Ideas, Opinions, Genealogy, and Book Reviews
When this government shutdown was just a few days old I wrote that Shutdown is failure and a result of giving parties too much power.
As you can easily guess my major point was about the excessive power of political parties but Continue reading “Death by government shutdown”
About 2 weeks ago I wrote that Fixing the ACA or Obamacare makes more sense than repeal.
In that piece I mentioned that “I probably would back the repeal of the medical device tax.” but not as part of the current budget fiasco and that we need much more discussion before acting.
For another point of view see Excise Tax on Medical Devices Should Not Be Repealed: Industry Lobbyists Distort Tax’s Impact.
This is the entire text of HR 3210 the Pay Our Military Act as found on the Thomas LOC website. Unfortunately the site seems to time out so you may need to repeat the search.
AN ACT
Making continuing appropriations for military pay in the event of a Government shutdown.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `Pay Our Military Act’.
SEC. 2. CONTINUING APPROPRIATIONS FOR MEMBERS OF THE ARMED FORCES.
(a) In General- There are hereby appropriated for fiscal year 2014, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, for any period during which interim or full-year appropriations for fiscal year 2014 are not in effect–
(1) such sums as are necessary to provide pay and allowances to members of the Armed Forces (as defined in section 101(a)(4) of title 10, United States Code), including reserve components thereof, who perform active service during such period;
(2) such sums as are necessary to provide pay and allowances to the civilian personnel of the Department of Defense (and the Department of Homeland Security in the case of the Coast Guard) whom the Secretary concerned determines are providing support to members of the Armed Forces described in paragraph (1); and
(3) such sums as are necessary to provide pay and allowances to contractors of the Department of Defense (and the Department of Homeland Security in the case of the Coast Guard) whom the Secretary concerned determines are providing support to members of the Armed Forces described in paragraph (1).(b) Secretary Concerned Defined- In this section, the term `Secretary concerned’ means–
(1) the Secretary of Defense with respect to matters concerning the Department of Defense; and
(2) the Secretary of Homeland Security with respect to matters concerning the Coast Guard.SEC. 3. TERMINATION.
Appropriations and funds made available and authority granted pursuant to this Act shall be available until whichever of the following first occurs: (1) the enactment into law of an appropriation (including a continuing appropriation) for any purpose for which amounts are made available in section 2; (2) the enactment into law of the applicable regular or continuing appropriations resolution or other Act without any appropriation for such purpose; or (3) January 1, 2015.Passed the House of Representatives September 29 (legislative day September 28), 2013.
The relevant portion to the argument as to whether death benefits are covered is Section 2, part (a)sub 1. This is rendered in bold above for easy reference. The key here, I believe, are the words “pay and allowances“.
“Pay and allowances” are described on the Military Pay page of the Defense Department. Pay includes Basic Pay as well as extra pay for various type of duties. Allowances are provided for specific needs. For example, food or housing allowances are provided as needed. A separate benefits page describes various benefits such as the death gratuity to survivors and survivor benefits.
I think there certainly can be a case made that Congress thought they were providing this benefit but the way I read the law, this appears to be inadvertently omitted and unlikely to be up to the discretion of the Secretary of Defense. (Some claim the administration has discretion here but I don’t see it.)
Although the government failed the families of soldiers who died for the United States, it is good to know that a private foundation has stepped in to help until the United Staes government gets its act together. (Read the story on CNN.
Declining tourism spending because of the government shutdown has resulted in 4 counties in Utah to declare states of emergency.
Perhaps the governor and county commissioners could contact their members of Congress and suggest they find a way around the Congressional leadership’s refusal to allow votes and suggest that voters of Utah might remember those who keep the government closed.
The intransigence of the leaders of Congress brought us into a government shutdown and now prevents us from re-opening the government.
The House tries to open things piecemeal but that in unsuccessful. In most cases, the leader of the Senate won’t let his Senate vote on these proposals.
Even when there is some success, there are are unintentional omissions. Yes, pass a bill to pay the soldiers. Oops, they forgot to include death benefits. Pass another bill and hope Harry Reed will consider it and hope we don’t leave out anything that turns out to be important.
The government does lots of things and in most cases we don’t know what will be important in the near future. So we have essential personnel man agencies that lose much of their strength in a shutdown. And then watch the CDC have to make a skeleton staff a little less skeletal to deal with a disease outbreak.
Why not just open it all? Well, the leader of the House won’t let his members vote on that.
John Boehner, are you listening ?
As we go into the 8th date of Government shutdown 2013 and have an even more serious issue in the national debt ceiling to deal with in about a week, I thought I would start by quoting myself. Last week I wrote that I thought giving the major parties excessive power is one of the root causes of the current stand-off on funding the government in Shutdown is failure and a result of giving parties too much power.
The leader of the dominant party in each part of Congress sets the agenda in his part of Congress and the 2 parts of Congress are controlled by different political parties now. Therefore each part of Congress does not always get to vote on what the other part has passed. …
Should each part of Congress have a nonpartisan officer who sets the agenda, perhaps with a set of rules and oversight of some sort. Both the Senate and the House already have some nonpartisan officers but should we consider adding one who sets the agenda for votes? Or maybe we could keep the existing leadership structure but limit the discretion of the leader?
Another option is suggested by No Labels. In their plan to address this issue is that a bipartisan majority would be able to override the leadership refusal to bring a bill to the floor for a vote.
They have also other ideas to make Congress function better. Have a look and if you agree, please sign their petition and consider supporting the organization in some other way.
When this Retired Guy was a bit younger, politics used to work. It wasn’t that long ago. Politicians knew how to compromise and seemed to talk to each other rather than just at each other. They could disagree, yet still respect the other side.
There is a new book out which discusses those days. The book is called “Tip and the Gipper: When Politics Worked” and it is by Chris Matthews. I first became acquainted with this book via a column by Michael Smerconish in our Sunday newspaper.
For those too young to remember (after all this was about 30 years back), Tip was the Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill and the Gipper was President Ronald Reagan. They disagreed greatly but had great respect for each other and were friendly. Needless to say, today’s President and Speaker are not at all like that.
Tip and the Gipper seemed to work out their differences, were able to compromise, solved some pretty big problems, and did a good job runing the country. The current batch of politicians seem to have trouble doing that.
I haven’t read the book yet but plan to so this isn’t a review. Just commenting on how politics has changed in my lifetime
About a year ago, I wrote here about Political parties and government dysfunction.
I have been a believer that much of the problem in Washington Continue reading “Shutdown is failure and a result of giving parties too much power”
We are now in the second day of Government Shutdown which is causing many problems. I hadn’t even thought of the security issue. The easy assumption (that I, and probably many Americans, make) is that since essential personnel are still on the job, security is taken care of. But that is true only to a certain point.
“As each day goes by, the impact and the jeopardy to the safety and security of this country will increase,” Clapper testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee…
The quote is from a Washington Post article. Read Shutdown makes U.S. more vulnerable to terrorist attacks, Intelligence officials warn By Greg Miller in the October 2 Washington Post if you want the whole story.
Time to end this stand-off.