WhatFinger


Do your jobs, and this isn't it

A day after failing to repeal ObamaCare, congressional Republicans offer meaningless Charlie Gard stunt instead



Before I start this rant, I do have to be fair and say this one thing: The House did its job and passed an ObamaCare repeal. It's the Senate that failed.. So I recognize that by railing against "congressional Republicans," I'm focusing in this case on the chamber that at least got something done on the ObamaCare front. But with that said, I don't think it's generally unfair to ding congressional Republicans for favoring symbolic actions over real ones, which brings us to the horrifically cynical action taken today by the House Appropriations Committee in regard to the gravely ill British child Charlie Gard:
The House Appropriations Committee voted Tuesday on an amendment that would give lawful permanent residence to the family of Charlie Gard, the baby with a rare disease living in England whose parents are fighting to get him an experimental treatment in the United States.
The amendment, which was offered by Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Wash., was added in the committee’s markup to the Homeland Security spending bill. The amendment, if passed, would grant Charlie and his parents, Christopher William Gard and Constance Rhoda Keely Yates, permanent resident status to receive medical assistance.
What's wrong with giving them permanent residence, you ask? What's wrong with it is that they don't need it, and it's not the solution to their problem. Charlie and his parents have always been welcome in the United States. President Trump said as much weeks ago. The problem is that they can't get Charlie out of the UK because the National Health Service won't release Charlie from the hospital, and they've gotten the backing of the courts to essentially make Charlie their prisoner, such that his parents are not legally permitted to make the decision to take him elsewhere. The committee's action, if it ultimately became law, might technically eliminate a hurdle at our end if and when Charlie was free to leave, but that's honestly not much of a hurdle to begin with. There was never any chance they were going to be stopped at the border on some immigration technicality. If anything, we'll send a plane for them. Getting them here doesn't require a special act of Congress.

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This is a classic case of politicians making a show of "helping" a sympathetic figure or cause, when in fact their "help" was never required and doesn't really do anything to make the situation better. Perhaps these Republicans think the move will play well with their conservative base, which is largely pro-life and very sympathetic to Charlie's plight. But it won't if the base uses its brains and realizes this doesn't make a dime's worth of difference. It was one thing to pass meaningless resolutions when you had a Democrat president who wouldn't sign any meaningful ones, although I still don't think that's much of a defense. But there's no justification for this kind of nonsense now. The executive branch has the Charlie Gard situation in hand to the extent we can affect it on this side of the pond. Congress should just do the job it's supposed to do, and that includes solving real problems for which they might take some heat. Instead, they do this, which will subject them to no heat. And "solves" a non-problem.


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Dan Calabrese -- Bio and Archives

Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain

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