Menu
Categories
They LIKE Stewing in Their Own “Juices”
March 26, 2010 Politics

Kim Strassel seems to illustrate a devastating feature of the Democrats’ preferred way of ramming “health care” reform down our throats:

Here’s why: reconciliation allowed Republicans to bring up unlimited amendments. Because Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) could not allow the reconciliation bill to be changed in any way—which would send it back to the House—his party was obliged to vote down every one of those amendments. And every one had been designed to make even hardened pols whimper.

Tom Coburn (R., Okla.) offered language to bar the government from subsidizing erectile dysfunction drugs for convicted pedophiles and rapists. Democrats voted . . . No! Orrin Hatch (R., Utah) proposed exempting wounded soldiers from the new tax on medical devices. Democrats: No way! Pat Roberts (R., Kan.) wanted to exempt critical access rural hospitals from funding cuts. Senate Democrats: Forget it! This was Republicans’ opportunity to lay out every ugly provision and consequence of ObamaCare, and Democrats—because of the process they’d chosen—had to defend it all.

And so it went, into the wee Thursday hours. All Democrats in favor of taxing pacemakers? Aye! All Democrats in favor of keeping those seedy vote buyoffs? Aye! All Democrats in favor of raising taxes on middle-income families? Aye! All Democrats in favor of exempting themselves from elements of ObamaCare? Aye! All Democrats in favor of roasting small children in Aga ovens? (Okay, I made that one up, but you get the point.) Aye!

Of course, that is incredible. But I think Ms. Strassel misses the point entirely. Voters don’t care. The politicians don’t care. You don’t need 10 more paragraphs of my analysis – but that is simply it. In the joke that is American Democracy, this stuff does not matter. Don’t hate the government folks, look in the mirror. You asked for it, and now you are getting it. The word for it, I think, was “collateral damage.” In the USSR, the politicians didn’t really have to show everyone that they had no clothes on, they just sent people to places like this. I fully expect to be sent to one someday.

Leave a Reply
*