What better deception to enforce government control than convincing the people that tightening the screws on states is for their protection? The pursuit of government control over states is liberal hypocrisy at its best. We have created a vicious spiral of spending and dependence by making sure that everything begins and ends in Washington, especially when it comes to providing education and health care.
Government control brings a new threat to states.
Obama’s intolerance for states that won’t play ball hit home again last week when reigning Cabinet members Eric Holder and Arne Duncan issued a stern warning about educating illegals. Invoking 1982’s Plyler v. Doe, the pair took turns shaking their fingers at states while they ignored the fact that the cost to educate illegals was a lot less in the 1980s than now because only 19% of our illegal immigrant population had arrived:1
Public school districts have an obligation to enroll students regardless of immigration status and without discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin. The Justice Department will do everything it can to make sure schools meet this obligation. We will vigilantly enforce the law to ensure the schoolhouse door remains open to all.2
Lawsuits and a comply or else policy are worthy complements to White House threats of executive orders. We’ve heard it all before, from quashing voter ID laws to only permitting states to pass immigration laws that make life better for illegals. Sometimes threats from Washington won’t get the job done, though. When that happens, can the people be convinced to make threats on the government’s behalf?
Will citizens enforce government control over their health care?
Threats are a great way to maintain government control when they are backed up with lawsuits and funding cuts. Duping the people into doing the threatening can be a good strategy, too.
The White House has asked for our help spreading the news about states that are not buying into the Obamacare Medicaid expansion:
Nearly half of states are so locked into the politics of Obamacare that they’re willing to leave nearly 5.7 million of their own people uninsured. Take a look at our map — and make sure you share it.3
Liberal hypocrisy puts spending for ideology before funding, so the fact that states endorsing the Medicaid public option substitute will have their federal handout slashed 10% by 2022 means nothing. Neither does the cost of administering the expansion. This is bad news for states that are incapable of reigning in debt or administering a program that Illinois taxpayers recently discovered made $12 million in payments to dead people.
Government control and threats will make college affordable?
Colleges better toe the line, too. Government threats to cut federal aid to schools that don’t keep their tuition and fees in check have been followed up with the announcement of a list of schools that may have run afoul of 1972’s Title IX anti-discrimination provisions:
In the past, Department officials confirmed individual Title IX investigations at institutions, but today’s list is the first comprehensive look at which campuses are under review by OCR for possible violations of the law’s requirements around sexual violence.4
Are schools being threatened and publicly humiliated for “possible violations” as part of administration efforts to extend government control over higher education, or is this part of reaching out to women voters during an election year, something to complement calls for equal pay legislation? The damning press release on the Title IX investigations shunts the issue to Duncan’s Office for Civil Rights and again threatens funding cuts and lawsuits:
All colleges, and universities and K-12 schools receiving federal funds must comply with Title IX. Schools that violate the law and refuse to address the problems identified by OCR can lose federal funding or be referred to the U.S. Department of Justice for further action.5
It is easy for liberal hypocrisy to demand more education spending while insisting we educate non-citizens at taxpayer expense, increase teacher pay, and massively improve the quality of public education. Federal policy helps keep education costs high, so government control is easy to assert by threatening federal funding. There is one federal program, though, that some schools are successfully saying no to.
Schools find it’s cheaper to not submit.
Handouts from Uncle Sam aren’t always enough to offset the budgetary damage caused by federal programs. Some schools have decided that the National School Lunch Program’s new guidelines for healthy meals cost too much in lost cafeteria profits, despite Michelle Obama’s claim that:
So while budgets are tight right now, there are schools across the country that are showing that it doesn’t take a whole lot of money or resources to give our kids the nutrition they deserve.6
She needs to run her numbers again, especially when dealing with a program that federal payment accuracy figures show has a 15.7% improper payment rate. Schools that dump the school lunch program know they can probably make more money by turning their backs on the government handout for school lunches and selling kids what they want to eat. When you are the school administrator, state comptroller, or other official charged with making ends meet, it pays to remember that big government’s outstretched hand is about enforcing partisan policy, not about making things better or most important of all, affordable.
There is a very interesting law suite, which challenges “Obamacare” in that the tax aspects of the law makes it unconstitutional because only the Congress can originate tax bills and this law was manipulated by Harry Reid. He took a bill passed by the House that had to do with Millitary Housing and stripped it of that meaning and instituted a multi-thousand page Health-care bill. The House accepted the meaning of penalties as fees at the time, but the Supreme Court ruled that these were taxes and as such should rule the bill is unconstitutional this time. I believe that is what Justice John Roberts had in mind when he made the “Tax” ruling. The Bill is in the appeals court now, but if their ruling fails, then it will go to the Supreme Court if they will accept it.
As soon as states get up enough fortitude to tell Duncan to go pound salt on his education mandates the better, for it is said that the states, counties and local school boards know more about education than Duncan will ever know. This is a “States Rights” issue and Jimmie Carter should be held responsible for this “red herring”. It seems to me, that Carter and Obama are the worst two presidents the voters could have ever put in office. This country can not survive another failure in that office (Woman or Man).
Duncan learned a lot running Chicago’s public school system. It shows. If only taxpayers would realize that funding education is about passing out tax dollars to unions and government employees first and educating kids second, and that federal policies raise the tax burden on state and local governments while only assuming a small portion of the cost.