John Boehner says “the American people expect us to know what’s in this bill before voting on it.” Not if the goal is to pass something before anyone knows what it is:
Beginning January 20, 2009, President Barack Obama has been a man in a hurry. First, Obama pushed for passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise know as the $787 billion stimulus bill. Sounding more fear-based than George W. Bush on his worst day, our 44th President declared:
“By now, it’s clear to everyone that we have inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression. Millions of jobs that Americans relied on just a year ago are gone; millions more of the nest eggs families worked so hard to build have vanished. People everywhere are worried about what tomorrow will bring.
What Americans expect from Washington is action that matches the urgency they feel in their daily lives — action that’s swift, bold and wise enough for us to climb out of this crisis.
Because each day we wait to begin the work of turning our economy around, more people lose their jobs, their savings and their homes. And if nothing is done, this recession might linger for years. Our economy will lose 5 million more jobs. Unemployment will approach double digits. Our nation will sink deeper into a crisis that, at some point, we may not be able to reverse.”
That was February 5th of this year. The House and Senate dutifully passed the pork-laden monstrosity despite the fact that not a single legislator read the final version of the bill before voting. The President assured a skeptical country that “shovel-ready projects abounded” and money would soon be flowing into worker’s checkbooks and then into the general economy as new employees spent their income. Yet almost 5 months later ”only 6 percent of the $787 billion in the bill has been paid out, with much of that in payments to states for social service programs,” according to the Washington Times. No wonder unemployment continues to rise. The majority of Americans having received stimulus money haven’t worked for it. Welcome to Obama’s world.
Most Americans remain unaware or uncaring about the blatant lie that the nation needed an immediate infusion of cash. So, there is no reason for Obama to abandon the rush-rush approach to other components of his policy agenda. Currently on Obama’s plate are the following nation-changing ideas: Cap and Trade, government-run Healthcare, and Immigration reform. By the looks of things, all three bad ideas will be railroaded through Congress as was the stimulus bill. But what’s the rush? Shouldn’t legislation that will alter American society more than any three bills in the history of the Republic be subjected to vigorous debate, full disclose, and careful analysis? Not if you are trying to hide something.
Just what are the origins of this practice of voting on massive spending bills and momentous energy legislation without first reading the final versions of the statutes? Such governmental negligence opens a wide door of opportunity for all sorts of chicanery. For instance, Betsy McCaughey discovered that the stimulus bill contains medical provisions that will change your life. You can learn more at Watch, Read and Be Very Afraid, but here’s a sample of what legislators didn’t bother to read:
“One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, ‘Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.’ According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and ‘learn to operate less like solo practitioners.’
Hospitals and doctors that are not ‘meaningful users’ of the new system will face penalties. ‘Meaningful user’ isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose ‘more stringent measures of meaningful use over time’ (511, 518, 540-541).”
The “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009,” a.k.a. the cap and trade bill, was just rushed through the House of Representatives without so much as a pretense of House members having read it. Sound familiar? Too bad the lemming-like legislators didn’t take the advice of Mike Carey, president of the Ohio Coal Association. In response to yesterday’s slapdash House vote, Mr. Carey wrote:
“This legislation will have a dramatic impact on Ohio’s economy by eliminating jobs in Eastern and Southern Ohio and increasing consumer costs throughout the state. Ohio’s overall economy is under siege — dramatically rising jobless rates and a gloomy overall financial picture for the state. Clearly, there is little doubt that any bill that will negatively impact job’s or our state’s economic competitiveness should have been seriously questioned.” [Emphasis added] As reported by PRNewswire.com.
There is much more in this bill that Americans are unaware of. During the next few days I’ll be reading the hundreds of pages comprising the legislation and reporting on the more onerous discoveries. In the meantime, call your Senators and tell them to vote “No” before it’s too late.
Posted by Jerry Pomeroy in Global Warming, Obama Presidency, Video