Just like that comforting, exhilarating little buzz his brain experiences each time he takes a drag on his ubiquitous cigarettes, and like the electrical surge he probably felt during the days when he experimented with “blow” in his youth, President Obama has found a new addiction to satisfy his undisciplined cravings:  The President is addicted to making history.

In a way, it’s understandable.  Imagine being a state senator from Illinois and within four years you stand astride the world as the most famous political figure of your time.  It’s a rush, baby… here… take another hit, dude.

Oh, he dabbled with some street-level stuff in his youth.  First African-American Editor of the Harvard Law Review?  Yeah, that’s some good stuff.  That’ll give you a good buzz for a while.  But then, he had to settle for some real retro-grade stuff.  Community organizing on the South-side of Chicago?  Man, that’s like Marion Barry level stuff.  That’s not going to satisfy a guy who was raised around all that “Maui-wowie” notoriety.

But then he got a bit of an upgrade with his election to the Illinois statehouse.  But he was clearly bored with that job.  It’s just not history-making enough to be an African-American State Senator of an African-American district in Chicago.  His next big fix was the U.S. Senate.

Now you’re talking some serious buzz.  Especially that high-end rush he got when delivering the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.  I mean, he was only a candidate for Senate at the time, but he felt that first big high.  That taste of the really primo stuff.  Tens-of-thousands shouting his name.  Screaming for him to save the party… no, the country… oh come on…  THE WORLD!

But then, with any addict comes the horrible lows after the monumental highs.  The Senate win was anti-climatic.  And once in the Senate, he was bored within a year.   His Senate seat wasn’t even historical in any real sense since Carol Moseley-Braun had already become the first African-American Democrat elected to the Senate (and she was a woman to boot).  No, it was time for another hit off of that “History-Bong” again.

The Presidential primary campaign delivered an amazing rush.  Must have been like a constant snort of amyl nitrate.  All of those crowds, screaming and fainting for him like he was a rock star.  He must have been so stoned on his “History Dope” when he delivered this speech:

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal… This was the moment — this was the time — when we came together to remake this great nation…

And then, he became President.  History.  More and more history.  The first African-American President in history.  What a rush.  What a buzz.  What a high.  Then, the morning after.  Like any addict searching for his next big fix, President Obama has been appearing desperate, craven, aggressive and hostile.  He is willing to do whatever it takes for that next big high.

He finally found it.  Like Roosevelt with Social Security and Johnson with Medicare, Obama focused on a huge social service entitlement for the next “History-Fix”.  He was so close to getting that fix in December.  When Oprah asked him to grade his first term, instead of demurring like any other President would have and given the appropriate response like “Oh, I don’t worry about things like that.  I’ll let others grade my performance.  And, the American people will have their chance to give me a grade in 2012.” he jumped right out and gave himself a B+!  And, he gave himself an indulgent little taste of the big drug binge he was about to go on by predicting that if he could push through Health Care “Reform”,  he deserved an “A”.  History!  Oh man… he must have had the bed spins!

And right when it looked like Scott Brown had stolen his “primo stash” he turned ugly.  Like any junkie who is denied their next big fix, he did the political equivalent of knocking off a 7-11: He turned to desperate acts which, to the American people, looked petty, conniving, dishonest, and unconstitutional.  He resorted to changing the rules of the game in the last minute of play.  Desperate moves like “Reconciliation” and “Deem and Pass”, free trips on Air Force One, all designed to cram this bill through so he can… make history.

And so now he has.  And let the super-high commence.  This will be a nice trip for a while.  But, we should all be worried about the inevitable crash.  A fame-junkie like this won’t be satisfied by a one-vote win on a flawed law that will likely be over-turned by courts or repealed by the next two election cycles.  No, as soaring as this high is, he’s going to want something new, something big and something even more historic.  Let’s hope it doesn’t involve our troops.

Top Democrats confirmed Saturday that the House would hold separate votes on the Senate healthcare bill and the reconciliation bill, making fixes to it.

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), one of the chief deputy whips, Rep. Melvin Watt (D-N.C.), and Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.), all of whom said that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) won’t use the tactic of deem and pass for healthcare reform.

The move effectively kills the “deem and pass” strategy Democrats had been eyeing to make changes to the Senate bill through a rule on the bill, which at the same time would have deemed the original Senate healthcare bill to have passed the House.

The House appears set now to move toward an up-or-down vote on the Senate healthcare bill, as well as a separate, up-or-down vote on the series of changes to that bill. There will still be a vote on the rule, as there always is for a piece of legislation, though it will not package the two bills together.

Read the whole article here.

That’s one reason why I sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) requesting that she hold a special “call of the roll” for the final health care vote this weekend.  Under this procedure, each lawmaker will be required to stand up and declare how he or she is voting on this bill.  This weekend’s votes will be among the most consequential votes we will ever cast as Members of Congress. I believe the stakes are too high, and this bill too controversial, for anything less than complete transparency and accountability.  It’s time to stand up and be counted.  I discuss the letter and the vote this weekend in the weekly GOP address you can view here:

Democratic leaders keep telling their Members that once this bill passes, it will be more popular.  They’re dead wrong.  Seniors will be furious about the Medicare cuts.  Small businesses will be furious about thejob-killing new taxes and mandates.  Veterans will be furious that it doesn’t protect Tricare.  And EVERYONE will be furious about the army of new IRS agents.

That’s why the only responsible course of action is to scrap this health care bill.  Let’s start over with a clean sheet of paper.

Let’s work together on a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses. We know this vote is going to be tight.  That’s why it’s important for the American people to stay engaged in this fight.  Republicans can’t beat this bill, but the American people can.  It’s not too late to make your voice heard.

This week, the vast majority of the American people have nominated a motley crew of elitists for the “Educated Idiots Award:”

The arrogant Democrats who will defy the American people and abet Obama’s nearly trillion dollar government takeover of Americans’ health care.

Embodying the arrogant intellectuals unacquainted with real life who foist their insane ideas on the rest of us, these ideologically addled Democrats:

1. Feel they are smarter than you;

2. Believe they can run your life better than you; and,

3. Consider themselves your masters not your servants.

Because of these self-anointed, educated idiots our nation’s revolutionary experiment in freedom and self-government teeters on the precipice of implosion.

But even if this abominable bill should pass, our sanctuary of liberty shall not. America’s strength and salvation remains her free people. And this November, all across America her sovereign citizens will teach these Democratic educated idiots that we do not work for government; government works for us.

Keep the faith! Seize your freedom! Save our country!

To nominate the next EIA, please visit www.mccotterrocks.com or email nominate@McCotterRocks.com .

Wading deep into documents available from CBO and the House and Senate Budget Committees reveals that the claim that Obamacare, in the form of the Senate health bill Democrats are now trying to deem through the House, would reduce the deficit is based on the assumption of an immediate 21% cut in payments to doctors and hospitals under Medicare.  But that is just the beginning.

The growth of these payments would be arbitrarily limited over time, so this cut would effectively become bigger and bigger.  For the second 10 years, the claim that Obamacare would reduce the deficit by close to a trillion dollars is based on assumed Medicare cuts over those years of over $2 trillion.

This would cause havoc and chaos in health care for America’s seniors.  They would often not be able to find doctors, specialists and hospitals to provide needed health care.  Most enjoying superior coverage from Medicare Advantage plans would lose that coverage, as indicated by the Chief Actuary for Medicare.  Investment in new health care technology, new breakthrough medical treatments and services, and new miracle cure drugs would dry up, which has already started.

But if Congress does not allow those cuts to go into effect, Obamacare will further explode the deficit.  The new CBO score regarding the House reconciliation bill does not change any of this.

America today suffers the spectacle of a President of the United States, and Democrat Congressional leadership, proclaiming to the nation that their socialized medicine plan will reduce budget deficits, based on fantastic assumptions of trillions of dollars in intractable cuts to Medicare that would leave that program unworkable in delivering health care to the America’s seniors.

Medicare already suffers an unfunded liability of $38 trillion according to Medicare’s own government actuaries.  What Obama and Congressional Democrats are proposing is to loot $2.5 trillion from Medicare over the next 20 years to spend on new entitlements under Obamacare, and leave Medicare with that overwhelming unfunded liability.

In an earlier generation, when the Washington establishment enacted another health care abuse they were so certain America would love, called catastrophic coverage under Medicare, seniors protested by climbing all over the limousine motorcade of then House Ways and Means Chairman Dan Rostenkowski in Chicago.  That led to repeal of that abuse the very next year by a Democrat controlled Congress.  Just an historical note.

]]> http://biggovernment.com/pferrara/2010/03/19/the-obamacare-deficit-fraud/feed/ 87 http://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/03/18/house-reconciliation-bill-full-text/ http://biggovernment.com/publius/2010/03/18/house-reconciliation-bill-full-text/#comments Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:41:31 +0000 Publius http://biggovernment.com/?p=91898 Below is the just-released text of the House Reconciliation Bill. In the strange, ‘through the looking glass’ world that is the House Democrat Leadership, they will vote for these “fixes” to the Senate passed health care bill. In voting for these fixes, the House will ‘deem’ that the Senate Health Care bill is passed. See, the Democrats can vote for the fixes without having to vote for the bill that is being fixed.We already knew they don’t have to read bills to pass them. Now, they don’t have to vote for them either.

The Senate, then, will dutifully enact all of these “fixes,” by using elaborate procedural tricks and at least a couple votes to override the Senate Parliamentarian. Right, like that is going to happen.

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For those keeping score at home, the whole idea of a reconciliation bill is simply to provide cover for House Democrats to pass the Senate Bill. The Senate will never take up reconciliation. The Senate bill will become the law of the land.

Doing his rounds on the Sunday talk shows, WH spokesman, Robert Gibbs, stated:

Gibbs added that those on next week’s Sunday talk shows “will be talking about healthcare not as a presidential proposal but I think as the law of the land.”

It’s interesting to note that Gibbs did not mention the reconciliation package. In fact, there has been a definite cooling of the rhetoric about the prospect of reconciliation in the Senate.

Note to those members of the House, you are being duped. The Senate will not take up the reconciliation package at all. After the House is stupid enough to fall for their bait and pass the ObamaCare bill, the Senate will deem reconciliation an impossibility due to the Byrd Rule.

In addition, Gibbs stated:

President Barack Obama will look to campaign on the new healthcare law in midterm elections, Gibbs said.

“We believe healthcare reform is going to pass, and once it passes we’re happy to have the 2010 elections be about the achievement of healthcare reform,” Gibbs said.

The GOP would love to run on the platform of the Democrats ramming ObamaCare down our throats, and the Slaughter Rule will make it the ultimate death blow.

Either way, the Democrats will lose the House in a mauling in the November elections, as will the Senate, though the hemorrhage may not be as bad as the House because they walked away from reconciliation.  Or it could be worse because the Senate reneged on the deal.

How do you spell political suicide? ObamaCare.