What? Seriously? Did they get the memo in Washington that they’ll be out of a job next term unless they stop these criminal back-room deals and listen to the people? Frankly, I’m surprised anyone there appears to be taking heed to the clearly-expressed will of the people anymore after such a glut of non-representation.
Here’s the article from the New York Times expressing what’s suddenly not the priority in Washington. I could hardly believe my eyes when reading it. I mean, don’t you remember how urgent it was that this be pushed through before Christmas break? Urgent, urgent, urgent! No time to read the bills, we’ve got to make sure this passes the House and Senate! What happened to that urgency? Here’s an excerpt from the New York Times piece:
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, deflected questions about health care. “We’re not on health care now,” he said. “We’ve talked a lot about it in the past.” He added, “There is no rush,” and noted that Congress still had most of this year to work on the health bills passed in 2009 by the Senate and the House.Mr. Reid said that he and the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, were working to map out a way to complete a health care overhaul in coming months. “There are a number of options being discussed,” Mr. Reid said, emphasizing “procedural aspects” of the issue.
At the same time, two centrist Democratic senators who are up for re-election this year, Blanche L. Lincoln of Arkansas and Evan Bayh of Indiana, said that they would resist efforts to muscle through a health care bill using a parliamentary tactic called budget reconciliation, which seemed to be the simplest way to advance the measure.
The White House has said in recent days that it would support that approach.
Uh, really? I guess the silver lining to these guys playing this game for their own benefit is that the threat of being thrown out of office has a bit of clout with them. What good is it to be an unemployed career politician, sharing in the misery of so many unemployed fellow Americans, after all?
If you’ve called or sent letters to your representatives (as I have), I commend you. Great work! It appears these folks understand the feeling of the door hitting them in the rear as they’re ushered safely out of office, and are now willing to abandon the principles they supposedly upheld with health care reform to keep that from happening.
We the people!