Sweeteners For The South (Louisiana Purchase: $300 Million For Landrieu)

Washington Post ^ | November 22, 2009 | Dana Milbank

[raptor22]

Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.

On the eve of Saturday's showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn't secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.

And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote -- and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going to be defensive," she declared. "And it's not a $100 million fix. It's a $300 million fix."

It was an awkward moment (not least because her figure is 20 times the original Louisiana Purchase price). But it was fairly representative of a Senate debate that seems to be scripted in the Southern Gothic style. The plot was gripping -- the bill survived Saturday's procedural test without a single vote to spare -- and it brought out the rank partisanship, the self-absorption and all the other pathologies of modern politics. If that wasn't enough of a Tennessee Williams story line, the debate even had, playing the lead role, a Southerner named Blanche with a flair for the dramatic.

After Landrieu threw in her support (she asserted that the extra Medicaid funds were "not the reason" for her vote), the lone holdout in the 60-member Democratic caucus was Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas. Like other Democratic moderates who knew a single vote could kill the bill, she took a streetcar named Opportunism, transferred to one called Wavering and made off with concessions of her own.

[ajay_kumar]

Please Freep this USA Today poll on Senate vote:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-11-20-Health-Care-Senate_N.htm

[stboz]

There is another set of prostitutes here.....they can be seen easily.....in the bathroom mirror. P.J. O’Rourke has it right.

[ajay_kumar]

A high priced Whore!

[MamaDearest]

Don’t we have laws about political bribery?????

[Mr. K]

Q: Whats the difference between Mary Landrieu and a $20 whore?

A: $299,999,980

[444Flyer]

Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.)

"Are you a Hoooooker?!"

[blastdad51]

Won’t ask her for a date........Too danm expensive!!!

[Tupelo]

$300,000,000!!!!!!!!!!!
What do you figure? 5%-10% into Landrieu’s pockets. That seems to be the average take of the ruling elite in Washington.
But we just keep reelecting them based on how much bacon they can bring home. The time for Mr Jefferson's predicted second revolution is waaaaaay past.

[MissDairyGoodnessVT]

just as i was going to say...............

[Pining_4_TX]

Thanks for the info. I plan on letting her know that I am going to donate to her next opponent, even though I do not live in Louisiana. Money is all she understands, the crook.

[stayathomemom]

Outside of government this is known as bribery or payola and is illegal.

Had we known that $300,000,000 was her price, do you think it would have been possible to find 3 million people who would have been willing to donate $100 to stop this socialism in it's tracks? I bet we could have, but that wouldn't have been legal.

I suggest that anyone who visits her office from now on, dress like a whore or a pimp.

[stayathomemom]

It should be the law of the land that bills should stand on their own with no amendments.

I agree!

[alloysteel]

The original Louisiana purchase, in 1803, was only $15 Million. And that was some 800,000 square miles.

So how many times do we have to keep on buying New Orleans over and over?