Democrats Pay Off Each Other for Healthcare
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“Reforming” healthcare is one thing… paying off fellow Democrats simply to get the necessary votes to allow for debate is scandalous:
Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.
On the eve of Saturday’s showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn’t secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.
And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote — and to trumpet the financial “fix” she had arranged for Louisiana. “I am not going to be defensive,” she declared. “And it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million fix.”
Even when she finally announced her support, at 2:30 in the afternoon, Lincoln made clear that she still planned to hold out for many more concessions in the debate that will consume the next month. “My decision to vote on the motion to proceed is not my last, nor only, chance to have an impact on health-care reform,” she announced.
“My vote today,” she said in a soft Southern accent that masked the hard politics at play, “should in no way be construed by the supporters of this current framework as an indication of how I might vote as this debate comes to an end.” Among the concessions she’ll seek: more tax credits for small business and a removal of the version of the “public option” now in the bill.
Democrats have shown they don’t care what they do to this country fiscally. The $787 billion “stimulus” ($1.24 trillion with interest figured in) not to mention the nearly $1 trillion cost to “reform” and all of the additional costs that will hit individuals and businesses will result in less money in the pockets of taxpayers, less hiring by employees, and lower wages as companies seek to try and maintain some profits in our new Democratically managed economy.
Witness the recent statement by Emerson Electronics’ CEO regarding how Obama is treating American businesses:
One of the country’s most important industrial companies says the United States is not a good place to manufacture and it will continue moving its assets offshore.
The federal government is “doing everything in [its] manpower [and] capability to destroy U.S. manufacturing,” says David Farr, chairman and CEO of Emerson Electric Co., in a presentation at the Baird 2009 Industrial Conference in Chicago Ill., on Nov. 11. In comments reported by Bloomberg, Farr added that companies will continue adding jobs in China and India because they are “places where people want the products and where the governments welcome you to actually do something. I am not going to hire anybody in the United States. I’m moving. They are doing everything possible to destroy jobs.”
Expect this trend to continue as Democrats push for a more government managed economy. The result is going to be rationed care, higher taxes, lower quality healthcare, higher unemployment, and more payoffs as we have already seen simply to buy votes.
The generational theft that the Democrats are perpetrating is criminal.
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3:39 PM
The amount of theft and fraud is disgusting and the press’ complacency in it is worse.
7:38 PM
Harrison,
Can you blame her for trying to get extra money for her constituency? This money goes to her state, and honestly.. Louisiana needs it.. badly. I think if we can spend billions of dollars bailing companies out, we can spend $300 million on Louisiana. Don’t single the player out, if the whole game is corrupt. Every Congressman does this, we’re just not aware of it most of the time.
-Golden Arple
.-= Golden Arple´s last blog ..Forgotten Warrior.. =-.
8:16 PM
Can I blame her? Of course I can. It is this type of “representation” that is driving this country into the dumpster.
5:08 PM
What happened to Luisiana after Katrina was a crime. They deserve a billion dollars, not 300 million.
I would in a heartbeat double our deficit if it meant an improved standard of living for all people within United States, instead of watching it grow funding immoral wars and corporate interests.
I’m against bailing out corporate interests too, but since that’s not going to stop, I think it’s stupid not to spend money on people.
8:18 PM
Where is the logic in this argument? Because some bad things happened to many people who ignored hurricane warnings and didn’t get out of town we should just throw good money, which we don’t have, at them? How do you even know what this money is supposed to be spent on or that it would ever reach anybody? And why would you think that the government allocating resources is more efficient that private allocation of resources? If anything, government is the WORST way to get money out there if you actually have one of your goals being having that money do anything productive.
8:20 PM
Yes, when you are trillions in the red it DOES all come down to money. Medicare has hardly saved any money (quite the opposite) and you assume the government will “reform” anything. More like bloated waste and rationing of care. It’s $300 million pork that makes “reform” by the government an impossible goal.
10:00 AM
A healthy dose of liberals? Our country has been ruled by a very fiscally irresponsible Republican Administration for 8 years prior to Obama.
If you consider yourself a fiscal conservative, the 8 years we spent under Bush should be your worst nightmare.
Ronald Reagan is the gold-standard for conservatives.. but why? All the money he ‘saved’ from social programs he poured into military spending. I do not understand how the conservative base can rally in tea parties against healthcare and government spending on social programs, when no one questions military spending.
What good is it to cut money from welfare, or healthcare, or education, or social security, or other domestic programs, when that money is promptly allocated to some secretive military spending. Those $300 million is going to be spent by the government irregardless of what we do. I would rather have it spent on some Hurricane survivors, instead of developing a new bomb that is 15% more leathal.
Disagree as much as you want, but thats how I feel about the world.
8:17 PM
I guess I should have said I hope that money is spent on huricane survivors, but it probably won’t be. They’d don’t have the representative power to get that money. If they had pooled their resources and hired a lobbyist group, then the story would be different.
What I’m arguing against is that perception that Democrats are the big spenders. Republican administrations have spent just as much. The difference is that one spends through social programs and the other spends through privatization. Some instances, privatization is bad, and whoever believes that the market will solve everything is naive. If you can show me a candidate that will say I’m going to cut funding here and here and then NOT spend that money, then I’ll hear him out.
But instead we have presidents (and all of them have done this, Democrat and Republican) that cuts funding in one place, and then promptly reassigns that money elsewhere. Obama is trying to do it with healthcare, McCain would have done it with something else. A guy who probably would have made an honest attempt at balancing the budget, Ron Paul, unfortunately, won’t be elected, because he really is too radical. Obama is mainstream compared to Ron Paul.
So I see this as choosing to invest either in war, in corporations, in private intrests or in social programs that (though very inefficiently) benefit ordinary people who cannot afford to lobby Congress for subsidies, or bailouts, or protection from the markets. No mainstream candidate will balance the budget. Clinton had a surprlus, but after Bush it’s a distant memory. And until Ron Paul, or someone with similar views, can challenge for Presidency, I’ll continue to support social programs, because I’d rather see money go to that than the military or a bank.
.-= Golden Arple´s last blog ..Forgotten Warrior.. =-.
9:48 AM
You may try and argue against the perception that Democrats are big spenders but the reality is that Obama and the Democrats blew up the budget and spent more than any other president before.
You speak of all this government spending as if it were an “investment.” If you put $100.00 of your own money into the stock market at 2 years later got $42.00 back would you still call that an “investment” or not? An investment is supposed to return something. Why do you think dropping $300 million will “return” anything but more debt?
You speak of the Clinton surplus, as many Democrats do. Clinton did behave more like a fiscal conservative regarding budgets and for that he is to be praised however Clinton was also the benefit of many coincidences that had nothing to do with him and he ignored crucial areas that came back to bite us on 9-11.
You also seem to think that dumping money on people will make them grateful, responsible, and help them improve their lives. Mostly it does not they become an entitled, enslaved class.