Monday, July 27, 2009

You just don't want to know

The health care debate brought to mind this exchange between then-Congressman Sonny Bono and Chuck Schumer (possibly misquoting Bismarck):

Mr. Bono also spoke out at a meeting last month of the House Judiciary Committee. One of two nonlawyers on the committee, he grew frustrated by arguments over the details of a crime bill provision on searches by the police.
"When are we going to stop the games?" he asked, complaining that various members were showing too much of their legal knowledge.
Representative Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of Brooklyn, replied at the meeting: "We have to talk about the law. That's what we do here. We're making laws here, not sausages."
Ah, yes, because making law is a serious matter. But apparently the government takeover of one-sixth of the economy doesn't even merit enough gravity to read the actual legislation: "Conyers Sees No Point in Members Reading 1,000-Page Health Care Bill--Unless They Have 2 Lawyers to Interpret It for Them." (Video here.)

Is anybody as mortified as I am by the meat-grinder politics at play here? Nancy Pelosi swears she's going to cram this bratwurst down our national gullet and – mark my words – Barack Obama is going to sign anything with the words "health care" on it, no matter how disruptive and expensive.

Extra – Robert Samuelson: "Obama's misleading medicine"

More – Here's Jennifer Rubin on Contentions: "Translation: ObamaCare, far from reducing health-care costs and the deficit, increases them - dramatically and with no funding source identified to pay for the expansion."

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

It'll be okay, if we just call it Patriot Act III.