By Rand Paul
Obama acts as though we no longer have a Constitution
Sen. Tom Harkin said he will remove his hold on President Obama's pick to lead the nation's Medicare agency, but the powerful Iowa Democrat said Tuesday he is still not happy with the administration's "penny-wise, pound-foolish" tendency to raid a fund designated for preventative health programs.
Republican lawmakers say the costs of implementing President Obama's health care law represent a ripe target for money-saving cuts, as Congress fights over the best way to avert an automatic and indiscriminate budget ax set to come down Friday.
After weeks of debate over whether the Prevention and Public Health Fund, created by President Obama's health care law, affects women's health, Republicans are airing additional complaints about the pool of money and how states and communities have used the fund to support a string of questionable initiatives.
Washington has wrongly made taxpayers foot the bill for thousands of egregious projects - treadmills for shrimp, Jell-O-wrestling in Antarctica, a "Bridge to Nowhere" - but funding lobbyists to advocate for higher taxes, costly regulations and more egregious projects on the taxpayer's dime is out-of-control government spending at its worst.
Facing budgetary pressures in his annual spending plan, President Obama has proposed cutting resources from a key part of his health care law — a preventive care program designed for Americans to maintain good health.
The House on Wednesday voted to defund a portion of the 2010 health care reform law that deals with preventative health services - a mostly symbolic gesture as the bill almost certainly will be blocked in the Senate.
