US Elections

Fully sick

By James Morrow in Sydney

18 March 2010

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One has to admire the mental agility of the American Left and their representatives in the White House and US Congress. Because after spending eight years declaring that George W Bush was “shredding the Constitution”, they look poised to, you guessed it, “shred the Constitution”. Hairpin turns of this nature are the sort of thing seasoned observers of the Obama administration have long gotten used to (Guantanamo Bay, anyone?) ...

The Obama administration is once again firing up the shredders, this time in its attempt to pass its grand and grandly expensive health care plan. (Looking at the numbers, it makes the Great Big Taxes on Everything being fought over in Canberra look like an argument between housemates over who rightfully gets the loose change in the sofa). How will they do this? Without going into the Parliamentary mechanics of it, the House is looking to “deem” the Senate version of the bill as “passed” -- without the straight up-and-down vote on the legislation that the President promised and that sticklers for the Constitution (especially Article I, Section 7) insist upon.

 It doesn’t take deep Capitol Hill experience to see what’s going on here. The President’s poll numbers are under water.  Rank-and-file House members are terrified of going back to their districts this November having voted for ObamaCare. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has not been able to score the latest version of the bill, and the House leadership is reportedly fiddling with the thing to get the numbers to look right. And that old campaign chestnut about putting legislation on-line for people to read and examine before it goes to a vote? Well, that is well and truly out the window.

Because after all, when your heart‘s in the right place, who needs a messy thing like democracy?

UPDATE: It's only a rumour at this point but word is the CBO is costing the bill at ... get this ... one trillion dollars. If this pans out, ObamaCare's got a date with a death panel.

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