44. How Laws are Made

44.  How Laws are Made

 

Hopefully, if you’ve been listening to my commentaries, you’re ready to get rid of Obamacare.  But how does that work?  How are laws made and repealed?

 

First, whatever party wins control of the House or Senate gets to be in charge of all of the various committees in Congress.  That’s absolutely key. The committee chairs get to decide what bill proposals will be heard in the committees and what will actually be voted on.  Without this crucial step, no bill can become law.  Just because a bill passes one of the 2 houses of Congress does not mean that it is, or ever will be, a law.  That’s why nothing has happened in the Senate for the past 2 years:  the Democrats control the Senate committees, so, even though the House passes a bill, the Democrats running the Senate will not allow Republican-supported bills to even be voted on.  So none of them has a chance to become actual law. 

 

Now, each new Congress that comes in every 2 years gets to make up their own rules about how they will pass laws.  They are supposed to abide by the Constitution of course, but the Democrat-controlled Congress that passed Obamacare pushed the limits of that flexibility to the max.  We’ll talk about that tomorrow.   Typically, any bill that involves raising money, or taxing citizens, has to originate in the House of Representatives.  If it passes the House, and the Senate passes it, it goes to the President to be signed into law.  If the Senate makes changes to the bill, then passes it with those changes, it then goes on to a Conference Committee: this consists of members of both parties in both houses of Congress.  Here the wording of the law is reviewed and corrected as needed.  After the Conference Committee, it goes back to the House to be voted on again, and if passed, it goes to the Senate for a vote.  If it passes that, it goes to the President to be signed into law.  Obamacare did not go thru these typical steps—almost none of them!  In addition, not a single Republican voted for this law!  That has never happened for a law of this magnitude.  Even Social Security and Medicare had bi-partisan support.

 

So that’s how laws are supposed to be made in our country, according to our Constitution. Tomorrow, we’ll see how this process was abused to force Obamacare on We the People.

(Note: This commentary is by Dr. Jill Vecchio.)