Daniel Henninger over at the Wall Street Journal has a piece about the Blue Dogs where he asks the title question.:
"....The issue is: Do they work for us, or do we work for them? "
That is a question we can ask about all of our folks in the Federal Government including all of Congress, the Executive and the Judiciary.
Who is the master, and who is the slave?
If you explore almost any issue, it comes down to this: one group up there is pro government, and wants the government to make sure we are led down the "correct" paths. These are mostly Democrats. Another group mostly favors (they say) having the private sector do the leading. These are mostly Republicans. The last group is on the fence. They cannot decide who to favor, the government or the people. This includes the Blue Dogs and so-called "moderate" Republicans.
The problem we have is that when the pro-private sector folks have gotten in charge, they have joined the pro government group.
The result has been an unprecedented growth in government the last 80 years. This has left us all less free and less well off than we otherwise would be.
Our government has gotten to the point that it serves the special interests that feed it, and not the people who, through their taxes, are required to support it.
Just look at the absolutely huge sums expended by lobbyists and other big special interests to support the power and elections of the politicians. Is it any wonder that the whole system has become so corrupt?
We all need to send a message to the politicians: you represent us, or you are gone.
Actually, we just need to throw all the bums out and start over.
Read all of Henninger's article here.
Showing posts with label Blue Dogs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blue Dogs. Show all posts
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Blue Dogs Cave on Health Care Reform; Updated: No vote until late September or later: Obama
There are reports out this afternoon that the Blue Dog Democrats have compromised with the "yellow dog" Democrats, and have agreed on an outline of a bill that would radically change health care in the United States.
Given that the Congressional Budget Office has cited the huge costs of the bill...over one trillion dollars..... the Blue Dogs could be said to have caved in by agreeing to reduce the costs by only an estimated one hundred billion dollars. That is a lot of money, but only a drop in the bucket.
So, what else did they get? Well, they didn't get the national insurance out of the provisions, but they did require that government insurance company negotiate fees with doctors rather than unilaterally set them like it does with Medicare. But that still gets the government's nose under the tent, and we all know where that will go.
They did get a increase in the ceiling for mandatory insurance, doubling it to payrolls of $500,000 or less. That is still too low by far.
There is no mention of Medicare.
It seems a lot of the savings will come from two places, as reported by the New York Times:
"¶ Medicaid would be expanded, as under the original bill, but states would have to pay a small share of the additional costs, perhaps 7 percent. The federal government would have paid the entire cost under the original bill.
"¶ Workers would have to pay slightly more of their income on premiums for employer-sponsored insurance — 12 percent, rather than 11 percent — before they could qualify for federal subsidies."
So savings would come from charging workers more money, and putting additional costs on the states. Isn't that nice? Guess who still pays?
What do we have at the end of the day? The best part of it is that they delayed the bill from coming up for a vote until after Labor Day.
That will at least mean that someone will have a chance to read the bill after it is marked up in committee, and before it is presented to the House for a vote.
That is a change. Celebrate the small things.
They won't be able to change that sow's ear into a silk purse during the recess. But they will try to sell it as one.
And the so-called "conservative" Democrats, the Blue Dogs, showed their true colors once again.
The term "conservative" Democrat is an oxymoron, by the way. If they were conservative, they would not be Democrats. It has been thirty years since there was a real live conservative in the Democratic Party. We all left back then.
UPDATE: Obama is quoted this evening as saying there will not be a vote on the Health Care Reform Bill until late September or mid-October.
This is a major defeat for Obama and Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership.
Given that the Congressional Budget Office has cited the huge costs of the bill...over one trillion dollars..... the Blue Dogs could be said to have caved in by agreeing to reduce the costs by only an estimated one hundred billion dollars. That is a lot of money, but only a drop in the bucket.
So, what else did they get? Well, they didn't get the national insurance out of the provisions, but they did require that government insurance company negotiate fees with doctors rather than unilaterally set them like it does with Medicare. But that still gets the government's nose under the tent, and we all know where that will go.
They did get a increase in the ceiling for mandatory insurance, doubling it to payrolls of $500,000 or less. That is still too low by far.
There is no mention of Medicare.
It seems a lot of the savings will come from two places, as reported by the New York Times:
"¶ Medicaid would be expanded, as under the original bill, but states would have to pay a small share of the additional costs, perhaps 7 percent. The federal government would have paid the entire cost under the original bill.
"¶ Workers would have to pay slightly more of their income on premiums for employer-sponsored insurance — 12 percent, rather than 11 percent — before they could qualify for federal subsidies."
So savings would come from charging workers more money, and putting additional costs on the states. Isn't that nice? Guess who still pays?
What do we have at the end of the day? The best part of it is that they delayed the bill from coming up for a vote until after Labor Day.
That will at least mean that someone will have a chance to read the bill after it is marked up in committee, and before it is presented to the House for a vote.
That is a change. Celebrate the small things.
They won't be able to change that sow's ear into a silk purse during the recess. But they will try to sell it as one.
And the so-called "conservative" Democrats, the Blue Dogs, showed their true colors once again.
The term "conservative" Democrat is an oxymoron, by the way. If they were conservative, they would not be Democrats. It has been thirty years since there was a real live conservative in the Democratic Party. We all left back then.
UPDATE: Obama is quoted this evening as saying there will not be a vote on the Health Care Reform Bill until late September or mid-October.
This is a major defeat for Obama and Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic leadership.
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