Thursday, March 18, 2010

Votes For Sale


Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, announced Wednesday that he would vote for the Senate health care bill, becoming the most prominent House Democrat to reverse his opposition. But Kucinich has been under enormous pressure in recent weeks to lend his support to the bill, especially from Obama, who visited Kucinich's district on Monday. Kucinich flew with Obama on Air Force One to a rally where members of the audience chanted at Kucinich to support the bill. (FoxNews.com, 3/17/10)

One of fascinating things about watching the health care debate unfold is learning the cost of a legislator’s vote. For Mary Landrieu and Ben Nelson, that price was millions of dollars. For Dennis Kucinich, the price is simply a ride in a big fancy airplane. RedStateVT is investigating reports that Kucinich also got to go up to the cockpit, meet the pilot and get a pair of wings.


Damn the Torpedoes!
In ramming through an unpopular 2,700-page health care bill using brute force tactics, Democrats are in danger of passing what amounts to the longest suicide note in history. Their own pollsters are telling them the public has rebelled against their tactics. So their response is to press their foot down even harder on the gas pedal. We'll see how that works out for them. (John Fund, WSJ, 3/17/10)

Better Questions Than Answers

If the bill is so unpopular that it must be passed long before Election Day, could there be a problem with the legislation? If health-care reform as proposed were so good for the nation, why wouldn't legislators prefer to run on rather than away from that record? If you can't run on the strength of the laws you pass, then either you shouldn't be running or you shouldn't be passing. Yet, now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is considering ways to allow House members to pass the Senate bill without actually voting for it so that vulnerable Democrats can deny responsibility for a bill they don't like and don't support. Is this sane? (Kathleen Parker, Washington Post, 3/17/10)

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