Thursday, October 29, 2009

You break it, you own it, Dems

The imperious Dem House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is less than forthcoming, as usual. Her new healthcare bill is only deficit neutral because of massive medicare cuts (and unfunded mandates to the states). And up front huge tax increases for 3 years before the healthcare in the bill even takes effect. This morning she shut Republicans out of her news conference. It's on your head, Nancy. You break it, you own it.

In other news, government swine flu management less than stellar. NY Times.

P.S. I would add that the NY Times does not cover the fact that the government is for the first time involved in the distribution--rather than medical facilities. I recall in years past our pediatrician would recommend higher risk children for flu shots. Now the government bureaucracy is "in charge" with shifting guidelines, uneven distribution, unconscionable incompetence and inevitably, rationing. This after whipping up everyone's anxiety.

More. Daniel Henninger, WSJ:

In a world defined by nearly 100,000 iPhone apps, a world of seemingly limitless, self-defined choice, the Democrats are pushing the biggest, fattest, one-size-fits all legislation since 1965. And they brag this will complete the dream Franklin D. Roosevelt had in 1939.

The culture still believes the U.S. has a hipster for president. But the Obama health-care bill, and maybe this whole administration, is starting to look totally out of sync with the new zeitgeist, the spirit of the age.

Everything about the health-care exercise is looking very old hat, starting with the old guys working on it. Max Baucus, Patrick Leahy, Pete Stark—all were elected to Congress in the 1970s, and live on as the immortals in Washington's Forever Land. But it's more than the fact that Congress looks old. The health-care bill is big, complex, incomprehensible and coercive—all the things people hate nowadays.

Flower Power Obama.

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