POWIP Piece of Work In Progress

Obamacare Senate vote “incentives”: benevolence or bribery

A Trio of Trifling Twits

Virtuous or vogorish?  I'll let you make the call, but any fair assessment will have to wait until Lord Reid allows us plebeians, and his fellow Senators to, you know, actually see the bill being voted on. 

Still, some of the details of the compromises payoffs are out there already, and Cap'n Ed features a list of them:

Recall the moments in 2008 when Democrats like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Barack Obama campaigned on the platform of — must … control … gag … reflex — “Honest Leadership, Open Government”?  This picture should jog your memories, and your own gag reflexes, especially that sanctimonious pose by Reid.  The trio have managed to make themselves either satirists of the highest order or influence peddlers of the lowest while struggling to pass the second item on their legislative agenda.

It seems to me that if ObamaCare really reformed the process, we wouldn’t need all of these exceptions to its rules.  After all, it’s supposed to “bend the cost curve downward” for everyone.  If it does that, then why does Hawaii need a DSH extension?  Why does Connecticut need exemptions for its hospitals and a $100 million grant, if we’re leveling the playing field?

 

Cap'n Ed makes a great point in that last paragraph.  Make sure you read the entire piece to get an idea of the magnitude of coin dropped on select members of the most ethical party-EVAR!,  enough that it caused them to see Obamacare in a whole new light.  I won't invoke the old joke about prostitutes and prices, but it seems that the Senators detailed have revealed how much their individual ethoses (ethoi, ethe?) are worth.

 

Some though, like Tom Harkin, are more up-front about it.  He didn't need a bribe, because the way he sees it he's part of a putsch that is creating a whole new category of rights in America:

Harkin dismissed deals dubbed vote-buying by GOP senators as "small stuff" that distracted Americans from the primary focus of the overhaul bill.  "We have to keep our eyes on what we're trying to do here. We're trying to cross a demarcation line," Harkin told "Early Show" co-anchor Maggie Rodriguez. "On one side is health care as a privilege, on the other side is health care as a right. With these votes, with the vote that we'll take before Christmas, we will cross that line finally and say that health care is a right of all Americans."

Imagine if you can...Creating a whole new class of constitutional "rights",but without all of the messy business of actually amending the constitution.  What progress!  And all it took was a few bucks inserted in the correct vest pockets.  At ACE's site Slublog points out Harkin's particular flavor of hypocrisy by quoting him chastizing Boooooooosh! in 2004:

"The President must stop gambling with taxpayers' money and get the country back on the path of fiscal sanity."

 
I wonder what's changed since then. Oh, that's right, one of his guys is the President now. Now that's integrity my friends...

 

But, it's Christmas after all and I should be more charitable, and less suspicious.  So, I'll just characterize this instead as the cost to fall on their sword, so to speak, in the next election; because according to Quinnipiac and Rasmussen the majority of the public oppose this abomination of a bill-and oppose the public funding of abortion by a 3 to 1 ratio!  In fact, according to Scotty Ras', just 34% believe that passing this bill would be better than doing NOTHING!  The President and the congressional Democrats are counting on the public having a short memory at the polls next year, a phenomenon they generally count on.  It's up to all of us to keep the presure on our Representatives and Senators, call them today and every day until the Obamacare vote is actually taken.  Tell them to vote NO!; and if you want, remind them that your vote, ergo-their job, depends on how they vote on this bill.  Help to bring OPERATION WATERLOO to a successful conclusion.

In any case, during the coming election season prior to the 2010 vote, you need to remind everyone you talk with to hold these people accountable.  Remember all the grand promises they made, and how they violated them all to drag Obamacare across the finish line; that they traded all of their principles for a political victory.  Those who feel that they have the latitude to impose what they feel is "best for us", as opposed to executing our will, must be treated like the unprincipled hacks that they are and fired-by rejecting them at the ballot box next year if they impose this legislation, that is opposed by the majority of the public, on to all.  Remember their 2008 mantra, and make them pay for resorting to disingenuous sloganeering.

Ethics!, Leadership!,Judgement!,Transparency!

O!

(H/T Cap'n Ed)

Rocketman