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April 10th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
The Obama administration is quietly diverting roughly $500 million to the IRS to help implement the president’s healthcare law. ~ Sam Baker
The
money is only part of the IRS’s total implementation spending, and it
is being provided outside the normal appropriations process. The tax
agency is responsible for several key provisions of the new law,
including the unpopular individual mandate.
Republican lawmakers have tried to cut off funding to implement the
healthcare law, at least until after the Supreme Court decides whether
to strike it down. That ruling is expected by June, and oral arguments
last week indicated the justices might well overturn at least the
individual mandate, if not the whole law.
“While President Obama and
his Senate allies continue to spend more tax dollars implementing an
unpopular and unworkable law that may very well be struck down as
unconstitutional in a matter of months, I’ll continue to stand with the
American people who want to repeal this law and replace it with
something that will actually address the cost of healthcare,” said Rep.
Denny Rehberg (R-Mont.), who chairs the House Appropriations
subcommittee for healthcare and is in a closely contested Senate race
this year.
The Obama administration has plowed ahead despite the legal and political challenges.
It
has moved aggressively to get important policies in place. And,
according to a review of budget documents and figures provided by
congressional staff, the administration is also burning through
implementation funding provided in the healthcare law.
The law contains dozens of targeted appropriations to implement
specific provisions. It also gave the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) a $1 billion implementation fund, to use as it sees fit.
Republicans have called it a “slush fund.”
HHS plans to drain the
entire fund by September — before the presidential election, and more
than a year before most of the healthcare law takes effect. Roughly half
of that money will ultimately go to the IRS.
HHS has transferred
almost $200 million to the IRS over the past two years and plans to
transfer more than $300 million this year, according to figures provided
by a congressional aide.
The Government Accountability Office has
said the transfers are perfectly legal and consistent with how agencies
have used general implementation funds in the past. The $1 billion fund
was set aside for “federal” implementation activities, the GAO said,
and can therefore be used by any agency — not just HHS, where the money
is housed.
Still, significant transfers to the IRS and other
agencies leave less money for HHS, and the department needs to draw on
the $1 billion fund for some of its biggest tasks.
The healthcare
law directs HHS to set up a federal insurance exchange — a new
marketplace for individuals and small businesses to buy coverage — in
any state that doesn’t establish its own. But it didn’t provide any
money for the federal exchange, forcing HHS to cobble together funding
by using some of the $1 billion fund and steering money away from other
accounts.
The transfers also allow the IRS to make the healthcare
law a smaller part of its public budget figures. For example, the tax
agency requested $8 million next year to implement the individual
mandate, and said the money would not pay for any new employees.
An IRS spokeswoman would not say how much money has been spent so far implementing the individual mandate.
Republicans
charged during the legislative debate over healthcare that the IRS
would be hiring hundreds of new agents to enforce the mandate and
throwing people in jail because they don’t have insurance.
However, the mandate is just one part of the IRS’s responsibilities.
The
healthcare law includes a slew of new taxes and fees, some of which are
already in effect. The tax agency wants to hire more than 300 new
employees next year to cover those tax changes, such as the new fees on
drug companies and insurance policies.
The IRS will also
administer the most expensive piece of the new law — subsidies to help
low-income people pay for insurance, which are structured as tax
credits. The agency asked Congress to fund another 537 new employees
dedicated to administering the new subsidies.
The Republican-led
House last year passed an amendment, 246-182, sponsored by Rep. Jo Ann
Emerson (R-Mo.) that would have prevented the IRS from hiring new
personnel or initiating any other measures to mandate that people
purchase health insurance. The measure, strongly opposed by the Obama
administration, was subsequently dropped from a larger bill that averted
a government shutdown.
Sam Baker – April 9, 2012 – TheHill
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