True North

President Obama's Sunday speech on the House passing Pelosicare provided proof positive that he knows the bill is in trouble. In exhorting the Senate to take up action, he's essentially telling the Senate to ignore the will of the American people:

Mr. Obama's remarks came just 14 hours after the House narrowly approved a landmark plan that would cost $1.1 trillion over 10 years and extend insurance coverage to 36 million uninsured Americans; the president called it "a courageous vote." But the votes had barely been counted when the White House began turning its attention to an even bigger hurdle: getting legislation passed in the Senate.

In the Senate, where proposals differ substantially from the House-passed measure on issues like a government-run plan and how to pay for coverage, the bill is stalled while budget analysts assess its overall costs. The slim margin in the House, the bill passed with just two votes to spare, and 39 Democrats opposed it, suggests even greater challenges in the Senate, where the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, is struggling to hold on to all 58 Democrats and two independents in his caucus.

When a squishie like Lindsey Graham is quoted as saying that Pelosicare is DOA in the Senate, it's proof that the uphill climb just got steeper. Part of the reason it's in trouble before it starts is because, according to Redstate's Dan Perrin, the real spending number is closer to $3,000,000,000,000:

Senator Gregg stated, "The CBO estimate released last night finally sheds light on the smoke and mirrors game the majority has been playing with the cost of their health care reform proposal. Over the first 10 years, this legislation builds in gross new spending of $1.7 trillion, and most of the new spending doesn't even start until 2014. Once that spending is fully phased in, the House Democratic bill rings up at more than $3 trillion over ten years.

"Additionally, this bill cuts critical Medicare and Medicaid funding by $628 billion, accounts for nearly $1.2 trillion in tax and fee increases and will explode the scope of government by putting the nation's health care system in the hands of Washington bureaucrats. The $3 trillion price tag defies common sense; we simply cannot add all this new spending to the government rolls and claim to control the deficit.

"If we continue to pile more and more debt on the next generation, they will never be able to get out from under it. The health care system needs reform, but this massive expansion of government, financed by our children and grandchildren, is the wrong way to proceed."

the way that Democrats insult us in by saying that spending $3,000,000,000,000 over 10 years (once it's fully implemented), that passing massive unfunded mandates onto the states and rasiing taxes by $729,000,000,000 will reduce our health care costs. I'm betting that I'm not the only person that thinks that formula won't work in reducing health care costs. In fact, I'm betting that I'm just one person in a huge majority who thinks that Pelosicare will drive costs up, not down.

Only people guided solely by blind ideology could say that with a straight face. Honest people couldn't do that. There isn't a respectable economist who thinks that the legislation's mandated new costs won't add to the cost of health care.

This paragraph should be hung around President Obama's neck in 2012:

Mr. Obama has staked his domestic agenda on passing comprehensive health legislation, a goal that has eluded presidents for decades.

President Obama knew that the people's highest priority was solving the economic crisis he spoke about on a seemingly daily basis. He failed to address those concerns, not once but twice.

President Obama and the Democrats failed to end the recession when they pushed through a stimulus bill that had everything to do with ideology and nothing to do with economics. After passing the now-discredited stimulus bill, President Obama and the Democratic Congress turned their attention towards a health care bill that had everything to do with their ideology and nothing to do with fixing the problems that everyone had identified.

Not admitting that their stimulus plan failed to jumpstart the economy is predictable from a political standpoint. It's difficult admitting that your legislation didn't work. Ignoring the problem to seek the Democratic Party's Holy Grail accomplishment while main street suffered is indefensible.

What's worse is that the Democrats' health care legislation heeps cold water on the economy by piling excessive taxation on small businesses and middle class families. The reason why President Obama wants this passed ASAP is the same as always: he doesn't want people to read the bill and find out how destructive it is towards families and small businesses. He doesn't want people to know that it'll cripple the economy.

I pity the Democrats heading into the 2010 elections. They're walking into a buzzsaw. Last Tuesday was proof that the anger is pointed mostly at them and that that anger isn't just coming from conservatives but from independents and a few conservative Democrats. Tim Kaine, Speaker Pelosi and Chris van Hollen can yap all they want that last Tuesday's elections weren't a verdict on President Obama's and Speaker Pelosi's agenda all they want. They might even believe it, though I doubt it.

They know that they're facing a ton of defeats if this attitude persists through next November. That's especially true if this economy doesn't start creating jobs, something that experts are predicting won't happen until the middle of next year.

During Sunday morning's FNS Roundtable, Mara Liasson said that President Obama wouldn't follow Bill Clinton's path but would instead impress on people that he has a vision, much like Reagan did:

LIASSON: I actually think that the president's determined to be Reagan, not Clinton, and I think you're going to see them pivoting right after this health care bill passes to the economy, the economy, the economy. Next year you're not going to hear them talk about anything else but jobs and the economy. And I think their hope is to get, the first things that are going to happen to American people because of the health care bill are hopefully going to be the good things, not the bad things.

That's wishful thinking on the Democrats' part. In fact, that's understatement. When Reagan talked about staying the course, people listened because they were being led down a proven productive path. The path that President Obama is taking America down is a path that's never been taken. People can't point to another time when this path has worked because this hasn't been tried before.

Another thing working against President Obama is that nobody's certain that he's competent. Prior to signing the stimulus bill, President Obama promised that not passing Speaker Pelosi's bill would lead us off a cliff. The bill passed, unemployment jumped from 7.5 percent to 10.2 percent and going higher. His bailouts of the banks were supposed to free up credit, which it has to an extent. Still, the credit isn't flowing at anything like what was expected.

Nothing that President Obama has tried has worked. That's why he's stayed personally popular but his job approval ratings have dropped. He's given the American people nothing to have confidence in him about. His signature 'accomplishments' have been failures.

That's why he's so desperate to get health care legislation signed into law.

Comments welcome at LFR.

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