Next week House leaders plan an up and down vote to kill the health reform act which is a Republican version of political buffoonery.
It is a case of the inmates running the asylum, a gimmick the last Democratic House proved to absurd limits. The last figure I saw reported by the Hill news outfit said 293 bills were stalled on Feb. 10 in the Senate. My guess is the final number is not far from that.
The HRC as the acronyms go will be defeated by the grownups in the Senate and if by some miracle it still passes it will be vetoed by President Obama.
Why must majority leaders in the House play this dog and pony show which only amounts to pandering to its base, many of whom are totally clueless if they follow their blind allegiance to the talking points of their propagandizing leaders led not so much by Speaker John Boehner but by the shadow government at Fox News?
I would be the first in line to contend HRC is flawed and needs fixing but this is like killing the patient because he has a broken toe.
Responsible legislators should amend the faulty provisions piecemeal.
The elephant in the package is the constitutionally challenged mandate that everyone buy insurance from a private carrier. That section of the 2,500-page document would not go into effect until 2014 which is ample time to final another solution in case the court rules against the mandates.
But no, our incapable leaders are unable to think that far ahead. They are thinking what is popular to get reelected when saving a life knows nor cares about any political ideology.
One would think as I do that the Republican House is on a mission to beat the Democrats from the last session the number of knee-jerk bills killed in the Senate. That’s a high bar but 300 is certainly attainable.
Jerry Remmers worked 26 years in the newspaper business. His last 23 years was with the Evening Tribune in San Diego where assignments included reporter, assistant city editor, county and politics editor.