This one is a particular favorite, since it's from that Baucus debacle "negotiator," Mike Enzi, and since it was delivered on the day that Ted Kennedy was buried.
"The Democrats are trying to rush a bill through the process that will actually make our nation’s finances sicker without saving you money," Enzi said in the weekly GOP address. "The American people are growing increasingly concerned about out of control spending in Washington that’s leaving us with trillions of dollars of debt."
Adopting one of the GOP's favored lines of attack, Enzi said the plan would particularly hurt the elderly.
"These bills also raid Medicare," Enzi said. "This will result in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the elderly to create new government programs."
....
"The bills would expand comparative effectiveness research that would be used to limit or deny care based on age or disability of patients," he said.
All class, that Mike Enzi. But Chuck Grassley, his coconspirator in the Baucus debacle is right there with him, fundraising on his efforts to "defeat Obamacare":
I had to rush you this Air-Gram today to set the record straight on my firm and unwavering opposition to government-run health care.
And ask your immediate support in helping me defeat "Obama-care."
I'm sure you've been following this issue closely. If the legislation sponsored by Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the House of Representatives and Chairman Ted Kennedy in the Senate is passed it would be a pathway to a government takeover of the health care system. lt would turn over control of your health care decisions to a federal bureaucrat ... and take it away from you and your personal physician.
It would mean government rationing in the name of cost controls.
When questioned about this rather extreme position Grassley has taken on a bill that he is actually supposed to be finding some compromise on, a staffer told Greg Sargent that it's not really all of "Obamacare" that Grassley objects to, just the public option as it exists in all of the bills so far produced.
The letter describes the government-run plan in the House and HELP committee bills that President Obama supports and Senator Grassley opposes.
Given that Grassley keeps reiterating that he won't even vote for the Baucus debacle bill if it doesn't get more than three or four Republican supporters, and there's no way three or four Republicans are going to support any healthcare reform bill (note that Grassley is not actually suggesting that he'll be one of them), I think we can be pretty certain that letter encompasses more than just the public option.
So much for the Baucus debacle. We can't leave the House out of the mix today. Here's Rep. Joe Barton's (R-TX) promise for 2010:
BARTON: If they [Democrats] somehow manage to get the votes and get enough Democrats to walk the plank and commit political suicide, in the next Congress, I’ll be Chairman Joe Barton of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and we’ll repeal it.
The prospect of Chairman Joe Barton should be enough to galvanize Democrats around a comprehensive, effective healthcare reform bill that would ensure a Democratic victory in 2010. Speaking of which, we can't leave out Jim DeMint:
Senator Jim DeMint, the South Carolina Republican who predicted that President Obama’s effort to overhaul the health care system would become his "Waterloo," is doing his best to make that happen.
Taking questions from a friendly crowd of 500 people here the other day, Mr. DeMint did little to correct their misimpressions about health care legislation but rather reinforced their worst fears.
The thing that you have to at least credit DeMint for is that he's the only one being perfectly honest about why they're fighting healthcare reform. He's saying what Grassley and Enzi won't.
Now, with Congress set to return to Washington on Sept. 8, polls show that support for health care legislation has indeed eroded, and Mr. DeMint takes partial credit.
"We’ve definitely got him on the run," he said in an interview.
He said that stopping the overhaul "has the potential of changing the whole political dynamic in this country," both by halting other Obama policies, like the cap-and-trade approach to limiting emissions of the heat-trapping gases that cause global warming, and by reviving the Republicans in next year’s elections.
This isn't about policy differences the Republicans have with Democrats. It's about killing the most surefire means the Democrats have of securing political majorities for perhaps the next generation--bringing real, substantive healthcare reform--health security--to the American people. The prospect has Republicans terrified, and Democrats need to recognize that.