Obama/Congress Go Nuclear
By Wes Keene | February 21, 2010 | In Category: Health Care
In recent weeks, the world has been appalled at the likely prospect of a nuclear Iran. Americans are having similar feelings about Congress and the President. The main difference between the two? It’s cheaper and quicker to clean up after a nuclear bomb than a new entitlement program. The downside of the representative republic is that crooks can cause lots of problems, and there is very little we can do about it.
It’s difficult for anyone to know exactly what Congress is planning to do “for” us. At first blush, it seems like a scheme designed to make Obama play good cop while Congressional Democrats play bad cop. More likely, it’s a slight of hand trick wherein the confidence man (Obama) keeps us focused on him, while his shills in Congress deliver a very nasty belated Christmas present.
The latest scheme goes something like this: House Democrats vote for the senate bill as is, then the Senate can use “reconciliation” (the nuclear bomb option) to hijack the bill with all kinds of extra junk the House wanted (like the “public option”) but which would not get 60 votes in the Senate. This “reconciliation” would only require 51 votes. Also, because reconciliation is designed for budget bills only, the Senate will end up attaching health care to the back of a new budget bill. If it sounds complex and ethically questionable, that’s because it is. What else would you expect from the Pelosi/Reid Congress?
This is yet another reason why the GOP should boycott the Feb 25th meeting with Obama. He has no plans to listen to the GOP. This is a distraction designed to keep Americans focused on Obama’s talks with the GOP while Congress pushes through the most unpopular piece of legislation since TARP. Instead, the GOP ought to spend the time on television revealing the sordid details of what Congress is doing while the President is running his legislative shell game. When it comes to November, nothing could help the GOP more than demonstrating in real-time what the opposition is up to.
Who knows, maybe the GOP will get to use the nuclear option to remove this god-forsaken piece of legislation from the books after November. We can hope.
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