Obama--TwoToo Many Tall Tales

What in the world is going on here? I think anyone who has read my blog over the past year knows, that as much as any Republican can, I have tried to give Obama the benefit of the doubt—and even to defend him against what seemed to be rabid assaults from my party’s conservative right wing. But I have seen two things recently that make me ready to quit playing nice.
One—a week or two ago I saw Obama at a press conference vow that he would veto any health bill that was not “revenue neutral”. Whoa. Any decent health bill that does the job that needs to be done in this nation will be like going from a stripped down Chevy to a Cadillac.
You can’t do that without spending more money. A Caddy simply costs more than a Chevy. It costs more to license it, to buy tires for it, to service and repair it. Health care for an additional 40 to 50 million UNINSURED Americans is just plain GOING to cost more than insuring the number we are insuring now.
It’s like auto insurance. It costs more to insure four cars than it does to insure three. There’s no way you can expand your car insurance coverage and come out “revenue neutral”. Unless of course, you cut the coverage for everybody (Medicare, Medicaid) way, way back.
Medicare doesn’t do all that adequate a job now. George Bush admitted as much by creating a prescription drug plan three years ago. Anyone who has Medicare and can afford supplemental insurance, BUYS IT!
Then let’s talk about bringing decent coverage to many thousands or millions of Americans who are covered minimally by very inadequate private health insurance plans—with ludicrously high co-pays and ridiculously low maximums.
That’s increasing coverage on the existing three cars. (Try doing without casualty—accident—insurance on a car a bank holds a mortgage on! You’ll put casualty insurance on that vehicle very quickly!)
So we’re going to improve wretched coverage and increase the population covered by a third—and Obama says he won’t do it unless it’s revenue neutral. One is left with very little choice but to think the man is a fool or a liar. Or he thinks we are all fools.
Today I heard something fascinating about the Stimulus Money. The White House has finally released a list of places where good things happened and jobs were created. (The exit polls at the elections two weeks ago seem to have made an impression on Obama’s people.)
ABC network news read some tidbits off that list tonight. Included were such claims to beneficence as forty-two jobs created in Arizona’s 43rd Congressional District. Another item raved about several more jobs created in Arizona’s 99th District.
Oh, oops. Arizona only has EIGHT Congressional Districts. Connecticut was credited with a couple dozen more Districts than it has, as well. Charlie Gibson explained that the White House had responded with some petulance that these were minor clerical errors.
After all, it suggested to ABC, it is possible that many recipients of stimulus largesse had no idea in which Congressional District they actually lived. It might seem churlish of me, but shouldn’t somebody who is receiving Federal gift money take the time to figure out where he lives, in which district, before anybody signs off on a cheque?
Either there has been gross carelessness in the distribution of this money or there’s been considerable fraud or somebody’s lying about something. And somebody thinks that most of us are remarkably thick witted.
We have a President who touted himself as an agent of CHANGE who is following the policies of George Bush in war, and the laissez faire policies of the most conservative Republicans on Wall Street, and now he’s going to insure millions more Americans—while being “revenue neutral”.
Maybe “liar” wasn’t polite—how about “Nuts”.