Over at DarwinsFool.com, I summarize a lengthy report issued by two congressional committees on how the Treasury Department, the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Health and Human Services conspired to create a new entitlement program that is authorized nowhere in federal law. Here’s an excerpt in which I summarize the summary:
Here is what seven key Treasury and IRS officials told investigators.
In early 2011, Treasury and IRS officials realized they had a problem. They unanimously believed Congress had intended to authorize certain taxes and subsidies in all states, whether or not a state opted to establish a health insurance “exchange” under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. At the same time, agency officials recognized: (1) the PPACA plainly does not allow those taxes and subsidies in non-establishing states; (2) the law’s legislative history offers no support for their theory that Congress intended to allow them in non-establishing states; and (3) Congress had not given the agencies authority to treat non-establishing states the same as establishing states.
Nevertheless, agency officials agreed, again with apparent unanimity, to impose those taxes and dispense those subsidies in states with federal Exchanges, the undisputed plain meaning of the PPACA notwithstanding. Treasury, IRS, and HHS officials simply rewrote the law to create a new, unauthorized entitlement program whose cost “may exceed $500 billion dollars over 10 years.” (My own estimate puts the 10-year cost closer to $700 billion.)
The full post includes details some pretty stunning examples of how agency officials were derelict in their duty to execute faithfully the laws Congress enacts.