Another Scandal - HHS Again

By Tom Rhodes, 5/24/2013

So far we've got more Obama scandals than a rational person can track, they include but aren't limited to: GM-Chrysler Bankruptcies, Fast&Furious, IRS Affair, Benghazi-gate, AP Phone Record Scandal, FOX News Warrantless email searches, Secretary of HHS Kathleen Sebelius was guilty of violating the Hatch Act but not only no criminal charges she kept her job, and the list goes on and on. It looks like there is another one the liberal press is ignoring.

Do you remember Oliver North, he went to jail for funding one of the presidents pet projects that congress refused to fund, the result of the famous Iran-Contra scandal. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius appears to be doing the very same thing. Now that it's passed we know what's in it, parts of Obamacare that Congress doesn't like they aren't funding. To get around congress U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is raising money from the private sector-including from health-care executives-for use by a private entity that is helping to implement ObamaCare. The entity, Enroll America, is run by a former White House aide.

OK, I'll admit Iran-Contra, funding an illegal war in Nicaragua, isn't the same as corporate cronyism to implement Obamacare; North was facilitating illegal drugs while Sebelius is facilitating legal drugs, but the principle and the legal prohibitions are the same. It is clear that Constitution prohibits receipt and collection of funds by the government absent an appropriation by congress, and that such appropriations may not be evaded by use of a nominally private entity if the entity is in reality an arm of the government and the government is able to direct how the money is spent. Congress has exclusive control over the expenditure of funds cannot legally be evaded though the use of private funding. In the Iran-Contra findings it was noted the "Were it otherwise, a president whose appropriation requests were rejected by Congress could raise money through private sources or from other countries for armies, military actions, arms systems or even domestic programs."

This is part of "checks and balances" that Obama often laments limits him. That's right without Congress's approval he can't spend money, regardless of the source. Last week five separate congressional committees in both houses of Congress asked the Government Accountability Office to find out the facts on Enroll America.

It looks like Sebelius is raising funds for a private entity from organizations she regulates and coordinating with that entity to do something Congress has refused to appropriate funds. Oliver North went to jail for that, why shouldn't Sebelius?