Posted on 12/23/2009 6:20:35 AM PST by markomalley
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With the approval rating of Congress sinking in the polls and public opinion of their health care plan going down along with it, Democrats may have done themselves one favor too many this week when they riddled the bill with special deals for individual lawmakers. As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., struggled to pull together his 60 Democratic-controlled votes needed to pass the bill, certain holdout lawmakers were able to carve out extra money, benefits or exemptions that senators from other states didn't get. Reid said the deal making is just part of how legislation gets done in the Senate. "It's not different from other pieces of legislation," Reid said. "We work compromises. That's what legislation is all about, the art of compromise." He added that for those senators who did not carve out something for themselves, "it doesn't speak well of them." Steve Ellis, who spends his days parsing out pork barrel projects from congressional spending bills, said Reid's response ignores public disgust over such back-room deals.
"Even if you say this is just the way it works, that doesn't mean the public likes it," said Ellis, who is vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a watchdog group. "It stinks. And the public recognizes that."
Republicans trumpeted the deals as proof the bill was too unpopular to pass on its own, as evidenced by recent poll numbers showing shrinking public support. "Payoffs, Kickbacks, Sweetheart Deals Abound in Sen. Reid's Government Takeover of Health Care," read the headline on one Senate Republican press release. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., called the deal making "sleazy."
With the Internet and news saturated with accounts of the special deals secured by Nelson and others, it may be even harder than predicted for the Senate and House to return in January to pass a final bill, especially if they get an earful back home. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 32 percent of respondents believed the health care plan proposed by President Obama was a good idea, down from 39 percent in September. Congress fared even worse in the same poll, which found that 68 percent of those questioned disapprove of the job lawmakers are doing. Democratic lawmakers nonetheless defended the bill on Tuesday and the special deals within it. Sens. Mary Landrieu, D-La., Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., all of whom had problems with the reform bill and were threatening to vote "no," changed their minds around the time their states were given hundreds of billions of dollars in federal money to cover the reform bill's proposed expansion of Medicaid. Landrieu said she was simply ensuring that her state received a "correction to a formula that was going to distort our share," of Medicaid dollars. "It was not a condition for my vote," Landrieu said. Nelson said he secured money for Medicaid because he believed the expansion is an unfunded mandate, which he opposes. "Many of my colleagues are already talking about getting the same deal that we have," Nelson said. |
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The political class is clearly unafraid and unresponsive to the commoners.
My fear is that there aren’t enough of us who care to really make the political class’ indifference to us a mistake.
See the tagline.
We need to kick a field goal just as time runs out and pull it out. . . . . . . . . .
It doesn’t take too many to instill some fear in the ruling class.
Just one or two of them tarred and feathered should do it.
Thank God our founding Fathers didn't think like you do. . . . . . .
Crooks - effing crooks.
It stinks on ice. They must all be thrown out and then prosecuted to the full extent of both Federal and State laws.!!
“Thank God our founding Fathers didn’t think like you do. . . . . . .”
Maybe so. I just go by what I see.
If that were the case Bozo’s index wouldn’t be at -21. Hopefully it will be lower today. Also, they are clearly on the defensive here, making excuses and trying to lie their way out of it, if they truly didn’t care what we thought they wouldn’t keep lying to us.
It stinks on ice. They must all be thrown out and then prosecuted to the full extent of both Federal and State laws.!!
Good post.
Care to comment on Ben Whitegelding Nelson, Big John?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vcB7uCqdFk
“Just one or two of them tarred and feathered should do it.”
Not so sure. The b*stards rammed through the vote on this heathcare power grab before the break because they knew there would be big trouble at home for some of their ilk.
They are prepared for losses, and seem to have deemed them acceptable losses.
Listening to Dennis Prager the other day, I think he’s right. We’re dealing with committed communists. They are much more committed to their ideology than we have been. Conservatives, being self reliant types, tend to be more involved in taking care of themselves.
ABSOLUTELY! The good (crickets chirping) statist/bad statist meme is getting old.
“Also, they are clearly on the defensive here, making excuses and trying to lie their way out of it, if they truly didn’t care what we thought they wouldn’t keep lying to us.”
I agree, they do have to pay a certain amount of attention to us. There are elections, and even though it’s been shown they can be stolen, the election has to be close enough to steal. And individual ruling class members may fear for their job. Those are the acceptable casualties. The ruling class wants the power of controlling healthcare, and the individual costs may be high, but are seemingly accepted.
four words of this corruption of the grandest scale foisting law onto America by a dictator....
unconstitutional subversion of democracy
Half of the politicians wish the people would pay attention to politics. The other half is afraid they will.
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