Yeah, maybe it's not the Change You had somehow convinced yourself you could Believe In, but with the Xmas Eve Senate vote 60-39 for healthcare reform, imperfect as it may be and still to reconciled with the House and final passage, you have a super majority without, to their shame, I believe, a single Republican vote. So an overwhelming vote in favor, just pointing to a lack of participation in governance or legislation craftng to address real Americans' needs on the other side.
Maybe we got a better bill because of it?
If so, considering Kent Conrad, Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman's fingerprints on the passed legislation, I shudder to think what a "bipartisan" bill would have looked like with this current crowd on the other side of the aisle.
Merrrry Christmas!
1 comment:
Merry Xmas, bro! Sorry for hogging so much comment space but this, from the AP, is too funny. Check out the bolded quotes.
Citing 2003 Medicare vote, Democrats see GOP hypocrites in debate over health care spending
The Associated Press
Republican senators attacking the cost of a Democratic health care bill showed far different concerns six years ago, when they approved a major Medicare expansion that has added tens of billions of dollars to federal deficits.
The inconsistency — or hypocrisy, as some call it — has irked Democrats, who claim that their plan will pay for itself with higher taxes and spending cuts and cite the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office for support.
By contrast, when Republicans controlled the House, Senate and White House in 2003, they overcame Democratic opposition to add a deficit-financed prescription drug benefit to Medicare. The program will cost a half-trillion dollars over 10 years, or more by some estimates. (Latest CBO estimate = $1.2 Trillion) With no new taxes or spending offsets accompanying the Medicare drug program, the cost has been added directly to the federal debt.
All current GOP senators, including the 24 who voted for the 2003 Medicare expansion, oppose the health care bill that's backed by President Obama and most congressional Democrats. Some Republicans say they don't believe the CBO's projections that the health care overhaul will pay for itself. As for their newfound worries about big government health expansions, they essentially say: "That was then, this is now."
Six years ago, "it was standard practice not to pay for things," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. His 2003 vote has been vindicated, Hatch said, because the prescription drug benefit "has done a lot of good."
Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio...defended his positions in 2003 and now, saying the economy is in worse shape and Americans are more anxious.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said simply: "Dredging up history is not the way to move forward." The political situation is different now, Snowe said, because "we're in a tough climate and people are angry and frustrated."
Some conservatives have no patience for such explanations.
"As far as I am concerned, any Republican who voted for the Medicare drug benefit has no right to criticize anything the Democrats have done in terms of adding to the national debt," said Bruce Bartlett, an official in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. He made his comments in a Forbes article titled "Republican Deficit Hypocrisy."
Bartlett said the 2003 Medicare expansion was "a pure giveaway" that cost more than this year's Senate or House health bills will cost. More important, he said, "the drug benefit had no dedicated financing, no offsets and no revenue-raisers. One hundred percent of the cost simply added to the federal budget deficit."
The pending health care bills in Congress, he noted, are projected to add nothing to the deficit over 10 years.
Other lawmakers who voted for the 2003 Medicare expansion include the Senate's top three Republican leaders, all sharp critics of the Obama-backed health care plans: Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Jon Kyl of Arizona and Lamar Alexander of Tennessee.
The 2003 vote in the House was even more divisive. It resulted in a nearly three-hour roll call in which GOP leaders put extraordinary pressure on colleagues to back the prescription drug addition to Medicare.
Bill Clinton's administration was largely constrained by a pay-as-you-go law, requiring most tax cuts or program expansions to be offset elsewhere with tax increases and/or spending cuts.
Bill Clinton ended his presidency with a budget surplus. But it soon was wiped out by GOP tax cuts and the lapsing of the pay-as-you-go restrictions.
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