From Powerline

Arrogance, corruption, stupidity

Republicans didn’t have the votes to stop the Senate’s Obamacare bill this morning. But they had the better argument. Oklahoma’s magnificent Senator (and Dr.) Tom Coburn spoke for a lot of us in explaining his vote against the Democrats’ bill:

This vote is indeed historic. This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and stupidity. In the year of 2009, a Congress ignored the coming economic storm and impending bankruptcy of our entitlement programs and embarked on an ideological crusade to bring our nation as close to single-payer, government-run health care as possible. If this bill becomes law, future generations will rue this day and I will do everything in my power to work toward its repeal. This bill will ration care, cut Medicare, increase premiums, fund abortion and bury our children in debt.

This process was not compromise. This process was corruption. This bill passed because votes were bought and sold using the issue of abortion as a bargaining chip. The abortion provision alone makes this bill the most arrogant piece of legislation I have seen in Congress. Only the most condescending politician can believe it is appropriate to force Americans to pay for other people’s abortions and to coerce medical professional to take the lives of unborn children.

I would quibble only with Senator Coburn’s attribution of “stupidity” to congressional Democrats. The House and Senate bills are indeed stupidly destructive of the best health care system in the world, and they will impose unbearable costs on the American public. But if and when a final bill is enacted next year, the Democrats will have achieved their goal of control over the medical means of life and death. This Congress will be remembered for its arrogance, corruption and tyranny as well as its staggering profligacy, all of which are well represented in the Obamacare bills.

Politico reports that the timetable for passage of a final bill has now slipped to February. Ed Morrissey and Andrew McCarthy tentatively see a ray of light in the delay, and Ramesh Ponnuru also envisions the possible defeat of Obamacare in the House. Later is better than sooner, but don’t be deceived. The Democrats have the whip hand.

Grounds for optimism exist in the opposition to the government takeover of health care that runs deep and wide. Somehow, the American people have seen through the bill of goods they are being sold despite the Obama administration’s best efforts, the Democrats’ control of the process and the unfailing assistance of their allies in the media.

Democrats count on the opposition to subside and the public to acquiesce. Yet the Roman spectacle to which Obama and the congressional Democrats have treated us will be hard to erase from our memory. It will constitute an obstacle to our pacification and a spur to our resistance.

JOHN adds: To arrogance, corruption and stupidity we should perhaps add self-delusion. Harry Reid says that the public will greet passage of his government medicine bill with “joy and happiness.” These are not people who can be compromised with or deflected from their drive toward socialism. They can only be defeated, starting in November.

Flopping Aces goes further:

No surprise here….the Senate passed their version of Socialism today:

The Senate approved sweeping healthcare reform legislation by the narrowest of partisan margins early Christmas Eve morning, placing President Barack Obama just one step away from signing into law a longtime Democratic priority

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The 60 to 39 tally split directly along partisan lines, underscoring not only the great divide between Democrats and Republicans but also the deftness with which Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) at long last united his fractious caucus by offering key compromises to centrists but keeping liberals in the fold.

Deftness me ass. This was bribery at it’s worst and an example that may very well come back to bite the Democrats as Jay Cost explains:

Make no mistake. This bill is so unpopular because it has all the characteristics that most Americans find so noxious about Washington.

It stinks of politics. Why is there such a rush to pass this bill now? It’s because the President of the United States recognizes that it is hurting his numbers, and he wants it off the agenda. It might not be ready to be passed. In fact, it’s obviously not ready! Yet that doesn’t matter. The President wants this out of the way by his State of the Union Address. This is nakedly self-interested political calculation by the President - nothing more and nothing less.

What makes this all the more perversely political is that the bill’s benefits do not kick in for years. Why? Politics again! Democrats wish to claim that the bill reduces the deficit, so they collect ten years worth of revenue but only pay five years worth of benefits.

The Congress and the President are rushing to wait - not because that’s best for health care, but best for the political careers of Washington Democrats.

It stinks of influence peddlers. Reviewing winners and losers in the Senate health care bill shows clearly that it was written with the full advice and consent of privileged interest groups.

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The insurance lobby is already so powerful that Democrats couldn’t get the public option through now - what makes them think they’ll be able to later, after they’ve given insurers 30 million additional customers, and required every last American to do business with them? The insurance companies are going to be to the 21st century what Standard Oil was to the 19th.It stinks of partisanship. Not a single Republican will vote for this bill in the Senate. I doubt it will get a single House Republican if the Stupak language is excluded. Partisan Democrats like to think that this is because Republicans are too partisan. That’s ridiculous. Nobody can seriously accuse Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins of partisan hackery. Plus, Orin Hatch has been a major player in health care reform over the years, and Chuck Grassley made a good faith effort this summer to find common ground.

The fact that the President can’t find a single Republican vote out of more than 200 potential supporters is a strong indication that this is a bad bill.

They ran against “corruption” in 2006 and 2008 and now they fight for THIS bill? Color me surprised.

Meanwhile this will need to be merged with the House, when and if that gets approved then it will more then likely go back to the Senate….long way to go and as the approval numbers continue to drop we can all hope this dies on the vine.