Thomas Sowell has a piece up on RealClearPolitics today. Sowell takes a look at the cynicism of passing bad health care legislation simply to say you have passed “any” health care legislation.
Supporters of government health insurance call its passage “historic.” Past attempts to pass such legislation– going back for decades– failed repeatedly. But now both houses of Congress have passed government health care legislation and it is just a question of reconciling their respective bills and presenting President Obama with a political “victory.”
In short, this is not about improving the health of the American people. It is about passing something– anything– to keep the Obama administration from ending up with egg on its face by being unable to pass a bill, after so much hype and hoopla. Politically, looking impotent is a formula for disaster at election time. Far better to pass even bad legislation that will not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election, so that the public will not know whether it makes medical care better or worse until it is too late for the voters to hold the administration accountable.
The utter cynicism of this has been apparent from the outset, in the rush to pass a health care bill in a hurry, in order to meet wholly arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines. First it was supposed to be passed before the August 2009 Congressional recess. Then it was supposed to be passed before Labor Day. When that didn’t happen, it was supposed to be rushed to passage before Christmas.
Sowell rightly points out that while the costs of this folly will be felt immediately, any possible benefit (though more likely the chaos of actual implementation) was held off until after the elections of 2012. Punting responsibility down the road while frontloading costs is the worst kind of arrogance.
Speaking of arrogance, remember all the discussion yesterday of whether the attempted bombing on Christmas Day was the act of one person or part of a larger plot? DHS Secretary Napolitano’s suggestion that this is merely a law enforcement issue is even more in question now that an al qaeda sect in Yemen has claimed responsibility.
The development came as evidence mounted that the U.S. didn’t pursue potential leads that might have brought alleged Christmas Day bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to the attention of authorities, according to Congressional investigators and U.S. officials.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano backtracked Monday from comments she made in televised interviews over the weekend, in which she said the U.S.’s security systems had worked. President Barack Obama, in his first public comments about the incident, promised the government would do everything it can to keep travelers secure. “We will not rest until we find all who were involved and hold them accountable,” Mr. Obama said in remarks broadcast on television from Hawaii, where he is on vacation.
The timing of the attack is also drawing additional attention as it comes just a few days after the repatriation of detainees to Yemen after their release from Guantanamo.
On the domestic front, moderate Dems are urging the administration to forgo efforts to pass cap and trade legislation since they still fear the effects of thumbing their noses at constituents who opposed the health care gamble.
Bruised by the health care debate and worried about what 2010 will bring, moderate Senate Democrats are urging the White House to give up now on any effort to pass a cap-and-trade bill next year.
“I am communicating that in every way I know how,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of at least a half-dozen Democrats who’ve told the White House or their own leaders that it’s time to jettison the centerpiece of their party’s plan to curb global warming.
No word on whether the Administration will heed the call.
President Barack Obama condemned Iran for reacting violently to anti-government protests sweeping the country, but did not offer unqualified support to the opposition.
While the president acknowledged Iranian dissidents had been unfairly met “with the iron fist of brutality,” he ultimately stressed, “what’s taking place in Iran is not about the United States or any other country.”
That’s a far cry from the lofty rhetoric of someone like Ronald Reagan. Will “we want you to be nice to your people, but it’s really none of our business” go down in history next to “tear down this wall!”? Somehow, I doubt it.
