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Democrats on the Health-Care Precipice
Wall Street Journal ^ | Dec 17, 2009 | Kim Strassel

Posted on 12/18/2009 8:05:25 AM PST by FocusNexus

Enacting health-care legislation in the face of overwhelming public disapproval may cost the party its chance of forging a sustainable majority.

Barack Obama emerged from his meeting with Senate Democrats this week to claim Congress was on the "precipice" of something historic. Believe him. The president is demanding his party unilaterally enact one of the most unpopular and complex pieces of social legislation in history. In the process, he may be sacrificing Democrats' chances at creating a sustainable majority.

Slowly, slowly, the Democratic health agenda is turning into a political suicide pact. Congressional members have been dragged along by momentum, by threat, by bribe, but mostly by the White House's siren song that it would be worse to not pass a bill than it would be to pass one. If that ever were true, it is not today.

Public opinion on ObamaCare is at a low ebb. This week's NBC-WSJ poll: A mere 32% of Americans think it a "good" idea. The Washington Post: Only 35% of independents support it—down 10 points in a month. Resurgent Republic recently queried Americans over the age of 55, aka Those Most Likely to Vote In a Midterm Election. Sixty-one percent believe ObamaCare will increase their health costs; 68% believe it will increase the deficit; 76% believe it will raise their taxes.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: 111th; congress; democrats; healthcare; obama; obamacare; socializedmedicine

1 posted on 12/18/2009 8:05:26 AM PST by FocusNexus
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To: FocusNexus

“Pew this week published a poll in which it marveled (fretted?) over the “extent to which the public has moved in a conservative direction on a range of issues” since President Obama took office. “


2 posted on 12/18/2009 8:09:26 AM PST by FocusNexus ("Good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise." GW Bush)
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To: FocusNexus
Before the election no one was paying attention at all to what he said, instead focusing on how he said it (as well as his hue, of course).
3 posted on 12/18/2009 8:12:16 AM PST by rhombus
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To: FocusNexus
“Pew this week published a poll in which it marveled (fretted?) over the “extent to which the public has moved in a conservative direction on a range of issues” since President Obama took office. “

Everybody enjoys standing at the edge of a tall building and looking over the side. After a second or two, common sense takes over and we step back.

4 posted on 12/18/2009 8:12:33 AM PST by I cannot think of a name
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To: FocusNexus
The American people oppose the Democratic agenda. Barack Obama is helping to undo the Clinton legacy and re-establishing the Democrats in the minds of the American people as the tax, spend and regulate party. That damage to the Democrat brand will be long-lasting.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus

5 posted on 12/18/2009 8:12:34 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: FocusNexus

Pay up or go to prison sure isn’t freedom. And they just aren’t legislating robbery, they want to legislate death of the useless eaters and carry on like the FDA is not a criminal organization within a criminal organization. The USG is completely rogue.

The US debt keeps going up $13 a day while our jobs are sent offshore. The country is intentionally being bankrupted and our children are being born as debt slaves and tax slaves.

We are ruled by treason.


6 posted on 12/18/2009 8:13:00 AM PST by poodle
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To: FocusNexus
In the process, he may be sacrificing Democrats' chances at creating a sustainable majority.

Yes and no. They will take a hit in 2010 (probably, but not a given considering the extent to which our election process will be corrupted by then). But once the criminal laws are in place the Dems will win the PR battle of who can run it better. Pubbies will never out Dem the Dems. And that's what they will try to do.

And, in a perverse way, what will it matter who is running the show once the republic is dead?

7 posted on 12/18/2009 8:15:22 AM PST by ChildOfThe60s
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To: FocusNexus
Barack Obama emerged from his meeting with Senate Democrats this week to claim Congress was on the "precipice" of something histori

He had to be off the teleprompter when he said that. No decent speech writer would refer to something that is supposed to be historic in a good way (which the libs think nationalizing the health insurance industry is) as a "precipice".

He's either got really bad speech writers, or this is proof positive, yet again, that he is truly dumb as a box of Marxist rocks.

8 posted on 12/18/2009 8:16:10 AM PST by Turbo Pig (...to close with and destroy the enemy...)
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To: FocusNexus

The Holocaust was historic. So was the Spanish Inquisition, So was the Third Reich.So was the Obama election to Presidency.First Muslim Hybrid in the White House.

Not all things that are historic are to be praised.

Turning America’s health care over to the Government is just the latest in turning our country into a Socialist ,Communist .nation. It may be Historic , but it aint good.


9 posted on 12/18/2009 8:18:25 AM PST by Venturer
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To: I cannot think of a name

Here is the link to the full Pew article on their poll. This should be a real wake up call to the Dems, but they are just ignoring the will of the American people.

Mixed Views of Obama at Year’s End

http://people-press.org/report/572/mixed-views-of-obama-at-year-end

Note the this was a poll of “adults”, just think what the results would have been among registered or likely voters.

“More (51%) say they have not too much or no confidence in Obama on health care than say they are confident in the president (44%). Similarly, 53% express little confidence in Obama’s ability to reduce they federal budget deficit, while just 41% are confident.”


10 posted on 12/18/2009 8:18:45 AM PST by FocusNexus ("Good and evil are present in this world, and between the two there can be no compromise." GW Bush)
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To: FocusNexus

From the article: “So why the stubborn insistence on passing health reform? Think big. The liberal wing of the party—the Barney Franks, the David Obeys—are focused beyond November 2010, to the long-term political prize. They want a health-care program that inevitably leads to a value-added tax and a permanent welfare state. Big government then becomes fact, and another Ronald Reagan becomes impossible. See Continental Europe. “

This simply cannot be reiterated enough and is why the Republicans/Conservatives must not simply be satisfied with stopping the left. The agenda must be to reverse the left. This is why the Washingtonians like McCain must be shown the door with equal vigor as the lefties. A guy like McCain is longing for the days of being the “Maverick” and appearing to fawning praise on the Sunday Morning talk shows. Turn him and the lefties out!!!


11 posted on 12/18/2009 8:31:48 AM PST by FlipWilson
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To: FocusNexus

“41% are confident”

I must never meet any of those people - and I’m darn glad I don’t! They’re scary.


12 posted on 12/18/2009 8:33:41 AM PST by I cannot think of a name
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To: I cannot think of a name
Between 41 and 44% of the US population is addicted to Kool Aid. Even loser Jimmy Carter, our worst President, still attracted 40% of the vote in 1980.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find only things evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelogus

13 posted on 12/18/2009 8:37:17 AM PST by goldstategop (In Memory Of A Dearly Beloved Friend Who Lives In My Heart Forever)
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To: Turbo Pig

I agree. Democrats are about to plunge over the precipice into the abyss. It was a remarkable word choice. Crash and burn comes to mind.


14 posted on 12/18/2009 9:20:49 AM PST by meatloaf
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To: FocusNexus
“Pew this week published a poll in which it marveled (fretted?) over the “extent to which the public has moved in a conservative direction on a range of issues” since President Obama took office. “

Karl Marx looks conservative next to the Kenyan.

It may be early and he may have a "Clinton Conversion" (highly improbable), but I'm smelling a single term for this loser, maybe less if his party suddenly "discovers" that he's not a citizen after all....LOL!

15 posted on 12/18/2009 9:34:26 AM PST by randog (Tap into America!)
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To: FocusNexus
A week from now, the current polls might look good.

"Usul, we have wormsign the likes of which even God has never seen before."

[The real fascination for me is to watch the Dims marching up to the very brink of the ObamaCare precipice, and then to see if they're really going to make that lemming leap, or if they somehow manage to avoid taking that suicidal plunge at the very last nanosecond. I wonder if 'ol Honest Ben is going to end up inadvertently saving them or not?]

16 posted on 12/18/2009 10:39:44 AM PST by catnipman (Cat Nipman: Made from The Right Stuff)
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To: rhombus

And unfortunately it’s happened before and will happen again as more Americans graduate from the government indoctrination centers and the definition of “rights” is expanded to include any “gimmee” the rats can get shoved through Congress on the backs of taxpayers in order to buy votes from the ever-increasing demographic of entitlement voters. Freedom and liberty of the individual? Who needs it, as long they get a free ride at “government” expense and the “freedom” to be every kind of pervert under the sun? Just wait, one day those of us who are still alive will look back at this time of relative “innocence” as child/adult sexual relationships become a “civil right”.


17 posted on 12/18/2009 10:50:00 AM PST by mrsmel
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To: poodle

They are also demanding that we pay for own enslavement as they force more and more Americans to be dependent upon government even if they don’t want to be. And just what party does that benefit-expansion of government and more government dependence? The marxists, cloaked as “Democrats”.


18 posted on 12/18/2009 10:52:30 AM PST by mrsmel
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