Monday, March 22, 2010

Barrett votes against healthcare reform, supports the rights of states to be welfare queens

Posted by Chris Haire on Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 6:17 AM

Last night, South Carolina gubernatorial candidate and U.S. Rep. Gresham Barrett voted against the healthcare reform bill in the House. Shortly thereafter, he released this statement:

“Just because this legislation has passed does not mean that the fight is over. I will do everything in my power to defend South Carolina’s 10th amendment rights against these excessive federal government mandates.

I voted against the Democrat’s healthcare bill because my state’s economy is already on life support. We cannot afford to put any more South Carolina jobs in jeopardy — which is exactly what will happen under this government takeover of healthcare.”

First of all, I'd like to congratulate him on this line: "I voted against the Democrat’s healthcare bill because my state’s economy is already on life support." Nicely done, sir. Nicely done.

However, I'm tired of this 10th amendment meme that's taken hold among the right. The other day, I was listening to WTMA's The Morning Buzz with Richard Todd and both Richard and Jack Hunter were moaning and groaning about states' rights and what Barrett calls "excessive federal government mandates."

Well, here's the thing, it's just like it says in the 10th amendment: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

But there's a problem: The states gave those powers away, and that's fine and dandy. It's their right to do so. But you can't deny that that's what they did.

See, instead of going it on their own, making do with what they had, the states got greedy, they went looking for government handouts, you know, to help pay for roads, schools, grants, tax incentives, pet projects, you name it. And in return, they gave up their sovereignty. They gave up their right to do what they like for a cheap buck.

Make no mistake, folks, the great state of South Carolina, and every other state in this union, is a gloriously fat and lazy welfare queen who feeds her increasingly large brood of children government cheese and buys lottery tickets with her EBT card and refuses week after week, year after year, to get a freakin' job.

So please, everybody, Barrett included, enough with the 10th amendment yappery. Either wean South Carolina off the teat of federal largesse or shut the hell up.

Topics: State Politics
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sure and i am sure that tax breaks to companies to move here and other sweetheart deals have nothin to do with it.
Blame it on the poorest among us like we give them millions of dollars individually like they live high on the hog off of welfare. but dont look at the millions given to corporations and the reluctance to legalize video poker and and to fully tax cigarettes while you lay off state workers and teachers. if it wasnt for the federal government we would really be screwed

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Posted by thomas M on March 22, 2010 at 12:32 PM

I think your reasoning is very unsound here... Whether or not states gave up their rights to call their own shots by accepting federal money is a moot issue. The issue now is that states (not just South Carolina) are going to have a great financial burden foisted upon them by the federal government without the consent of the states' governing bodies.

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Posted by joerob577 on March 22, 2010 at 2:14 PM

Chris,

So when Richard and I were supporting Mark Sanford's refusal of federal stimulus (and you were giving him the bird) weren't we being consistent with what you're saying here? Full blown secession (something I'm entirely comfortable with) would really neutralize federal power by taking them out of the equation altogether.

I agree that no one should take big government Republicans like Gresham Barrett seriously. I take issue with you accusing Richard or myself of not being consistent in our decentralist, states' rights message.

You wrote:

"See, instead of going it on their own, making do with what they had, the states got greedy, they went looking for government handouts, you know, to help pay for roads, schools, grants, tax incentives, pet projects, you name it. And in return, they gave up their sovereignty. They gave up their right to do what they like for a cheap buck."

States might have given up their economic independence--or were blackmailed into it on occasion, see the 21 minumum age drinking law or No Child Left Behind--but that doesn't necessarily equal surrendering politicial sovereignty. In fact, serious 10th amendment advocates have always seen using political issues like healthcare, drug laws or gay marriage as starting points to re-examine the overreaching role of the federal government in every realm, including the economic examples you mention.

Some in the Montana state legislature have been trying to figure out how to eliminate the relationship between their citizens and the IRS, making the Feds have to seek taxes through their state legislatures--which would also give those states the power to withhold. Money is power, and this could certainly turn things around.

I do realize that those with progressive inclinations have a natural aversion to decentralization in any form, seeing New Deal-style central planning or even European government models as the way of the future, but saying that the current intrusive relationship between the states and the Feds forever settles questions of state independence is simply not true.

Even saying a particular war settled these questions is like saying if I contend that "2+2=4" and an opponent says "2+2=5"--and that opponent won the argument by kicking my ass--that this math question would be forever settled. It just doesn't add up.

Oh, and on another note, folks--much like Gresham Barret, John Boehner never has been and is not now, a conservative.

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Posted by Jack Hunter on March 22, 2010 at 2:23 PM

Dear Incredibly Ill-Informed Editorial Writer,

I don't even live in South Carolina and I am angry at what you wrote. I am opposed to the healthcare "reform" bill because it fails to do a couple of things:

1. Stop unauthorized and unrevealed experimentation on Americans which they end up becoming ill from. There are all kinds of these "experiments" from vaccinations with untested and unvalidated substances to secret spraying of the population and worse. This includes fluoridization of waters which a review of the scientific literature reveals does nothing to help the teeth, but a great deal to shorten life, create hormone problems and set the stage for a host of chronic illnesses. It was also used by the Nazis to "sedate" their prisoners. These facts are known to everybody including the Chinese, Brazilians and Russians who have conducted the most recent research.

2. The bill doesn't "reform" health care, it simply extends a criminal government's grasp on the individual's rights. Under this legislation, the government tells us what we have to do--just like livestock irrespective of the efficacy of the treatments or the desire of the patient.

It bothers me that people who get trillions in government benefits from trade negotiations to avoiding x-rays at the airport and AVOID taxation via false "charitable" trusts bitch about everybody else. They consider their stealthy theft of everybody's money via their arms companies and financial chicanery to be "work" whereas that which causes sweat to do is viewed as work for the least of us.

How can you criticize the average person who shares 15 percent of the GDP with 85 percent of the country and avoid saying anything about the top one percent who takes 85 percent of the GDP home? What an idiot!

MK

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Posted by MK on March 22, 2010 at 4:38 PM

Hey Jack,

I don't think you guys are inconsistent. My apologies if that's what it seemed like I suggested. What I'm trying to point out is that the 10th amendment argument and the states' rights argument (minus all the civil rights era racist code BS) are nearly meaningless unless states quit taking federal money.

If secession is the answer, fine. That's cool with me. To each his own, as long as he's paying for his own. But I just don't see that happening. Just as I don't see the states saying no to Uncle Sam.

Also, and in a related topic, the idea that the government gets more and more trustworthy and better and better the further we get away from Washington (i.e. federal government then state government then local government) has never followed municipal or county politics. That's the most corrupt crap around.

The only problem there though is you generally don't have declared Democrats against declared Republicans. It's not partisan, just petty.

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Posted by chrishaire on March 22, 2010 at 7:36 PM
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