With a 60 to 39 vote, the Senate has passed the motion to proceed to move on with the debate over Obamacare. Again, it is important to note that this is only a vote to begin the floor debate on the bill. It is not a vote to pass Obamacare.

In the Washington Examiner, Byron York has an excellent point when he asks, “why was it so hard for Democrats even to start the healthcare debate?”

The extraordinary thing about the dramatic events surrounding the health care bill in the Senate is that there is any drama in it at all. Lawmakers are simply voting to begin debate on their version of health care reform. Just begin debate — not end it, and not move on to a final vote.

If Democrats, with a 60-vote majority in the Senate, were not able to begin debate on the top Democratic policy priority in a generation — well, that would be a devastating turn of events, both for the party and for President Obama. And yet just starting debate has proved difficult, and only today did the 60th Democratic vote fall in place in favor of beginning the process.

I have made this point myself as it happens. On Nov. 19, I was writing about the sly, underhanded tricks that Reid was using to advance the Senate debate on Obamacare but why, I wondered, are these tricks even necessary? If this bill has the wide-spread support that the Democrats keep claiming it has, why all the dirty tricks, obfuscations, and rules bending?

If this bill was a legitimate bill would all of these dirty tricks be necessary? Further, if this bill had such wide acceptance and agreement among Congress and the people alike, why are Democrats afraid to let everyone see the bill?

York is essentially echoing my point and adding that this bill does not have wide support in Congress or among the voters that Reid, Pelosi, and the President are pretending it has. The fact that Reid had to work so hard to get this thing even to a stage where further debate could be had is telling.

We still have a chance to kill this bill, people. We must keep the pressure on our Congressmen.

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A few weeks ago we reported on how the Services Employees International Union was attempting to fix the vote in Sonoma County, California so that Sonoma’s in-home healthcare workers would end up with SEIU representation instead of NUHW representation.

Well, Sonoma wasn’t an isolated case. The SEIU used the same vote fixing tactics in Fresno County.

Andy Stern’s SEIU is playing hardball, using techniques that harken back to the mob-infested old days in order to win the game of representation. And THIS is the guy that President Obama is taking close counsel from? A goon. A thug. A mob-like hitman.

It’s the Chicago Way, alright. From Chicago to Fresno and Sonoma Counties all the way to the White House. This president and his cronies are instituting mob action everywhere they go.

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Sen. Claire McCaskill on Thursday touted the Senate healthcare reform bill by taking a dig at former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s new book.

McCaskill (D) said if the bill was printed in regular size font, it would be the same length as Palin’s (R) memoir Going Rogue: An American Life “but with more meat on the bone.” She tweeted:

If we printed the health care bill in regular size font it would be same legnth as Sarah Palin’s book, but with more meat on the bone.

The Senate healthcare bill is 2,074 pages long. Palin’s book is 413 pages long with 16 pages of photographs.

Best comment at the source

Senator McCaskill would do well to remember that no one is being asked to suffer under the yoke of the contents of Sarah Palin’s book. Nor will they be forced, against their will, and at perhaps great financial cost, to abide by the contents therein. Methinks Senator McCaskill should probably speak less, and listen, (to the American people), more. Dusan on 11/19/2009 at 22:32

Can’t add anything to that.

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The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 62% believe tax cuts are a better way to create jobs and fight unemployment. Only 21% believe that additional stimulus spending is a more effective tool. Earlier this year, as the first stimulus package was being debated in Congress, 62% of voters wanted the plan to have more tax cuts and less spending.

Given a different choice today, 51% believe canceling the rest of the stimulus money would create more jobs while 32% say spending the money would be the better approach to job creation. These findings are consistent with earlier polling. Most Americans say that, generally speaking, increased government spending is bad for the economy. Earlier this year, before the unemployment rate had reached its current highs, 45% wanted to cancel the rest of the stimulus spending while just 36% disagreed.

The survey also found that most voters are skeptical about claims of government job creation. Most (58%) say it’s unlikely that the stimulus plan has saved or created more than 600,000 jobs.

They just hate that a Black man is in the White House, I’m sure. Plus, they are probably all wingnuts and fascists, maybe even Christianists and Fundies.

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Some points according to the CBO and the Senate Republican Policy Committee:

• Spending: The cost of the bill is $2.5 trillion over 10 years of full implementation (2014-2023).
• Taxes Increases: Taxes will go up $493.6 billion — nearly half a trillion dollars.
• Medicare Cuts: Medicare will be cut $464.6 billion — another half a trillion dollars.
• Government Plan: The bill includes a government run plan and provides states with the possibility of opting out of participating in that plan. According to CBO, the government run plan “would typically have premiums that were somewhat higher than the average premiums for the private plans in the exchanges.”
• Employer Mandate: The bill will impose $28 billion in new taxes on employers that do not provide government approved health plans.

Additional CBO Background:

• The bill would bend the federal cost-curve up.
• 24 million people would be left without insurance.
• States will have to spend an additional $25 billion in Medicaid expenditures
• Taxes on uninsured individuals will total $8 billion.
• Taxes on employers from the “free-rider” penalty would total $28 billion.
• 5 million Americans would lose their employer coverage.
• Only 19 million people will get a subsidy to help them buy health insurance. None of the 162 million people with employer-based care will even be eligible for a subsidy.
• The costs of the subsidies in the exchange would grow at 8 percent a year.
• The tax on high value plans will quickly be applied to almost all plans. CBO expects the revenues from the Cadillac plan tax to grow at 10-15 percent per year outside the budget window.

(H/T John Goodman)

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Either today or later this week, Senate Democrat Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev) wants the Senate to vote on a “motion to proceed” on the Senate’s version of the healthcare bill. That wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that it has barely been seen by anyone in the Senate. At least not as far as most Senators are concerned. Why is that? Because the bill has not been shown to them with sufficient time to study it, that’s why.

What Reid wants is for the Senate to vote to proceed on a bill that has not been seen, not read, not studied by the very Senators from whom he wants to force a vote. If this bill is so important, why isn’t it imperative that our Senators actually get to see the thing they are expected to vote on?

And that isn’t the worst of the unconscionable dirty tricks that Reid is playing with this “important” legislation. He’s also planning on a bait and switch tactic once he gets his vote to proceed.

News is that Reid wants to use a Senate procedure where a bill can be swapped out with another on the floor. He wants to bring an unassociated bill to the floor and once it gets there he wants to swap that bill out with the healthcare bill. In other words, he wants to bring a fake bill to the floor and pull a bait-and-switch act to suddenly plop before the Senate the heretofore unseen healthcare bill. Then he wants to force a quick vote.

Alarmingly, Reid is making an effort to eliminate any time for Senators to see what is in this economy killing, liberty slaying, big government leviathan before a vote is forced down their throats.

If this bill was a legitimate bill would all of these dirty tricks be necessary? Further, if this bill had such wide acceptance and agreement among Congress and the people alike, why are Democrats afraid to let everyone see the bill?

Reid isn’t a fool, though. He knows that once America gets to see what is in this mess it will become nearly impossible to pass this thing. Naturally, that is why he is trying to eliminate any possibility that anyone might get a glimpse of what is in the bill before it is passed.

The fact is, though, if Reid cannot get his 60-vote “motion to proceed” his sly maneuvers will be stymied for now. So, call your Senators and tell them where you stand on these underhanded tactics, won’t you? Tell them not to vote to proceed until they’ve at least gotten a chance to see this mysterious, invisible healthcare bill.

Lastly, one wonders why the most “transparent” president in history is allowing the Congress to continue day in and day out to press votes on legislation no one has ever seen on bills that haven’t been written? What ever happened to the hoary days of campaigning when Obama kept promising that we’d all get 5 days to see a bill before a vote?

How times change.

Note: As of today, the bill has been posted online so that we can see it. But Reid wants to vote on the motion to proceed today or tomorrow. This is hardly the 72 hours timeline that transparency advocates have pressed for, nor is it anywhere close to the five days that President Obama promised us all.

You can see the bill at http://www.scribd.com/doc/22734971/Senate-Democrats-Health-Care-Reform-Bill.

(Cross posted at BigGovernment.com.)

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An excerpt of the 1924 Republican Party Platform:

The prosperity of the American nation rests on the vigor of private initiative which has bred a spirit of independence and self-reliance. The republican party stands now, as always, against all attempts to put the government into business.

American industry should not be compelled to struggle against government competition. The right of the government to regulate, supervise and control public utilities and public interests, we believe, should be strengthened, but we are firmly opposed to the nationalization or government ownership of public utilities.

In 1924 the GOP ran Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge for president. And he won on this platform.

Even then Democrats were trying to turn this country into a less powerful version of Europe by emulating its socialist systems. A proud Republican Party repudiated these socialist tendencies and reiterated its pride in the American way. These principles appealed to the true American spirit and also won elections.

Unfortunately, the very next president, himself a Republican, turned toward socialist, collectivist concepts and set the stage for what later became Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal destruction of the American economic system that compounded a market correction and turned it into “The Great Depression.” And save for a brief time under Ronald Reagan, it appears that the GOP has never recovered its principles as espoused in its 1924 platform.

Where are these strong principles today? Does the GOP stand for free markets, individual responsibility, self-reliance, and the right of the citizen to be left alone by a rapacious federal government under Democrats? It is getting harder and harder to think that the GOP does want to uphold these long-held American principles, those that made this country great.

So, let’s recall the words of the 1924 GOP Party platform and let us strive to return to these first principles.

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Power-hungry TVs will be banned from store shelves in California after state regulators adopted a first-in-the nation mandate to lower electricity demand.

On a unanimous vote, the California Energy Commission on Wednesday required all new televisions up to 58 inches to be more energy efficient beginning in 2011. The requirement will be tougher in 2013, and only a quarter of all TVs on the market currently meet that standard.

And then I found out that Los Federales did the same thing.

There will be three consequences of the Nannyfornia law. 1st, the costs will skyrocket for those that meet the standards. 2nd, people will go out of state, or even down to Mexico, to purchase their TV’s. 3rd, there will be fewer choices. I witnessed something similar first hand in NJ back in the day when they jacked the taxes on automobiles. So, people went to Pa., NY, and Delaware to purchase. Cars in NJ were on short supply. Dealers were going out of business. NJ repealed those taxes quickly, though. Something like this will never go away.

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President Barack Obama’s approval rating has fallen below 50 percent for the first time in polling by Quinnipiac University as U.S. voter discontent grows over the war in Afghanistan.
Obama’s job approval rating fell to 48 percent in the Nov. 9-16 survey of registered voters nationwide by the Hamden, Connecticut-based university, with 42 percent polled saying they disapproved of the job he is doing.
“In politics, symbols matter, and this is not a good symbol for the White House,” Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, said in a statement.
Obama’s approval rating was 59 percent in a Quinnipiac survey conducted Feb. 25 to March 2.

Here are the details:

Economy: 43/52, 47/46 in October – independents 38/58
Foreign policy: 49/42, 49/37 in October – independents 45/49
Afghanistan: 38/49, 42/40 in October – inds 30/57

He can’t make a decision on Afghanistan, he bows to Communist dictators, pushing an unpopular socialist healthcare takeover, the National debt tops $12 trillion, and he is allowing stupid decisions like the 911 conspirators get a show trial. None of this can be helping much, and he isn’t near his bottom yet. He and the Democrats are losing Independents fast. At least some Dems are recognizing it!

Mounting evidence that independent voters have soured on the Democrats is prompting a debate among party officials about what rhetorical and substantive changes are needed to halt the damage.

Following serious setbacks with independents in off-year elections earlier this month, White House officials attributed the defeats to local factors and said President Barack Obama sees no need to reposition his own image or the Democratic message.

Since then, however, a flurry of new polls makes clear that Democrats are facing deeper problems with independents—the swing voters who swung dramatically toward the party in 2006 and 2008 but who now are registering deep unease with the amount of spending and debt called for under Obama’s agenda in an era of one-party rule in Washington.

A Gallup Poll released last week offered a disturbing glimpse about the state of play: just 14 percent of independents approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest figure all year. In just the past few days alone, surveys have shown Democratic incumbents trailing Republicans among independent voters by double-digit margins in competitive statewide contests in places as varied as Connecticut, Ohio and Iowa.

Meanwhile Sarah Palin gives Oprah her highest ratings in two years…even higher than when Obama was on! 1500 people waited in the freezing weather for her autograph! She is making an impact and making her critics sweat. The pendalum is swinging!

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