However, I had the great displeasure of catching his weekly address yesterday. It has been clear from the beginning that he knows every cheap parlor trick in the book, but he went way too far this time. Using the Olympics, the Olympic Spirit, and teamwork as a segue to a yes-we-can-let's-work-as-a-team prank to sell a dying health care bill to Americans was as stale as that pretzel that's been under the couch cushions since last July.
Watch out, Barack, your slip is showing.
The problem is, you can't sell Socialized Medicine to Americans. Even if you label it "Health Care," "Health Care Reform," "Government-run Health Care," or "Free Jujyfruits For Everyone," you're never going to sell it. It is especially hard to sell when you're using it as a veil to hide an unmistakable Democratic power grab. Add to that, all of your main objectives like Tort Reform, Mandatory Coverage, and Government Regulation are completely illegal, unconstitutional, and beyond the Powers of Congress outlined within the U.S. Constitution--et voila!--you have another dead whale on the beach.
Mmm...Jujyfruits.As both an American and a member of what is affectionately known as "The Public," it further polarizes me against the entire issue when I see articles like this: Article
Even as President Obama prepares to convene a televised summit on health care reform designed to showcase his newfound commitment to “bipartisanship,” the White House and congressional Democrats have been finalizing their plans to ram through a health care bill using a little-known and seldom-used parliamentary gimmick known as “reconciliation.”We're supposed to believe they just thought of this in last minute desperation. We're also supposed to forget that Obama has been trying to associate Health Care Reform with the Economy for months now. The present state of the Health Care System has little to no effect on the state of the economy to begin with, but it clearly has nothing whatsoever to do with the present state of the economy. Passing a 1.6 trillion dollar health care bill only affects the economy in one way: It puts us that much further in debt. Yet, if we can tie them together, then we can spin it so it becomes a "budgetary issue," and then we can use Reconciliation to close the deal.For those not versed in the arcane rules of the U.S. Senate, reconciliation is not what a divorced couple attempts when they visit Dr. Phil. It is a mechanism for avoiding filibusters on certain budgetary issues. If Democrats can find a way to apply it to health care reform, they could pass a bill with just 51 votes, negating the election of Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown and the loss of the 60-seat supermajority.
Reconciliation was established in 1974 to make it easier for Congress to adjust taxes and spending in order to “reconcile” actual revenues and expenditures with a previously approved budget resolution. Thus, at the end of the year, if Congress found that it was running a budget deficit higher than previously projected, it could quickly raise taxes or cut spending to bring the budget back into line. Debate on such measures was abbreviated to just 20 hours (an eyeblink in Senate terms), and there could be no filibuster.
Nevermind, Obama hasn't been laying the groundwork for this for months, this really is just a last minute act of desperation to pass a highly debated, extremely controversial health care bill that the majority of Americans do not want. I'm going to go back to eating my free Jujyfruits. I heard a rumor that they're made out of Kool-Aid. Delicious.
Besides, I'm sure he has better things to concern himself with, like licking his wounds after the special kick to the groin he received today when Warren Buffet, a name Obama liked to drop every five minutes on the Campaign Trail, said the Health Care Bill needed to be scrapped.
