DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: sirs on March 02, 2010, 08:07:44 PM
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...and the Democrat super majorities for the next decade+. Time to ram Cash for Croakers thru (http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2010/03/obama-democrats-will-use-reconciliation-to-pass-senate-health-care-bill.html)
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Well, I kinda called (http://called) this one.
My question now, is did Obama push this without counting votes, or is he sure he even has enough Democrats to provide him 51 on a tactic that up to 75% of the population opposes, and is sure to send the Dems into a likely minority status, possibly in both houses, come Nov
If the former, can he even remotely try to claim that those dastardly republicans & tea partiers are thwarting him, yet again?
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So, how do the Dems reconcile (http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/02/24/kent-conrad-basically-declares-senate-bill-and-reconciliation-sidecar-strategy-dead/) reconciliation? A transparent and purely partisan middle finger to compromise, bipartisanship, and the electorate
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It's not the size that matters.
Today President Barack Obama will unveil health care proposal Part VII. The new House bill, according to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, will be "much smaller" than previous efforts.
After surveying the brutal political conditions facing them, Democrats, it seems, believe that if they lay claim to more modest legislation, they lay claim to a less horrid bill.
If only that were true.
Though a political victory is a must for the Obama presidency, those who are invested ideologically in the promise of government-run health care understand that even a small victory today can be an enduring one.
Once Washington gains a toehold -- and considering government controls 49 cents on every health care dollar spent, by "toehold" I mean "bearhug" -- it is an inescapable reality that whatever it comes up with will be expansive and expensive.
That's the message Pelosi was telegraphing to her allies when -- in addition to pointing out how itty-bitty the bill will be -- she added that it will be "big enough" to put the country on a "path" toward sustainable health care reform.
The righteous "path," naturally, ends at the gates of a single-payer system. The infrastructure to reach this objective -- price controls, new entitlements and wide-ranging mandates -- will be set in place once Democrats use reconciliation to pass the bill, deal with the short-term electoral consequences and let history work itself out.
You know how it goes: Did you hear about the appalling conditions those children are living under? Gotta expand it. How about the old lady who has 12 prescriptions when she only needs eight? Gotta control costs.
A minor victory for liberalism today also would be a colossal triumph tomorrow because it's improbable -- implausible, actually -- that Republicans ever would have the fortitude (or the votes in Congress) to repeal most of Obamacare should they regain power.
Remember that state participation in Medicaid is voluntary. What governor would pull out of that or any entitlement program?
Remember that Congress estimated Medicare's cost at $12 billion for 1990 (adjusted for inflation) when the program kicked off, in 1965. Medicare cost $107 billion in 1990 and quickly is approaching $500 billion. Who's going to stop it?
The template is used over and over again. Government is a growth industry.
When you unwrap today's health care reform legislation, nearly every Democratic initiative, small or large, is designed to affect the choices people make through some mechanism of top-down control.
On the flip side, so far, reform legislation has been devoid of any meaningful market-based solutions that would spur a healthier private-insurance sector, guaranteeing consumers will see rates rise and Democrats will have a boogeyman to point to as they "fix" the bill down the road.
I remember asking liberal Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado -- after she, for the umpteenth time, claimed that Republicans had presented no ideas in the health care debate -- what she thought of the GOP bills in the House at the time. She replied that they were too small and not "comprehensive" enough to really matter.
Now, apparently, small is OK. Why? It never has been an issue of how comprehensive a plan is, but how invasive it could be.
And no matter how many iterations of health care "reform" are foisted on the nation by Democrats -- or what the exact dimensions of those iterations may be or how many public relations angles are deployed to sell them -- the core issue has not changed.
Though, it is clear, the tactic of incremental "progress" has been relearned. Don't be fooled. The endgame has not changed.
Government is a growth industry (http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidHarsanyi/2010/03/03/two_steps_forward,_no_steps_back)
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Time to act on health care, Obama declares
Mar 3, 2010
By ALAN FRAM
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Barack Obama urged Congress Wednesday to vote "up or down" on sweeping health care legislation in the next few weeks, endorsing a plan that denies Senate Republicans the right to kill the bill by stalling with a filibuster.
"I don't see how another year of negotiations would help. Moreover, the insurance companies aren't starting over," Obama said, rejecting Republican calls to begin anew on an effort to remake the health care system.
The president made his appeal as Democratic leaders in Congress surveyed their rank and file for the votes needed to pass legislation by majority vote?invoking rules that deny Senate Republicans the right to block it through endless stalling debate. Obama specifically endorsed that approach
GOP leaders were unmoved, despite Obama's declaration that he had incorporated a few of their proposals into his revised legislation.
The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said a decision by Democrats to invoke rules that bar filibusters would be "met with outrage" by the public, and he said Obama was pushing a sweeping bill that voters don't want.
"They've had enough of this yearlong effort to get a win for the Democratic Party at any price to the American people," McConnell said on the Senate floor.
At its core, Obama's proposal would extend health care to tens of millions of uninsured Americans while cracking down on insurance company practices such as denying coverage on the basis of a pre-existing medical condition.
With his remarks, delivered at the White House, Obama took the lead in a bid by congressional Democrats to mount a party-line rescue mission for the health care legislation that appeared on the cusp of passage late last year, only to be derailed when Republicans won a Massachusetts Senate seat that gave them the ability to block it.
There is still no certainty about the outcome?or even that Democrats will agree to the series of changes that Obama said represented Republican contributions.
Yep, screw you ignorant peasants. "The Chosen" knows better (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9E7B3881&show_article=1)
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What an exciting debate sirs, sirs, sirs, and sirs can have with themselves!
It reminds me of a book with an appropriate title: "Sex for One".
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Way to facilitate that civil dailogue, you frequently complain about Xo. Your family would be really proud ::)
For the rest of the more rationally minded, they'll note that my posts are in staying with the theme of the title. If any one wishes to repond to them, to engage in some back and forth "debate", they are welcome to.
For those on the left that have a transparent inability to do so, they can continue the tried and true tactic of pleading ignorance, while sticking their head in the sand, with remedial comments such as What an exciting debate sirs, sirs, sirs, and sirs can have with themselves! It reminds me of a book with an appropriate title: "Sex for One". Or they can pretend to be emotionally/mentally "traumatized" for daring to be called on, for some "less then honest" claims, and simply focus on calling other people names
In either case, my comments are in keepng with the theme of the title I applied. Your inability to refute them is notably appreciated. Keep up the good work 8)
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It is really admirable that sirs can stay on the same topic when conversing with himself.
As he says, "It speaks volumes".
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So does Xo's apparent lack of debating in a debate forum, but expert ability at 3rd grade insulting. I think we can nominate him for a Razzie, even 8) We once again thank you for your transparent inability at being able to defend the reconciliation process...that being the topic of the thread. Naaaa, he needs to save those neurons for comebacks like the last one
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A proposal that's up for grabs in the Senate would prohibit the private sector from making any education loans whatsoever, removing this area of the market from private control. But sixty votes are needed in the Senate to allow this proposal to pass, and Harry Reid doesn't have them.
So Reid and Obama are considering using reconciliation to pass the education bill as well as the health care bill.
There's something of a case to be made financially for the government take-over of private educational loans, if you use the warped parameters set by Democratic accounting standards. Since the student loan industry is so highly regulated by Uncle Sam -- to the point that the government suffers a loss if a student defaults on a private loan -- having the government take over the loan actually might save the government money.
The free-market solution to this might be to remove all the regulations on private student loans, and let the market make the decisions. But Democrats prefer to have the government take over the entire industry. This will ostensibly help the government save money, help students because they will have easier access to loans, and help society fund higher education.
But the ramifications of artificial subsidies for higher education never enter the discussion. What if the higher education bubble bursts? What if a student would be better off not going to college? What about the U.S. taxpayer, who is being forced against his will to pay for the education of his neighbor?
The bill passed the House last year, in a move that the New York Times characterized as a victory over "an intense lobbying effort by the for-profit lenders." The NYT says the insurmountable 60-vote threshold in the Senate was because of "the industry's allies in the Senate." While it's true that legislators from states where student loan companies are located are fighting this bill, there's a bigger principle at stake: propping up an industry that, like all other industries, is better left in the hands of the market.
Let's Just Use Reconciliation For Everything! (http://townhall.com/blog/g/93694b36-d3c8-4b6b-a402-be2242f14d2f?comments=true&commentsSortDirection=Descending)
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The free-market solution to this might be to remove all the regulations on private student loans, and let the market make the decisions. But Democrats prefer to have the government take over the entire industry. This will ostensibly help the government save money, help students because they will have easier access to loans, and help society fund higher education.
The way it works now is the government guarantees these loans. If the student pays, the bank gets paid, and the government gets nothing.
If the student defaults, the government pays, and the bank loses nothing, and takes no risk. The government then tries to collect. If the money were lent by the government in the first place, the program would at worst cost nothing and at best could turn a profit. People take paying the government more seriously than paying some bank. And then every year there are those IRS refunds, an excellent opportunity for the government to collect from the deadbeats.
But the ramifications of artificial subsidies for higher education never enter the discussion. What if the higher education bubble bursts? What if a student would be better off not going to college? What about the U.S. taxpayer, who is being forced against his will to pay for the education of his neighbor?
Well gee, if the student would be better off not going, then he won't go, and therefore will not borrow money at all.
And the taxpayer is not forced to pay anything. Or lend anything.
Someone paid taxes so that you could be educated. Now it is your turn to pay for their kids.
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If I am giving good service I deserve the pay the service is worth .
What happens if I get paid what I think the service is worth whether it is any good or not?
If I and my compeditors get paid what I demand no matter what quality I deliver , which of my compeditors am I weaker against? The one that expends enough effort to provide good service and demands only what it is worth, expanding no more than its ability to give good service; or the other compeditor, who demands high pay for service that is delivered as cheaply and easily as possible , to the greatest number that can be roped in to the scheme?
Which of these compeditors will I have to follow to stay in business?
Goernment money , given to great masses of students with little thought to how well it is used, is a danger to the overall quality of US education.
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I'd like to thank Xo for actually taking the time to respond rather substantively vs the normal snark-laden approaches, so often employed.
But the ramifications of artificial subsidies for higher education never enter the discussion. What if the higher education bubble bursts? What if a student would be better off not going to college? What about the U.S. taxpayer, who is being forced against his will to pay for the education of his neighbor?
Well gee, if the student would be better off not going, then he won't go, and therefore will not borrow money at all. And the taxpayer is not forced to pay anything. Or lend anything. Someone paid taxes so that you could be educated. Now it is your turn to pay for their kids.
We already pay taxes for public education Xo. I can't count the ways how wrong it is for me the tax payer to then ALSO pay for someone else's stiffing their lender. That's what is at issue here. That and yet another effort to both monopolize a particular sector of our economy, via government, and the use of the parlimentary trick of partisal reconciliation to try and pass it
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New Sen. Brown bashes Obama's 'bitter' health push
By ERICA WERNER
Newly arrived Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts accused President Barack Obama and Democrats on Saturday of a "bitter, destructive and endless" drive to pass health overhaul legislation that Brown warned would be disastrous.
"An entire year has gone to waste," Brown said in the weekly GOP radio and Internet address. "Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, and many more jobs are in danger. Even now, the president still hasn't gotten the message.
"Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the health care bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway."
Brown himself can claim responsibility for the Democrats' failure to pass health overhaul legislation to date. They were on the verge of doing so before Brown claimed the late Edward M. Kennedy's Senate seat in a special election upset in January, depriving Democrats of their filibuster-proof supermajority and throwing the health care effort into limbo.
It has been gradually revived, and Democrats are now pushing for final passage before Easter under complex Senate rules that would allow them to sidestep a Republican filibuster. Republicans in the House and Senate are unanimously opposed to the sweeping legislation, which would extend coverage to some 30 million uninsured Americans with a new mandate for nearly everyone to carry insurance.
The House minority leader, Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, said in an interview for broadcast Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union" that if House Democrats had the votes to pass the health care bill they would have acted by now.
"They don't have the votes," Boehner said.
Brown, as a state senator in Massachusetts, voted in favor of the universal-coverage law in that state. The bill he supported in Massachusetts has a number of features in common with the Democrats' legislation, including a mandate for nearly everyone to be covered.
But he campaigned on a promise to be the Republicans' crucial 41st vote against Obama's health plan, and said Saturday that his victory amounted to a message from voters that Washington should "get its priorities right."
"We need to drop this whole scheme of federally controlled health care, start over, and work together on real reforms at the state level that will contain costs and won't leave America trillions of dollars deeper in debt," Brown said.
Just too arrogant (http://townhall.com/news/business/2010/03/13/new_sen_brown_bashes_obamas_bitter_health_push)
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Final 'Reform' Push: Twisting Arms
by Michael D. Tanner
President Obama's attempts to ram health- care reform through an increasingly reluctant Congress are starting to resemble a really eventful episode of "The Sopranos."
Whether or not you believe former Rep. Eric Massa's bizarre accusations of locker-room confrontations and conspiracies to drive him from office, there is no doubt that the Obama administration and its congressional allies are willing to use every trick in the book to get this bill passed.
They've already bought votes with pork and special deals -
- the "Louisiana purchase" ($300 million to bolster that state's Medicaid program, which swayed Sen. Mary Landrieu);
- the "Cornhusker kickback" ($100 million to Medicaid there, sweetening the pot for Sen. Ben Nelson),
- and Florida's "Gator Aid" (a Medicare deal potentially worth $5 billion, a hefty price for Sen. Bill Nelson's vote).
- Plus the millions for Connecticut hospitals, Montana asbestos abatement and so on.
Nor were the Obamans willing to let a little thing like election laws stand in the way.
- They rewrote Massachusetts law to allow for an appointed senator to hold office for several months, hoping to get the bill through before the special election that Scott Brown ultimately won. Their plans spoiled, they even considered holding up Brown's seating to let the appointed senator continue to vote on health care -- until public outrage forced them to back down.
And, of course, there has been an unprecedented willingness to ignore congressional rules -
- from the failure to appoint a "conference committee" to negotiate differences between the House and Senate bills,
- to their current plans to use the reconciliation process to bypass a Republican filibuster.
(sirs adds....can you imagine the hyperbolic outrage by the left and MSM if this were a GOP administrating trying to pull this over the country and the constitution??)
Expect the tactics to get even dirtier now.
Those who support the president can expect favors.
- No sooner had Rep Jim Matheson (D-Utah) suggested that he might be willing to switch his vote and support the latest version of ObamaCare than his brother was nominated for a federal judgeship.
- Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.) is also on the undecided list. And, purely by coincidence no doubt, the Justice Department just announced that it is dropping an FBI investigation that has been swirling about the congressman. Gosh, if only Charlie Rangel were one of the undecideds.
Those who oppose the president can expect the political equivalent of a horse head between their sheets.
Some of this is just traditional electioneering: On-the-fence Arkansas Sen. Blanche Lincoln is getting a primary challenger with some backing from the national Democratic machine.
But some of it is much nastier. Massa's story may have credibility issues, but other opponents of the bill are also starting to feel the heat. For instance, Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), whose opposition to abortion funding has become one of the bill's biggest hurdles, is now seeing attacks on his ethics.
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow recently questioned the legality of the low rent that a conservative Christian group charges Stupak for his DC apartment. She even noted ominously that disgraced South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford stayed at the same building. The liberal blog Daily Kos has picked up on the charges and suggested that both the IRS and the House Ethics Committee investigate.
"Politics ain't beanbag," as Mr. Dooley noted. Presidents have always twisted arms and made deals. And when two-thirds of voters are opposed to your plans, you may have no choice but to play hardball.
But when Obama promised to change the way Washington does business, we didn't think he meant making it a "family" business.
And its only going to get nastier (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=11436)
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Final 'Reform' Push: Twisting Arms
by Michael D. Tanner
President Obama's attempts to ram health- care reform through an increasingly reluctant Congress are starting to resemble a really eventful episode of "The Sopranos."
Whether or not you believe former Rep. Eric Massa's bizarre accusations of locker-room confrontations and conspiracies to drive him from office, there is no doubt that the Obama administration and its congressional allies are willing to use every trick in the book to get this bill passed.
House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it
By Lori Montgomery and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
After laying the groundwork for a decisive vote this week on the Senate's health-care bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Monday that she might attempt to pass the measure without having members vote on it.
Instead, Pelosi (D-Calif.) would rely on a procedural sleight of hand: The House would vote on a more popular package of fixes to the Senate bill; under the House rule for that vote, passage would signify that lawmakers "deem" the health-care bill to be passed.
The tactic -- known as a "self-executing rule" or a "deem and pass" -- has been commonly used, although never to pass legislation as momentous as the $875 billion health-care bill. It is one of three options that Pelosi said she is considering for a late-week House vote, but she added that she prefers it because it would politically protect lawmakers who are reluctant to publicly support the measure.
"It's more insider and process-oriented than most people want to know," the speaker said in a roundtable discussion with bloggers Monday. "But I like it," she said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."
Republicans quickly condemned the strategy, framing it as an effort to avoid responsibility for passing the legislation, and some suggested that Pelosi's plan would be unconstitutional.
"It's very painful and troubling to see the gymnastics through which they are going to avoid accountability," Rep. David Dreier (Calif.), the senior Republican on the House Rules Committee, told reporters. "And I hope very much that, at the end of the day, that if we are going to have a vote, we will have a clean up-or-down vote that will allow the American people to see who is supporting this Senate bill and who is not supporting this Senate bill."
House leaders have worked for days to round up support for the legislation, but the Senate measure has drawn fierce opposition from a broad spectrum of members. Antiabortion Democrats say it would permit federal funding for abortion, liberals oppose its tax on high-cost insurance plans, and Republicans say the measure overreaches and is too expensive.
Some senior lawmakers have acknowledged in recent days that Democrats lack the votes for passage. Pelosi, however, predicted Monday that she would deliver.
"When we have a bill, then we will let you know about the votes. But when we bring the bill to the floor, we will have the votes," she told reporters.
Pelosi said Monday that House Democrats have yet to decide how to approach the vote. But she added that any strategy involving a separate vote on the Senate bill "isn't too popular," and aides said the leadership is likely to bow to the wishes of its rank and file.
As Pelosi and other congressional leaders pressed wavering lawmakers, President Obama highlighted how close the result may be as he focused his attention Monday on Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who has been a stalwart no vote on health-care reform.
Kucinich, an uncompromising liberal, has rejected any measure without a government-run insurance plan. Obama invited Kucinich to join him aboard Air Force One for a trip to suburban Cleveland, where the president made a plea for reform, the third such pitch in eight days.
As he addressed a crowd of more than 1,400, Obama repeatedly called on lawmakers to summon the "courage to pass the far-reaching package." He painted the existing insurance system as a nightmare for millions of American who cannot afford quality coverage.
The president lashed out at Republican critics who have argued that the health-care initiative would undermine Medicare, and he argued that the measure would end "the worst practices" of insurance companies.
"I don't know about the politics, but I know what's the right thing to do," he said, nearly shouting as the crowd cheered. "And so I'm calling on Congress to pass these reforms -- and I'm going to sign them into law. I want some courage. I want us to do the right thing."
Asked whether he was reconsidering his position, Kucinich demurred. But Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said Kucinich is coming under intense pressure from Ohioans who want Congress to act, and from his colleagues in Washington.
"All of us -- the governor, the congressional delegation, the president -- are making clear to Dennis that we won't have another chance for a decade if this doesn't happen," Brown said.
Persuading liberals such as Kucinich to support the Senate bill is critical to the Democratic strategy, which has been rewritten since January, when Democrats lost their supermajority in the Senate. The Senate Democratic caucus, reduced to 59 seats, lost its ability to override Republican filibusters and soon abandoned plans to pass a revised version of the health-care bill that would reflect a compromise with House leaders.
As House leaders looked for a path that could get the Senate legislation through the chamber and onto Obama's desk, conservatives warned that Pelosi's use of deem-and-pass in this way would run afoul of the Constitution. They pointed to a 1998 Supreme Court ruling that said each house of Congress must approve the exact same text of a bill before it can become law. A self-executing rule sidesteps that requirement, former federal appellate judge Michael McConnell argued in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
Democrats were also struggling Monday to put the finishing touches on the package of fixes. Under reconciliation rules, it is protected from filibusters and could pass the Senate with only 50 votes, but can include only provisions that would affect the budget.
Democratic leaders learned over the weekend that they may not be able to include a number of favored items, including some Republican proposals to stem fraud in federal health-care programs and a plan to weaken a new board that would be empowered to cut Medicare payments.
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), the Democratic leader tasked with protecting politically vulnerable incumbents, said Republicans would twist the nature of the health-care vote, no matter how the leadership proceeds. He defended the deem-and-pass strategy as a way "to make it clear we're amending the Senate bill."
Without that approach, Van Hollen warned, "people are going to try to create the impression that the Senate bill is the final product, and it's not."
Undecided Democrats appeared unconcerned by the flap. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.), a retiring lawmaker who opposed the original House bill and is undecided on the new package, mocked Republican criticism of the process. Ultimately, he said, voters will hold lawmakers responsible for any changes in law.
"I don't think anybody's going to say that we didn't vote for the bill," he said.
You better believe they will (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503742_pf.html)
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If the process and responsibility were passed to the supreme court, would the pressure on Pelosi and the Democrats in congress be releived?
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If the process and responsibility were passed to the supreme court, would the pressure on Pelosi and the Democrats in congress be releived?
Nope. Congress citters are up for election/re-election, as soon as every 2 years. A SCOTUS ruling against some of the garbage they're trying to pull, will largely just give reinforcement to the electorate, that they did the right thing, in having just voted them out of power
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WASHINGTON -- The final outcome of the health care reform debate is uncertain -- who can predict where a writhing eel will land? -- but we have learned a few things already.
First, we know that President Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership could not persuade a majority of Americans of the wisdom of their plan -- and have largely ceased to try.
As of this writing, a president who seems willing to interrupt prime-time programming on the slightest pretext has not scheduled a speech from the Oval Office to make his final health reform appeal.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is working her parliamentarians overtime to achieve the congressional equivalent of the Immaculate Conception -- a law without a vote. One gets the impression that Democrats would prefer health reform to slip by the House in a procedural maneuver on a Friday night during the NCAA basketball tournament -- which it might.
The most visible Democratic domestic priority of the last 40 years must be smuggled into law, lest too many Americans notice. Politicians claiming the idealism of saints have adopted the tactics of burglars. Victory, if it comes, will seem less like a parade than a heist.
Liberals tend to blame this state of affairs on the brilliance of Republican fear-mongering. Meaning the slashing wittiness of Sarah Palin? The irresistible charisma of Mitch McConnell? The more likely explanation: Americans are engaged in a serious national debate about the role and size of government, in which the advocates of government-dominated health care are significantly outnumbered and vastly outmatched in enthusiasm. America, despite liberal fear-mongering, has not become "Glenn Beckistan." But it is not yet Europe.
A second thing we have learned during the health care debate is that the Democratic Party's commitment to abortion rights is even more central to its identity than health reform.
Pelosi's initial concession to pro-life Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak -- preventing federally subsidized health plans from covering abortion -- was made for show. The Senate-passed bill allows subsidized plans to cover abortion by collecting an extra payment from every enrollee, as long as at least one other insurance option in a region doesn't cover abortion. This is a departure from the status quo, which not only prohibits the use of federal funds for elective abortions but also prohibits the use of federal funds for health plans that cover such abortions. Says Stupak: "I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance. Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered."
But this stance by the Democratic leadership violates an informal social agreement that has existed for decades, in which abortion is generally legal but citizens who object to the practice are not required to pay for it. Those who support the Senate bill are participating in the largest expansion of federal involvement in abortion since the Hyde Amendment limited that role in 1976.
Third, we have learned that the president and congressional leaders are not serious about entitlement reform. The problem here is not only accounting tricks and the assumption of unprecedented courage on the part of future Congresses when it comes to Medicare cuts -- though these are bad enough. The main source of irresponsibility is that the revenue-gaining measures in the health bill -- particularly Medicare cuts and taxing Cadillac health plans -- would be used to create a new entitlement instead of repairing an existing one. The greatest cost of the current health care reform is its opportunity cost.
The unfunded liability of America's current entitlements is more than $100 trillion. Medicare will eventually require a massive infusion of cash under a congressional entitlement fix. Both the Congressional Budget Office and the Medicare actuary have pressed the point that Medicare savings can either be used to pay future Medicare benefits or to finance new spending outside Medicare -- not both. When the entitlement crisis arrives, Obama will have already spent much of the resources required to meet it, leaving growth-killing new taxes as the main, remaining option. A value-added tax anyone?
For some elected Democrats, the prospect of expanding health coverage is a moral goal worth the compromise of any principle and the adoption of any necessary method. But they need to enter their vote with open eyes. The passage of this legislation would decisively confirm an image of the Democratic Party that many have worked to change: partial to big government, pro-abortion and fiscally reckless.
Democrats' true colors (http://townhall.com/columnists/MichaelGerson/2010/03/17/democrats_true_colors)