I'm not terribly impressed with how McConnell conducted the opposition to this bill, seeking to 'fix' it for weeks before finally attempting to kill it (alas, too little too late). However, this statement is dead on, and these questions and facts should be plainly put to anyone who supports DemCare."Tonight marks the culmination of a long national debate. Passions have run high. And, that's appropriate because the bill we are voting on tonight will impact the life of every American. It will shape the future of our country. It will determine whether our children can afford the nation they inherit. It is one of the most consequential votes any of us will ever take. And none of us take it lightly.
"But make no mistake: if the people who wrote this bill were proud of it, they wouldn't be forcing this vote in the dead of night
"Here are just some of the deals we've noticed:
"$100 million for an unnamed health care facility at an unnamed university somewhere in the United States — the bill doesn't say where — and no one will even step forward to claim it.
"One state out of 50 gets to expand Medicaid at no cost to itself — while taxpayers in the other 49 states pick up the tab.
"The same Senator who cut that deal secured another one that benefits a single insurance company – just one insurance company – based in his state.
"Do the supporters of this bill know all this? Do they think it's a fair deal for their states, for the rest of the country?
"The fact is, a year after this debate started few people could have imagined that this is how it would end — with a couple of cheap deals and a rushed vote at one o'clock in the morning. But that's where we are.
"And Americans are wondering tonight: How did this happen?
"So I'd like to take a moment to explain to the American people how we got here, to explain what happened — and what's happening now.
"Everyone in this chamber agrees we need health care reform. The question is how?
"Some of us have taken the view that the American people want us to tackle the cost issue, and we've proposed targeted steps to do it. Our friends on the other side have taken the opposite approach.
"And the result has been just what you'd expect.
"The final product is a mess — and so is the process that's brought us here to vote on a bill that the American people overwhelmingly oppose.
"Any challenge of this size and scope has always been dealt with on a bipartisan basis. The senior Senator from Maine made that point at the outset of the debate, and reminded us all how these things have been handled throughout history..
"The Social Security Act of 1935 was approved by all but six members of the Senate. The Medicare and Medicaid Acts of 1965 were approved by all but 21. All but eight senators voted for the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990.
"Americans believe that on issues of this importance, one party should never be allowed to force its will on the other half of the nation. The proponents of this bill felt differently.
"In a departure from history, Democrat leaders put together a bill so heavy with tax hikes, Medicare cuts and government intrusion, that, in the end their biggest problem wasn't convincing Republicans to support it, it was convincing the Democrats.
"In the end, the price of passing this bill wasn't achieving the reforms Americans were promised.
"It was a blind call to make history, even if it was a historical mistake — which is exactly what this bill will be if it's passed. Because, in the end, this debate isn't about differences between two parties, it's about a $2.3 trillion dollar, 2,733-page health care reform bill that does not reform health care and, in fact, makes its price go up.
From just the past couple years of watching politics closely, I've become cynical enough that I'm not one bit surprised at the Left's brute-force attempts to take over vast swaths of America, the bald-faced lies used to push that takeover, nor the depths to which they have sunk in order to accomplish the takeover. I am, however, still completely amazed at the fact that so many Democrat citizens would allow their political leadership to use these means to accomplish these ends - if they wouldn't, then they wouldn't have elected such leaders, and even if they had they wouldn't still be showing majority support for their elected leaders' actions, right? I have a hard time believing that most non-elite/non-politician Democrats would sanction this stuff, thus the only remaining conclusion is that there is a staggering amount of ignorance in this country which allows the Washington elite to get away with this absolute and total crap.
I believe that we are seeing enough distress in the country that real hardship is jerking lots of people out of that fog of ignorance, but the question remains whether or not we can hold off enough of the damage that will be done by radical Leftist policies like DemCare for long enough that we can put some real grown-up conservatives in office to correct things...or if we will have passed the point of no return by the time they arrive. Obama originally wanted DemCare by August, but we've at least forced another 4-5 months into it; if we can keep this up, maybe there's hope yet.
What worries me when I think about the state of the nation my generation will hand down to my children is:
What if we can't?
There's my two cents.
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