So you'll recall that President Obama yesterday announced that the Administration would delay for a year the enforcement of the employer mandate for firms employing between 50 and 99 people. This naturally spawned a chorus of boos from the usual suspects.
The two most common complaints were a) that it's an example of the President's lawlessness, since the law, after all, is sacred (ahem), and the President is unlawfully declining to enforce it; and b) it's big government looking after its corporate friends, and not the little people (this last from that intellectual titan, Allan West - sorry, can't bear to provide links, but there's a story on newsmax, if you must).
I won't dignify those squawks with further comment, but it turns out the order has generated at least one more, shall we say, inventive objection. For that, you'll have to jump over the orange mogul.
So while Allan West was complaining that the order helped corporations but not people, Ralph Bristol, who's kind of a slightly saner, much fitter Rush Limbaugh on Nashville local radio, posted the following on his Foolbook page:
Can a president stop a company from laying off workers? President Obama will "not allow" companies to lay off workers in order to take advantage of his latest delay of the employer mandate for firms with fewer than 100 workers.
Now, good old Ralph was quoting a Faux News online story (you know, no link again) that came surprisingly close to telling the story - that the order anticipated that some employers might lay off workers to get their work force below 100, and take advantage of the waiver. The solution is a little clunky, but it basically says that if you lay off workers to get below 100 and want to take advantage of the waiver, you have to certify to the IRS that "Obamacare was not a motivating factor in those staffing decisions."
What's fun is that Faux complained that all the order did was set it up so that
To avoid ObamaCare costs you must swear that you are not trying to avoid ObamaCare costs. You can duck the law, but only if you promise not to say so.
But Ralph wanted to whip up his listeners by letting them think employers can't lay off workers
at all. The comments were predictable enough, but the following sequence of two were truly priceless:
Commenter 1 It will make a great court case
Commenter 2 Not with this supreme court [sic]
Yes, kids, that's right. There are people in our fair land that think the Supreme Court isn't conservative enough or friendly enough to corporate interests. But what can I say? Bristol's listener base is heavy with people who can't wait to vote Bob Corker out of the Senate because
he isn't "conservative" enough, either.
It's going to be a very interesting year.