The healthcare circus on Capitol Hill continues to amuse, delight and entertain as Republicans maneuver to delay the alleged “reform” in every possible way. Pelosi thinks the GOP’s “mischaracterization” of the legislative package is what has been obstructing its passage. In fact, were it not overwhelmingly obvious that a solid majority of Americans fear, despise and oppose this legislative turd, the Senate’s 39 Republicans wouldn’t have had a prayer of stalling it for an hour, let alone for days or weeks. Now it now looks as though they have a serious shot at derailing it until after Christmas, at least.
It will take some help from a Democrat, however — Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson, who is troubled by provisions that would provide public funding for abortions. Nelson isn’t Harry Reid’s only problem. There’s also Joe Lieberman, who will allow the bill to come to the floor only with the so-called public option stripped out of it. Minus this feature and some abortion goodies, left-wing Democrats don’t want the reform either, even if they oppose it for all of the wrong reasons. But for conservatives, nothing could be sweeter than seeing liberal extremists like Howard Dean calling for the rejection of the entire proposal. This aligns him perfectly with House and Senate conservatives who would like to start again from scratch.
Don’t Count Reid Out
Even so, Reid cannot be counted out to deliver something by Christmas, even if it’s the legislative equivalent of a third-trimester abortion. Unfortunately, although Lieberman and Nelson appear to be hanging tough, we’d be surprised if they do not both capitulate after being offered some compromise that will allow them to save face. But we wish them well anyway, since they are all that stands in the way of what the Wall Street Journal labeled “The Worst Bill Ever” in a trenchant editorial.
Pelosi, Reid et al. seem, in the meantime, not to believe polls that make the public’s strong opposition quite clear. They and other Democrats are likely to pay dearly for this in next year’s congressional elections. More immediately, however, their credibility will probably shrivel to the vanishing point because of bipartisan perceptions that the Christmas-or-bust mentality driving the bill has been wantonly reckless. If this trillion-dollar legislative monstrosity is enacted anyway, as seems likely, the majority who have opposed it will still have the small pleasure of savoring the inevitable speech by President Obama in which he praises the bill as though it were America’s very salvation. That he will do so with no sense of embarrassment or irony will put him even further out of touch with the voters, most of whom already think he’s doing a lousy job.
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America’s New Accepted Currency: Food-stamps
I just wrote a fresh, followup article to help everyone to grasp the idea that food-stamps be reasonably viewed as the new rising accepted currency in America, now used by 37 million Americans with 20,000 more added per day. I’ll wager that sooner than you think, another country will accept food-stamps from an American. Here: <a href=""http://www.mariocavolo.com/?p=637&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1=""
Government health-care, government food-stamps. This is part of the "next new normal". A new normal class of society has formed in America, a combination of the still poor and the ex-middle class with nowhere to turn and now on food-stamps. You may as well consider it their currency because they sure as hell don't have any USD in their pockets.
Instead of going along too easily with all of the talk about disaster-type collapses, perhaps we shouldn't so quickly reject gentler words like "shift". The shift mentioned above has created a new class of people in this the "next new normal"
This is why I continue rejecting the doomsday scenarios I keep hearing about. Stuff shifts. Each time some nasty event comes along, asset classes shift and settle down to their new relative position in the markets. Then until the next nasty even comes along, that scenario is the "next new normal". For example, the scenario we've had for the past year holds some deep fundamental changes that didn't exist before and will persist well into the future. One of these being this newly formed "sub-class" of est. 25-50 million Americans whose lifestyles were raped and pillaged by you know who. As Rick has often pointed out, millions of people with 60,ooo+ salaries have close to zero job opportunity as their new normal.
It is painful to feel their plight as they go on government food-stamps and government health-care, whatever form this monster currently in legislation ends up taking.
Cheers all and wishing everyone blessings for the holiday season , Mario