States continue to revolt against the Affordable Care Act. South Carolina made headlines with a bill that turns the law into a crime. Oklahoma’s Governor Mary Fallin, Tennessee’s Bill Haslam, and Texas’ Rick Perry have said no to the Medicaid expansion. Florida’s legislature bucked Governor Rick Scott after he backed down from his anti-Obamacare stance. The list is long. It will continue to grow as states reject the bill and the damage Congress will heedlessly inflict on their budgets.
Plans for more federal gun regulations also met with derision, from Missouri’s proposed anti-gun control bill to resistance from local officials that raised the question of whether new laws for firearms could be enforced even if state governments caved to congressional demands.
States’ rights vs. Washington’s big government plans.
Does Eric Holder still call the shots when it comes to states’ rights, or can state and local governments successfully touch off a badly needed anti-Washington revolution? With states in revolt over big government control in areas as disparate as physicians and firearms, it seems odd that we don’t hear the same outcry about congressional plans to permanently saddle their citizens with illegal immigrants.
States revolt against Medicaid but approve immigration reform?
Why no swell of states’ rights rhetoric over the pending immigration bill? If I was a low income American counting on that Medicaid public option I would be plenty pissed off if my state decided that the needs of illegal immigrants came before mine, especially if I was being forced to subsidize their resident college tuition rates. Did states fall for the line that illegal immigrants pay so much in taxes that we would be ruined if they went somewhere else, or if we decided to kick them out of the country altogether? Do they believe that forcing low income illegal workers to walk away from their jobs will cause our economy to collapse?
Obama apologizes to Mexico.
With states in revolt over two bad ideas but many apparently in favor of another scheme that is just as dangerous, our president treated Mexicans to an apology in a classic Obama campaign trail speech in Mexico City. He talked about equality for all, of responsibility, of an “immigration system we have in the United States right now that doesn’t reflect our values.”¹ He lamented separating families and people living in the shadows,² a regrettable situation that could be prevented by staying in Mexico. Mexicans heard about an America that could be better and will be retooled to lend them a helping hand if our president has anything to say about it.
Mr. Obama was right about one thing. Our immigration system doesn’t reflect our values. It reflects his values. That’s why we don’t enforce it. Why haven’t states figured that out and why haven’t they added an anti-federal immigration reform bill to their revolt against big government stupidity?
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