Posted on 02/27/2015 3:42:34 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
It’s right there in the Constitution: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
Which is why this latest episode of lawlessness from the administration so particularly galling. “The U.S. Treasury Department has rebuffed a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wis., to explain $3 billion in payments that were made to health insurers even though Congress never authorized the spending through annual appropriations,” The Washington Examiner’s Philp Klein reported on Thursday.
That’s right. The payments insurers receive, dubbed “cost –sharing subsidies,” are designed to offset the costs incurred when they pick up the out-of-pocket expenses for low-income individuals covered by Affordable Care Act plans. If insurers had to cover these costs themselves, Obamacare would be infeasible. So, the federal government picks up the tab for the newly insured as they go about receiving “free” health care.
There’s just one tiny, unconstitutional problem: Congress never authorized the distribution of those funds. “[B]ut the Department of Health and Human Services, with the cooperation of the U.S. Treasury, made them anyway,” Klein reported.
In a Feb. 3 letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Ryan, along with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., asked for “a full explanation for, and all documents relating to” the administration’s decision to make the cost-sharing payments without congressional authorization.
In response, on Wednesday, the Treasury Department sent a letter to Ryan largely describing the program, without offering a detailed explanation of the decision to make the payments. The letter revealed that $2.997 billion in such payments had been made in 2014, but didn’t elaborate on where the money came from. Over the next decade, cost-sharing payments to insurers are projected by the Congressional Budget Office to cost taxpayers nearly $150 billion.
Click through to Klein’s report and read the whole thing. This pattern of behavior from administration officials staggering in its lawlessness and sets a dangerous precedent.
“A second grader knows that only Congress can appropriate funds. And even though CMS apparently agrees with that, the managers at HHS don’t,” The American Thinker’s Rick Moran opined. “Unfortunately, unless both the House and Senate order the insurance companies to return the funds – and President Obama signs the bill – HHS is going to get away with this.”
Apparently, this cost-sharing scheme is one of the issues that is raised in the House GOP’s lawsuit against the White House over the myriad ways in which the administration has bent the law in order, they claim, to enforce it. But the outrage over this incident, or even reportage on it, is limited exclusively to Republican outlets.
One of the better arguments for repeal of the Affordable Care Act is the fact that this law has inured the public to anarchy. The public increasingly believes, and a plurality of Democrats are apparently convinced, that laws passed by Congress should be malleable enough so that the executive branch is not burdened by the dictates of the co-equal and representative legislative branch. What have we gotten ourselves into?
It’s time for the people to rise up.
Obama's trillion dollar stimulus scam is a huge unreported story.. In his new book "Extortion" author Peter Schweitzer writes about Obo, Holder (and other insiders), "weaponizing" the Justice Dept "and assorted govt agencies" to extort and steal billions of untraceable dollars....VP Joe Biden told BP Oil after the spill, that if they did not hand over $20 billion untraceable dollars, the Obamatons would do it for them.
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ONCE UPON A TIME, OBAMA'S COS EMANUEL HAD TWO JOBS Soon as they occupied the WH, Obama and the Chicago con artists (a) took control of the US Census; (b) Obama placed his COS Rahm Emanuel in control of the US Dept of the Treasury.
PAUSE TO REFLECT Remember Obama had tight control of Treasury; Obama calculatedly placed his then-COS Rahm Emanuel in a dual role.......in the WH and at Treasury. Obama had a stranglehold on Treasury via COS Rahm Emanuel's dual role
STROLL DOWN MEMORY LANE Soon as they occupied the WH, Obama and the Chi/cons (a) took control of the US Census; Obama placed his COS Rahm Emanuel in control of the US Dept of the Treasury (including the conservative-suppressing IRS). Read on.
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THE SMOKING GUN---WSJ REPORT--On Jan 20, 2009 Timothy Geithner was appointed Obama's Secy of the Treasury. But within three weeks, the Obama White House tightened its grip on Treasury. Obama put his COS, Rahm Emanuel, in charge of Treasury---Rahm Emanuel's dual role was an unusual move.
When he got to Treasury, WH COS Rahm Emanuel was so involved in the inner workings that the phrase "Rahm wants it" had become an unofficial mantra among subservient govt staffers, prostrate in obeisance, scurrying to accede to Rahm's wishes, according to Treasury government officials. Reported by WSJ / 05/31/09
More here: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124113406528875137.html
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EXCERPT---FOURTEEN TRILLION DOLLARS Behind The Real Size of the Bailout; A guide to the abbreviations, acronyms, and obscure programs that make up the $14 trillion federal bailout of Wall Street
SOURCE motherjones.com
Mon Dec. 21, 2009 12:23 PM PST
The price tag for the Wall Street bailout is popularly put at $700 billion—---the actual size of TARP--the Troubled Assets Relief Program. But TARP is just the best known program in an array of more than 30 overseen by Treasury Department and Federal Reserve that have paid out or put aside untraceable money to bail out financial firms and inject money into the markets.
To get a sense of the size of the real $14 trillion bailout, see MJ chart at web site. A guide to the pieces of the puzzle includes massive untraceable Treasury Department bailout programs.
Money Market Mutual Fund: In September 2008, the Treasury controlled by Obama/Emanuel announced that it would insure the holdings of publicly offered money market mutual funds. According to the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (SIGTARP), these guarantees could have potentially cost the federal government more than $3 trillion [PDF].
Public-Private Investment Fund: This joint Treasury-Federal Reserve program bought toxic assets from banks and brokerages—as much as $5 billion of assets per firm. According to SIGTARP, the government's potential exposure from the PPIF is between $500 million and $1 trillion [PDF].
TARP: As part of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Treasury controlled by Obama/Emanuel made loans to or investments more than 750 banks and financial institutions. $650 billion has been paid out (not including HAMP; see below). As of December 21, 2009, $117.5 billion of that has been repaid.
Government-sponsored enterprise (GSE) stock purchase: The Treasury controlled by Obama/Emanuel bought $200 million in preferred stock from Fannie Mae and another $200 million from Freddie Mac [PDF] to show that they "will remain viable entities critical to the functioning of the housing and mortgage markets."
GSE mortgage-backed securities purchase: Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008, the Treasury controlled by Obama/Emanuel may buy mortgage-backed securities from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. According to SIGTARP, these purchases could cost as much as $314 billion ---SNIP---.
LONG READ---go to web site to read more and checkout the shocking financial charts.
SOURCE http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/12/behind-real-size-bailout
I don’t care as much about “WHY” as I do “HOW” is it authorized.
“Fundamental transformation of America. As promised.”
Sadly, Yes. How I loathe these people...but we really have no one to blame but ourselves and the COWARDS we elected and re-elected this last time around.
Grrrrrrrrr!
Post of the day!
Pump out the cesspool in Washington. They don't even hide their crime any more. They laugh at the Constitution.
Basically, they stole $3 billion without Congressional authorization and spent it on their favorite causes.
I believe only impeachment of the president is "off the table". I don't believe that impeachment of any other federal official has even been imagined.
But, perhaps, impeachment proceedings against the Secretary of the Treasury...or the Secretary of Health & Human Services...or the IRS Commissioner is exactly what should be done.
They're not black. And they're guilty as sin.
I think the Obamacare legislation included a clause calling for a reimbursement payment to the health insurors if Obamacare failed to decrease the cost of insurance and the insurance companies lose money.
I’m sure they want to keep this quiet since all their projections have been proven wrong in actual practice.
Lawless: Treasury throws unauthorized $3 billion to insurers under 0bamacare, won’t say why
It’s right there in the Constitution: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
Which is why this latest episode of lawlessness from the administration so particularly galling. “The U.S. Treasury Department has rebuffed a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wis., to explain $3 billion in payments that were made to health insurers even though Congress never authorized the spending through annual appropriations,” The Washington Examiner’s Philp Klein reported on Thursday.
That’s right. The payments insurers receive, dubbed “cost –sharing subsidies,” are designed to offset the costs incurred when they pick up the out-of-pocket expenses for low-income individuals covered by Affordable Care Act plans. If insurers had to cover these costs themselves, 0bamacare would be infeasible.
So, the federal government picks up the tab for the newly insured as they go about receiving “free” health care.
Check out article.
The Founding Fathers had a lot less motivation.
I’m ready (see my tagline) but don’t trust that the sheeple care. It will take a financial collapse foisted upon them.
Congress still exists, right?
maybe?
The new MBS. This time the real trafficking of humans by human body mortgages. The slick tight rope on the necks of their “Great Satan.”
“...has come to STEAL, kill, and destroy”
As ISIS deflects attentions from the nation of Iran.
Precursor to the unveiling of the White Horseman, on the precipice of being unveiled.
Yes. Posted many times THE bailout, never happened.
ACA is THE body mortgage choke-collar, of the forces of the White Horseman.
It's two thirds of the Senate: the vote required to remove him from office before his term expires.
Obama is the first president to figure out that, as long as there are not 67 senators, he can do as he pleases. And the first president sufficiently anti-American to do it!
So again, you're technically correct in your assessment. But if creating these things was so easy and accommodated every critic's viewpoint, I'd still be revising them for the umpteenth time trying to satisfy each one of them.
I look forward to seeing your memes and Photoshopped images on FB soon, signed "cynwoody". :-)
We knew there were payofffs...
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