One of my favorite columnists, Peggy Noonan, writes in the Wall Street Journal about how simple common sense might be sinking President Barack Obama’s (D) grandiose health care initiatives.
As dumb as the American voter can seem sometimes, we almost always come to our senses sooner or later. When Obama says he doesn’t believe in big government, his re-creation of the American health care system won’t increase the federal deficit, and government won’t make medical care worse . . . well, we see this for what it is. We’ve seen enough of these impressive-sounding federal initiatives designed to ‘make things better.’ We know they go horribly awry much more often than they work as-advertised. We know they always come with strings—not to mention taxes—attached.
The fact is that, despite all the blather to the contrary, most of us have seen government botch schools, retirement plans (‘social security’), financial bailouts, and more. Many of us don’t want to see what they would do to our health care, and don’t want to pay the inevitable tax increases to support such a boondoggle. The president and his cheerleaders in Congressional leadership (like Speaker Nancy Pelosi [D-CA 8th]) can’t even get the more conservative wing of the Democratic Party on board, let alone more than one or two Republicans. Without major revisions to the proposed plans, there probably aren’t enough votes—even with a Democratic supermajority in Congress—to push this thing through.
Then again, it looked like the first 700 billion dollar bailout under President George W. Bush (R) would fail in the House . . . it ended up passing narrowly. I’ve learned never to assume Congress will stick to a common sense position.
