Author: Jack
I retired in 2008 and so I have more time now to devote to several of my interests The blog here is mainly for my interests in some current events but may have the occasional rant on other subjects. I have also decided to keep my genealogy posts and book reviews here instead of 2 additional blogs (and so simplify my life a little).

Administrative discretion in the Pay Our Military Act

Administrative discretion in the Pay Our Military Act

Posted on by Jack

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.

Shutdown Emergency Declarations In Utah

Shutdown Emergency Declarations In Utah

Posted on by Jack

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.

So called leaders lead us into Shutdown

So called leaders lead us into Shutdown

Posted on by Jack

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 ?

Government Shutdown and congressional leadership

Government Shutdown and congressional leadership

Posted on by Jack

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.

Prevent Medicare Fraud

Prevent Medicare Fraud

Posted on by Jack

In discussing healthcare, the subject of Medicare fraud often comes up. The big thing that is often talked about is the billions of taxpayer dollars wasted because of fraudulent over-payments. There is another type of Medicare fraud where Medicare beneficiaries are targeted and the cost can be very personal.

I read an article from AARP today about a bill to reduce both types of fraud. Of course, it is near impossible to totally prevent attempts at fraud and Medicare is a very big target. So why not tighten things up a bit and make things a bit tougher for those committing the fraud and those who help wittingly or unwittingly.

The article is Pass the PRIME Act and it is from the AARP Bulletin. Read it over and see what you think. Seems reasonable to me.

When politics worked

When politics worked

Posted on by Jack

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

Ancestry buys Find A Grave

Ancestry buys Find A Grave

Posted on by Jack

I’ve long been a fan of Ancestry and several other websites for genealogy which I’ve mentioned here but oddly one that I use regularly has not been mentioned here that I can recall.

That site is http://www.findagrave.com/ or Find A Grave. Frequently when I know the names of husband and wife and where they live, I can easily find date of death and often additional information and frequently an actual picture of the grave. Of course I check to see if the information there is consistent with everything else I know.

Or sometimes I know less than that and Find A Grave gives me the first hint on things to check out. It is a wonderful site and is run by volunteer genealogists. Now Find A Grave has been purchased by Ancestry.com. Apparently the site will remain free but have the support of Ancestry behind it so we can expect further improvements

What will change at Find A Grave?
•The short answer is: nothing. The site will remain free and continue to operate as it has for the last eighteen years. I (Jim Tipton, Find A Grave’s founder) will continue to run the website but will have the support of a full, dedicated Find A Grave team at Ancestry.com – so the pace of updates / improvements / new features should accelerate. The familiar administrators that many of you have come to know over the years will remain and continue in the same capacity.

This is from the announcement and FAQ on Find A Grave. Read it if you’d like to know more about it.

Shutdown is failure and a result of giving parties too much power

Shutdown is failure and a result of giving parties too much power

Posted on by Jack

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”

Government Shutdown and Security

Government Shutdown and Security

Posted on by Jack

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.

Find a credit card

Find a credit card

Posted on by Jack

Just a short note today as I was totally surprised by this. I was looking a something else entirely on Amazon.com. I often buy books there but also a variety of other items.

Today I was looking and noticed they had a credit card category and wondered about it. So I looked and saw a sort of one stop credit card center which lists a variety of cards and their features, including customer reviews on some cards. Easy to look by type of card or various features including type of reward (if any). I prefer cash rewards but others may prefer travel rewards or points toward various gifts. Some cards include an Amazon gift card.

If your in the market for a credit card or even thinking that a rewards card might be useful, have a look at the Amazon credit card page .

Unjust prosecution for assisted suicide

Unjust prosecution for assisted suicide

Posted on by Jack

What do you think?

This is the start of an article in yesterday’s Philadelphia Inquirer. And the opening sentence does sum it up well, but there is much more to it. It is Pennsylvania news but the issue is one that could happen almost anywhere and that is certainly worth thinking about.

The Philadelphia nurse charged with assisted suicide for giving morphine to her terminally ill, 93-year-old father has been suspended from her job without pay, run up legal fees of $90,000, and often can’t sleep because she feels so angry and hurt, her husband said in an interview.

In this case, the criminal act appears to be simply handing her terminally ill father his morphine with which he attempted suicide. The morphine had been prescribed for the terminally ill man for pain relief.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that patients have the right to self-administer as much medication as needed for pain, even if it hastens death. But it is apparently still not a right in Pennsylvania.

The suicide may have been successful if the state and not intervened to revive him despite his do-not-resuscitate order and the expressed desire of his health care proxy (his daughter, the Philadelphia nurse later charged with assisted suicide).

The patient did die after several days but I haven’t seen any evidence as to weather the cause of death was the suicide attempt, the treatment, the pre-existing terminal illness, a combination of these, or something else entirely.

This is from another account:

(Pottsville, Pa. – Sept. 17, 2013) Defense attorneys for Barbara Mancini, who faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of “assisted suicide” for allegedly handing morphine to her dying father, today filed a motion to dismiss the case based in part on two U.S. Supreme Court decisions. In both cases, Washington v. Glucksberg and Vacco v. Quill, the nation’s highest court recognized that states cannot erect legal barriers to aggressive treatment of end-of-life pain and suffering, even when it advances the time of death (for more details, see pages 5-7 of the motion atwww.compassionandchoices.org/pennsylvania-v-mancini/).

I think the state is clearly in the wrong here and I don’t understand why the Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane is prosecuting Barbara Mancini. But what do you think about the rights of the patient and his daughter?

If you would like see or sign the online petition to stop this prosecution, please click here.

Fixing the ACA or Obamacare makes more sense than repeal

Fixing the ACA or Obamacare makes more sense than repeal

Posted on by Jack

It seems that ever since the Affordable Care Act (aka ACA or Obamacare) was passed and then passed muster in court, nearly all Republicans have wanted it repealed. The latest efforts involve shutting down the government as we enter a new fiscal year and refusing to raise the debt ceiling so the government defaults on its debts.

Both efforts seem foolish and I have discussed them recently.

I live in Pennsylvania and get emails from Senator Toomey. He discussed his desire to compromise on the government shut-down stand-off by adding 3 amendments to the Senate bill. These amendments did not make it into the Senate bill. I do not think the debate on Obamacare should be part of the government shut-down or debt ceiling debates but these are good discussion points on the law.

The first would repeal the medical device tax that is costing Pennsylvania jobs; the second would provide relief from the infringement on religious liberty in Obamacare; the third would delay the individual mandate for one year.

I probably would back the repeal of the medical device tax. It seems to me the best way to do this would be a a separate bill but now seems a bit rushed. I don’t see much benefit to this tax since I would assume the tax would just be passed along as part of the cost of health care. So there is really no benefit since the users of heath care pay the tax and there well could be a job loss associated with this. But on the other hand with more people insured and using health care there may not be a job loss. I’d like to see more discussion on this point.

Regarding the second suggestion (infringement on religious liberty), I think this is inevitable as long as we insist on standards in health insurance. I think the employer mandate is problematic. The religious objection of an employer may or may not seem reasonable to others. One person may object to contraception and another may object to this or that aspect of health care. A public option would be much simpler here but I don’t think that is what the Senator had in mind.

As to the third point (a 1 year delay), there may be a problem. I assume the insurance companies took the widened risk-pool provided by the mandate into account when setting the rates for 2014. If this is not the case and we do not have additional delays such as a 1 year delay every year, it might be worth discussing this.

The ACA is a complex law with many parts. There are things I like and things I don’t. There seem to be things we could fix now and problems that would not be apparent until parts of the law are implemented. And we certainly could use a reasonable discussion of the pros and cons of parts of this law.

Rather than have a series of political stand-offs to attempt to repeal the law, maybe Congress could work to improve the law.

Fix Health Care, don’t just repeal the attempted reform

Fix Health Care, don’t just repeal the attempted reform

Posted on by Jack

A few days ago, I remarked on the apparent public disapproval Affordable Care Act (aka ACA or Obamacare) although there are many clear benefits some of which seem quite popular.

I like some provisions and dislike others. I like the idea of universal coverage. The ACA doesn’t get us to universal health care but sure gets us closer. There are certainly things I don’t know and perhaps are unknowable until we try.

So my vote is for fixing the parts of the law that don’t work or cause problems. I think a repeal is foolish. And it is certainly foolish to shut down the government to try to force a repeal.

And even more foolish to fail to increase the debt ceiling and have the United States default on its obligations in an attempt to force the will of some Republicans on the entire county.

The House Republicans have shown the ability to manufacture a crisis when there is no need. It is a shame they can’t direct their efforts at solving the problems of the country.

Are Americans really opposed to Obamacare ?

Are Americans really opposed to Obamacare ?

Posted on by Jack

It appears that there is considerable public opposition to the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare). House Speaker John Boehner cited this opposition to Obamacare in calling the House bill to to fund federal agencies past Sept. 30 and defund Obamacare.

I think saying a majority of Americans oppose Obamacare is an over simplification and wrote a bit about that.

I find it rather hard to believe that a majority wants to go back to a system where insurers can deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions (or they believe the applicant is likely to make too many claims). Or a system that allows insurers to place caps on benefits so if you develop a serious condition the policy just pays until a certain point and you are stuck with any bills after that point.

How can we conclude that a majority oppose the law when other surveys show many people just don’t know much about the law?

National debt crisis solved

National debt crisis solved

Posted on by Jack

It seems to be a repeat of recent events. Congress creates a crisis when there is no need.

Of course the manufactured crisis in the news now is the budget for next year, but that is soon to be followed by a more serious crisis when Congress needs to increase the debt ceiling so we can pay our national bills including interest on the debt and current expenses in excess of revenues.

I am of the opinion that an agreement between the President and Congress the best course but that the President can act by himself and ignore the debt ceiling but that is opinion.

We had a similar crisis just a few years ago. I think the President gave into Congress too easily then.

But are good arguments on both sides. And it could be that neither side really want to push their arguments too hard as they might lose the court case and be much worse off than having this ambiguous situation. So here are the Arguments:

Article 2 Section 3 of the Constitution says of the President:
… “he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” …

So if Congress passes a budget that requires borrowing by spending more than revenues, the President has a duty to borrow so he may execute the laws. It would seem unfair and perhaps unconstitutional to limit his abilities.

The President has an obligation to execute the laws. It is impossible to execute all laws since the debt ceiling law denies him the money to execute many laws, and so he has no choice but to ignore the debt ceiling law unless Congress increases the debt ceiling. By failing to increase the debt ceiling in a timely manner, Congress is blocking his constitutional obligation.

So it seems to me there are 2 good arguments in favor of this. First, the President is in a situation where he cannot execute all the laws so he must pick either this one debt ceiling law or all the others. The second is that the debt limit law is unconstitutional since it prevents the President from carrying out duties specified in the Constitution.

On the other hand, Article 1 Section 8 of the same Constitution gives Congress the power “to pay the Debts” and “To borrow Money on the credit of the United States” so maybe there is a Constitutional case for the debt ceiling. But then nowhere does it say that Congress can refuse to pay debts or limit the ability of the President to carry out the laws that they passed.

But then we have Amendment 14, Section 4:

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. …

Here is a part of the Constitution that would seem to suggest that this should not be an issue.