Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More
There is a lot of talk these days about what the government should be paying for and the costs that will rise if it does. But to me, it begs the question, how does stuff get paid for? If you’re a household, it often is covered by your paycheck. If you’re the government, most of the time it comes from the people through tax money. Sales tax, income tax, property tax, and gas tax are parts of a very long list of taxes we pay in every facet of our lives. And as we talk through this government shutdown, there are a lot of facts and figures that are missing.
There is a full-court press to disassociate the fact of how we are getting from those taxes. On a local level, we see our police and fire. On a national level, we see our military and security mechanisms. We don’t often have the thought that each and every government worker works for us, not us subservient to them.
So let’s talk about the government shutdown. How it works and who is responsible. for it and why. So here is a brief civics lesson without the background music of Schoolhouse Rock.
In a broad sense, the Senate and its cloture rule is at the root of the government shutdown. Historically, a filibuster is not part of the Constitution. Rather, it is a rule created by the Senate and one that can be changed at any time. In modern applications, in this hyper-partisan era we are living in, it basically empowers the minority party to stop bills it does not want passing in the Senate.
The filibuster in the early days of the country was interesting. It forced people to just talk until they could talk no more and the vote would then take place. In 1917, the Senate got tired of legislation just dying because people would talk it to death, and they invented the cloture rule, which required 2/3 of the present senators to invoke cloture and force a vote. But in 1975, they lowered the threshold to 3/5 or the present day 60 votes.
The present shutdown is really nothing more than the Democrats filibustering the continuing resolution, a stopgap funding mechanism that helps the government function until Congress can pass an appropriations bill.
So every time you hear the Republicans are the cause of the shutdown, understand that the real sentence is, the Democrats are filibustering until they get what they want. It is them who are not providing the balance of 60 votes to stop the debate and hold a vote. There are not 60 Republicans, so it requires at least five democrats to end the debate. So the government has no choice but to shut down.
So why are the Democrats Filibustering?
The first reason is that two provisions from the COVID-19 era were added to the Affordable Care Act (ACA). First was a change in the Premium Tax Credit (PTCs) that helped subsidize premiums, which completely lifted the cap of 400% of the Federal Poverty Level. For example, a family of two making $100,000 could now qualify for premium subsidies in the form of a PTC. And the second provisional change was made in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act bill, which saw an 8.5% in your income for medical premiums if you were an ACA participant. So no matter what you made, your medical premium on Obamacare could not exceed 8.5% of your household income.
Without congressional intervention to codify those changes into law, premiums for the ACA will rise dramatically. But exactly how many people use Obamacare? Presently, less than 8% of Americans get their insurance from the ACA. The rise in premiums only applies to ACA participants. The other 93% with private insurance or other programs like Medicare may see premiums rise
The next reason is that the democrats are attempting to roll back cuts that were made in the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) that just passed in July. These primarily focus on work requirements for people who receive Medicaid. This provision in the BBB is reminiscent of the 1996 law signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, which introduced work requirements for welfare recipients and subsequently led to a reduction in the welfare rolls. The present provision requires able-bodied adults to work, train or volunteer part-time (80 hours per month) to qualify.
In addition, this is where the healthcare for illegals comes in. Although federal money cannot pay for illegal aliens’ healthcare, the loophole is to subsidize the states, giving them approximately $638B. This loophole was closed in the BBB, and Democrats want it reinstated.
The problem is, as it always is, that neither side’s base hears both sides of this discussion. But make no mistake, the Democrats are filibustering, and that is why the government is shut down.
Lake Houston Dredging
In the same vein of how stuff gets paid for, Steve Toth has changed his explanation of why he voted against the dredging bill, therefore increasing the likelihood of my neighborhood flooding.
After meeting with people in town who had explained adnausium that their houses would have flooded in May 2024 had it not been for the dredging effort paid for with federal dollars and by the efforts of our sitting congress critter, Dan Crenshaw, the new reason Mr. Toth voted against it was that it had no taxing authority.
Before addressing the taxes, the firing of Jace Houston isn’t even a concern. In the end, Mr. Houston didn’t even get fired. Instead, he stepped down and got a very nice severance package. If you don’t know what happened, then this answer is plausible, but for those of us in Kingwood, we know what happened, and this unvarnished truth is so far from the reality that most Kingwood residents live under. We do not have PTSD from Harvey, and Harvey was not a one-time event, yet this is what we keep hearing. Again, I ask, do we need a Congress person who doesn’t take the time to find out the situation?
So let’s talk about the no-taxing authority portion of this. First, a program that does not require tax dollars is innovative and attractive. But let’s see how this is being accomplished. The dredging bill is funded by the sale of aggregate that will be dredged out of the lake, and it will fund the program as a self-funded program. It solves the issue for the residents of Lake Houston, all while doing it in a manner that does not put the financial burden on taxpayers.
We have already seen programs like this work, as demonstrated by the Woodridge property that flooded Elm Grove. The 15 feet of dirt put on that property to elevate 300 acres was removed similarly. Instead of Harris County Flood Control paying to have it removed, they sold the dirt to the contractors, who then removed it without any charge to the taxpayer. So we have a similar program that shows that self-funded programs can work.
However, if it does not self-fund, the program will be funded through the water program provided by the city of Houston. This means a dredging fee will be added to the water bill each month for the city’s 6 million residents who receive water from Lake Houston, likely amounting to just pennies monthly.
These are two entirely different approaches to problems and their solutions. The reality is that government subsidies never work because they disrupt the capitalist principles on which the free market is built. Obamacare needs to be retooled to work correctly. There is a place for it for sure, as it helps fill a need. But there are a few issues with it, most of all, it is enriching insurance companies at the expense of taxpayers, of whom 80% are paying for their own premiums.
And lastly, tomorrow is “No Kings Day.” I keep trying to find some reason to understand why these folks are coming out and protesting. I continue to attribute some of this to the fact that we live in siloed echo chambers, hearing only our own viewpoints. As long as social media is filled with untruthful posts that go unchecked, this is the world we will live in, making shows like this all the more relevant. The irony of it all to me is that for every quote I see, I can make the argument that the left also participates in the exact thing they are protesting, but it’s done on a leadership level and therefore the rank and file only get the tweets and affirmation from their own side and don’t see it. The funny thing is, Trump was an authoritarian as the far left claims, the 2500 planned protests would not be happening.
