waivers. Obama is just saying that if you don’t want to comply with the law, you don’t have to. He has no lawful authority to make that claim. The law is the law and if you fail to comply because of some empty promise that Obama made to the newspapers, then you could find yourself in deep IRS do do.
The difference is that there is no excuse for non-compliance with the ACA, other than Obama's waiver.
The IRS is not going to care that Obama promised to give your business a waiver. If you don't comply with the LAW then you will be fined. An empty promise by Obama that he is personally waiving the penalty is not going to fly in Tax Court. Tax Courts look ONLY at the law. Obama's promises and waivers do not have the effect of law. They are simply campaign promises.
So what you have here is a situation where premiums have skyrocketed because the people who are signing up for "mandatory" insurance coverage are disproportionately older, and disproportionately less healthy, than the population as a whole.
The waiver isn't being granted because businesses can't comply with the ACA. It's been granted because the Obama administration knows damn well that the cost of compliance is going to motivate many business owners in this group to get down to that 49-employee level that will exempt them from this mandate.
The last thing anyone in Washington wants to face in the 2014 or 2016 election cycles is a litany of complaints from business owners -- and their employees -- about how the cost of ACA compliance pushed these companies to downsize, outsource, and lay off a bunch of workers because the IRS harassed the sh!t out of them.
LOL!
Ya think?
What does the Law say right now? The law says that if you don't insure your employees, you will be fined $3500 for each employee next year. You think the IRS is going to pass up this goldmine?
You trust Obama and the IRS that much?
I have a bridge I'd like to sell you.
For most businesses with 50-100 employees, a fine of $3500 per employee can be handled. For those who can't handle it, the IRS will allow you to make installment payments.
Their employees are not exempt. They are required to comply. The individual mandate has not been unilaterally "waived."
They are already screwed and nobody is complaining. You think they are going to give a damn if their employer is fined for not insuring them?
If they had to pony up $12,000 to buy their own insurance this year, do you think they are going to be upset if their employer is fined a mere $3500 because they refused to cover them?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.