219 AYE; 212 NAY
Why the large print? you might be asking. It's there to serve as a reminder of how close the voting really was for between now and November when the Democrats, Mainstream Media and White House tries to make it sound as though this invasive, economy-killing behemoth was passed overwhelmingly and with all sorts of popular support from every last American with no mention of the shady backroom deals that were struck.
On the contrary. The Democrat supermajority saw their window to impose yet another entitlement program and legislative monument to themselves begin to close on January 19, 2010 with the Scott Brown senate win. The Democrats managed to delude themselves into thinking that Massachusetts overwhelmingly supported Brown because they weren't implementing their agenda fast enough, even though Brown explicitly opposed Obama policies such as Health Care 'Reform' and Cap & Trade during his campaign. Seriously- stop and think about that for a moment. They honestly thought people were stupid enough to think [or were stupid enough to think themselves] that the voters of Massachusetts were dissatisfied with the pace of their legislative agenda, so they voted in a Republican to show their displeasure.
And with the latest polls showing that over 50% of Americans were opposed to the current healthcare legislation, why not cram it through on a weekend before it gets even more unpopular?
But don't worry! They posted the 2300 page version of the House bill online 72 whole hours before the vote. And....what red-blooded American wouldn't be reading through thousands of pages of legislation online during a spring weekend? But just in case you didn't have a chance to read it, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi reassured us that we needed to pass the bill in order to find out what was in it. Gosh- aren't you glad that we have such an open, honest and transparent government making decisions that will affect our day-to-day lives?
During his State of the Union address, Obama said that jobs would be his top priority. And with this Healthcare 'reform' he certainly has delivered, by allowing for as many as 17,000 IRS agents to be hired to enforce the bill's mandates. Those of us looking for gainful employment in the private sector can go pound sand, I guess.
Of course, with this passed, 0bamacare still faces legal challenges from several states over its legitimacy.
As for the 'Blue Dog' democrats and Stupak's anti-abortion bloc, they were next to useless. Bart Stupak (D-MI) held out attempting to place restrictions on the federal funding of abortions, but instead settled for an executive order from President Obama that's not even worth the paper it's printed on as a 'compromise' for his 'Aye' vote. Those of you who were holding out hope for the Democrats to do the right thing should be neither surprised nor disappointed at the outcome of today's voting.
Welcome to San Francisco Values, implemented by the Chicago Machine, America. It may not last forever, but November 2010 and 2012 can't come fast enough.
Now, all you geniuses who voted for Obama, remind me again why we'd be much worse off under McCain/Palin or even Hillary....
These "geniuses" came in two kinds:
ReplyDelete(a) the "real conservatives" who saw McCain as 0bama Lite and perhaps think "worse is better"
(b) the New Class types (Althouse, McArdle) who engaged in wishful thinking as they were offered the choice between one of their own (0bama) and "not one of us" (an ex-military man and a smalltown plan-spoken hockey mom)
I work in a stereotypical New Class profession myself, but would have voted for Barney the Dinosaur if that were 0bama's only opponent. Perhaps because I have never given a rat's backside about what I am "supposed" to think.