It is impossible to exaggerate the hypocrisy and political spinelessness afflicting the senators who are threatening to bring down health care reform over the issue of the deficit.
Leaving aside the Republican senators who uniformly oppose the bill "on principle," the main senators in question are: Democrats Max Baucus, Ben Nelson, Mary Landrieau, and Blanche Lincoln; Republican Olympia Snowe; and Independent Joe Lieberman.
Their past votes, and the cost of the measures they supported, illustrate the sheer size and scope of their hypocrisy.
- The Bush tax cuts
All of them voted the Bush tax cuts into law. The current estimated cost of those tax cuts is 1.8 trillion dollars. This is a figure that even Paul Krugman and the Heritage Foundation can agree on. There is no evidence at all to suggest that these tax cuts stimulated the economy or helped create new jobs. In fact, there is strong evidence that the opposite is true.
- Medicare Act of 2004
All of them supported this bill. Far from being "fully paid for" or "budget neutral," the bill is estimated to add 1.2 trilliondollars to the deficit over ten years - a figure that is larger than Obama's entire health care reform bill. The long-term picture is even worse.
- The Iraq war.
The estimates vary widely for this unnecessary and misguided adventure. Direct spending alone is approaching 1 trillion dollars and there are too many indirect and long-term costs to calculate. All of the senators in question supported the Iraq war and support a continuation of the war in Afghanistan.
The total cost of just these three votes? Roughly 4 trillion dollars. We can officially - now and forever - dismiss the senators' argument that they can't support health care reform because of its effect on the deficit.
Their collective opposition to the "public option," which they claim is based on their view of "limited government," also has no validity, based on their vote on Bush's Medicare expansion.
Their "positions" on health care reform are pure political calculation - or more to the point, political cowardice - cloaked in sanctimonious hooey.
It has been distressingly obvious for a very long time that this group of self-serving politicians is prepared either to destroy or eviscerate legislation designed to benefit millions of people by hiding behind a phony "philosophy" - a philosophy that posed no hindrance when the question before them concerned something else.
This isn't exactly news. What spurred me to write this post was a small article in the New York Times: "New York Finds Extreme Crisis in Youth Prisons."
There was something about the contrast between this article and the blizzard of nonsense that engulfed the nation on the Sunday news show that struck me as indescribably sad.
Here are a couple of key passages from the report:
"Many of those detained have addictions or psychological illnesses for which less restrictive treatment programs were not available. Three-quarters of children entering the juvenile justice system have drug or alcohol problems, more than half have had a diagnosis of mental health problems and one-third have developmental disabilities. Yet there are only 55 psychologists and clinical social workers assigned to the prisons, according to the task force. And none of the facilities employ psychiatrists, who have the authority to prescribe the drugs many mentally ill teenagers require."
This is what happens when you "starve the beast." This is what happens when deficits are accepted as good policy if the goal is to keep wealth in the hands of the already wealthy. This is what happens when "patriotism" is defined by voting for an unnecessary and irresponsible war, and not by supporting policies that devote the same money to the welfare and future of our own children. This is what a society becomes when fewer and fewer resources are allocated to help the most desperate and needy among us.
Republicans administrations (Reagan and Bush II) have devised an incredibly effective strategy of running up enormous deficits during their time in office, and then opposing any and all meaningful social legislation proposed by a Democratic successor (Clinton, Obama) - on the grounds that it increases the deficit.
The amazing thing is that the public is buying into this phony argument. Cowardly Democrats (and the increasingly clownish Joe Lieberman) are allowing Republicans to bludgeon them with it and "force" them to vote against traditional democratic values like social justice and equality.
All the while, real people living in very real and desperate circumstances continue to suffer.
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