Time to shame some House Dems, Senator Tom Coburn

With the passage of the Senate healthcare “reform” bill by the House, the President could literally sign this thing into law in the next couple of days, and likely will.

The reconciliation bill with all the Senate bill “fixes” – which also passed tonight – now moves to the Senate. If one change is made to it, it will have to be sent back to the House.

The WH, in claiming victory, made this appallingly false claim:

Obama watched the vote in the White House’s Roosevelt Room with Vice President Joe Biden and dozens of aides, exchanged high fives with Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, and then telephoned Speaker Nancy Pelosi with congratulations.

“We proved that we are still a people capable of doing big things,” he said later in the White House East Room. “We proved that this government — a government of the people and by the people — still works for the people.”

Oh really? Is that what Pelosi had in mind, Mr. President, when she urged her wavering House colleagues to basically be willing to sacrifice their jobs in Washington, DC so YOU could claim victory? The “will of the people” my a**.

Senator Tom Coburn promised a couple of days ago that if the Senate bill passed the House, several GOP Sentors would work to expose the no to yes Democrat flippers – specifically, those who were promised $$$ for their districts or ambassadorships or positions with NASA or whatever in return for their vote – including you, Bart Stupak. I eagerly look forward to this glaring, necessary exposure of these so-called “principled” Democrats who sold their political souls (not to mention sold out their constituencies) in order for this President to be able to claim an “accomplishment” for the first time since he’s taken office, an “accomplishment” that effectively means the government has now taken over 1/6th of the American economy. I eagerly look forward to watching the Congressional races of the flipper Democrats (the red state flippers, especially) up for re-election in hopes that each and every one of them are soundly defeated. The repeal of this bill must become a centerpiece of any GOP campaign moving forward this election year.

House Democrats sent a message to the American people tonight with the passages of these two bills: Up yours. The American people have a chance to give it back to them in November. To that, all I have to add is this:

Just do it.

On how much ObamaCare would cost vs. how much it would “save”

Bill Jacobson, Jeffrey Anderson at The Weekly Standard, and Michelle Malkin all have must-reads posted this morning on how Democrats have used the CBO’s crediblity in order to destroy it, all in a smoke and mirrors effort to fool everyone on the cost vs. “savings” aspect of ObamaCare.

As Kevin Glass explained yesterday, the CBO went with what it had to work with, which wasn’t much at all, and put qualifiers on a lot of what they were projecting. So, in essence, the much-heralded-by-the left CBO report was indeed a joke -and a slap in the face to every American who has the right to know just how much this is going to cost us if it passes. As far as the “savings” go? Please. Ed Morrissey pegs it right:

The problem is simple from the perspective of Washington and the Democrats, too. They need to pass health-care reform but make it look like it saves money. The only way to do that is to force states into expanding Medicaid in order to absorb more of the uninsured. The nifty part for Democrats in Washington is that Medicaid costs are mainly borne by the states.

[TN Gov. Phil] Bredesen’s right about the expansion of Medicaid under current conditions — it’s part of the entitlement catastrophe already, and this will hasten its arrival. We’re about to take a program whose growth already outstrips inflation and our economic growth and vastly expand it through federal mandates on the states.

Does this actually save us money? Of course not. It’s a shell game. Our state taxes will have to increase while Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama blather on about cost “savings” in ObamaCare. Meanwhile, states already running in the red will find themselves desperate for cash infusions, just as Bredesen describes. Where will that come? Given its track record on Porkulus, Obama will almost certainly push for more “stimulus” block grants for states in order to cover those shortfalls caused by the new federal mandates, which means the federal government will pay for this in most cases, probably for the next several years. It just won’t get included in the accounting for ObamaCare, allowing Democrats to claim that they have somehow reduced spending on health care through their reform.

Grrrr.

I’ll be on Twitter off and on today, tweeting about the latest goings-on on the ObamaCare front in the House. You can follow my tweets here and you can also follow what others are tweeting about ObamaCare – and the all-important Whip count – by searching the #HCR hashtag.

Lastly, make sure you check out Ed Whelan’s “It’s Now or Never” post at NRO that contains important House member contact info. Melt those phones!

Time to play “what do you ‘deem’ as so?”

Hey, since House Dems think they can “deem” something as passed without even voting on it, I’ve decided to play a “deem” game of my own – except mine won’t cost taxpayers a trillion bucks.

As I wrote on Twitter, I believe my birthday should be a national holiday. I deem it so. So far, I’ve gotten four Twitter friends to agree with me. If I were a Dem, now would be the time I’d start trading money/favors for votes.

So, with that said – what do you deem as so?

Update/OT – 10:04 PM: The “Fanmail” section has been updated. Remember, newest additions are at the bottom of the page. And don’t forget about the language warning.

Why the CBO’s latest numbers on the House version of ObamaCare are a joke

Kevin Glass explains:

[...] Analysis from the Congressional Budget Office has pegged the “new” plan at $940 billion and includes eye-popping deficit reduction numbers.

There’s chatter from Capitol Hill is that some Democrats are going to use the second-decade deficit reduction numbers as a justification to vote for the bill. These numbers claim deficit reduction “up to $1.2 trillion.”

What’s not noted is the heaps and heaps of qualifications that the CBO has repeatedly put on their second-decade numbers. This includes phrases such as “a detailed year-by-year projection… would not be meaningful because the uncertainties involved are simply too great” and “the legislation would maintain and put into effect a number of procedures that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time.”

Basically the CBO is saying that there’s no way Congress can actually enact many of the Obamacare provisions that Democrats claim they’re going to. But the CBO is forced to grade the bill as it’s written. [...]

Plus, from page 1 of the CBO report:

“Although CBO completed a preliminary review of legislative language prior to its release, the agency has not thoroughly examined the reconciliation proposal to verify its consistency with the previous draft. This estimate is therefore preliminary, pending a review of the language of the reconciliation proposal, as well as further review and refinement of the budgetary projections.”

Ed Morrissey and Allahpundit have more on the CBO’s numbers as well as the smoke and mirrors scheme behind the Democrats’ attempts at putting a price tag on it all.

Senator Kyl:

Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl released a statement going after the rising price tag of the bill, which was less than $900 billion when it went through the House and the Senate the first time.

“Every time a new iteration of the Democrats’ health-care bill is unveiled, the price tag goes up,” Kyl said. “The only thing that remains the same is that the American taxpayer will be on the hook to pay for it.”

Yep.

Keep melting the phones. Keep emailing. (House link – Senate link)