Republicans Seek Another Huge Shellacking
(For Obama’s Nonsensical “Jobs” Bill)
In the Democrat-Controlled Senate
Has the world turned upside down? You be the judge.
Item #1: As promised the House Republicans are taking pieces of the Obama American Jobs Act bill they believe in and designing their own bill with the best parts of Obama’s bill IN and the destructive parts of Obama’s bill for the economy LEFT OUT.
Item: #2: The last time (before his Jobs Bill was proposed in September that instead of merely haranguing Congress and the nation without substance) President Barack Obama actually put something in writing for the Congress to examine was in February this year. That “something” was a bogus budget drawn up to oppose the real and thoughtful pro-active budget from House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin). Ryan’s plan , the “Roadmap for America’s Future” was the first effort made in our history to deal not only with deficits and hyper-spending but also with the nation’s $116 TRillion UNfunded liabilities (Social Security, Medicare and the federal side of Medicaid) crisis. After submitting his own atrocious budget, Obama called for an immediate vote . . . His Senate Majority Leader, Democrat Harry Reid warned that would be a bad idea and put off that vote until the President clamored “Now!” three months later. Reid would have preferred not to vote but had to. The result was a 0-97 defeat in the Democrat-controlled Senate . . . perhaps the worst rebuff from Congress that any president has ever received . . . a historical drubbing of monumental proportions.
Item #3: Now Obama’s at it again with his so-called American Jobs Act which is really just a huge pretense at cutting spending which actually raises taxes on middle-class Americans dramatically. Sounds like just the thing for the Democratically-controlled Senate to vote on, right? Not so quick!
Item #4: Majority leader Harry Reid knowing that any tax increases during the current economic malaise will not be popular with voters, especially all those independent voters that Obama and all members of Congress (House and Senate) will need on their side come the 2012 elections. Reid has tried to tell the President again NOT to plow ahead. Obama today says “Go!” however and now Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has called for a vote in the Senate. Reid is, of course, still opposed and today Reid blocked the procedural vote from further consideration. We believe that Republican Mc Connell will continue to call for the vote.
Item#5: Even IF Mc Connell had his way today, the procedural vote required to get Obama’s bill voted on appears 100% likely to be blocked by the Democrats with the prospect that somehow, some way IF the matter ever did come up for a vote on its merits, this bill too would face an ignominious defeat.
Item #6: To avoid that likely debacle, Reid and the Dems will block the matter from further consideration they would vote as a unit on the procedural matter against the president’s Jobs Bill while the Republicans are voting as a bloc FOR Obama’s bill to be voted on. That’s how bad the president’s bill is . . . about 85% of Democrats don’t like it at all and almost no Democrat, even those who do like it, wants to vote for higher taxes now.
Item #7: The Democrats, we’re told from polls, are deeply split over the president’s jobs bill. The latest attempt to find consensus among the Dems is to make two major changes to the president’s bill A) instead of raising taxes on households earning $200,000 or more beginning in 2013, the Senate Dems are talking about a 5% surcharge on millionaires and up beginning three months from now in January, 2012. Harry Reid surprisingly did NOT downplay the split among his Dems in the Senate describing it this way for the press, “If some of our members wanted permission to go to the bathroom, there’s a good chance that many others would shout ‘NO!’”
Again that’s how bad the president’s bill is . . . about 85% of Democrats don’t like it at all and almost no Democrat, even those who do like it, wants to vote for higher taxes now. The Republicans hate the bill and want to show it up with something akin to the 0-97 shellacking that the Senate gave Obama’s ridiculous budget when they finally voted on that bill itself in May of this year three full months after it was submitted by the President. This is the leader of the Free World our campaigner-in-chief who has NOT the slightest clue about how to govern.
How does one govern? By getting the most you can with what you’ve got. Instead of ramming Obamacare through in a hateful manner, imagine if you will that despite controlling the House and Senate in 2009 when he came into office that: President Obama had called on the Republicans to help craft a healthcare bill with his Congressional majorities . . . . Not only would there have been no need for the unconstitutional procedural tricks that Nancy Pelosi pulled on the nation (“We’ll have to pass it so you can see what’s in it.”) or the lie personally signed by Obama for Bart Stupak saying NO abortions would be funded by Obamacare (incredibly, the first three official Obamacare procedures done were abortions). The result would not have been an acrimonious battle for 15 months and would not have been the 2,700-page monstrosity that’s likely to be ruled unconstitutional and which is already bankrupting the nation just in its earliest stages of implementation.
The result probably would have been a 425-10 vote in the House and a 98-2 vote in the senate for a smart 100-page bill that would have actually worked (malpractice tort reform; insurance across state lines; taking care of fraud in Medicare and streamlining Medicaid) to get more people healthcare and to cut overall healthcare costs. That’s what governing is all about . . . getting a near-unanimous consensus and real results that help with almost zero-downside. President Obama is not capable of such a feat, alas. Two vital questions must be answered in 2012:
A. Are you better off than you were four years ago?
B. Are you better off than you were $4+ TRillion ago?
Ya’all live long, strong and ornery,
Rajjpuut
