Not that Al Franken is so bad as a senator (or not just that), but it allowed the Democrats to arrogantly assume they didn’t even need to bother with the Republicans; they already had their critical sixty senate votes. What they didn’t count on was all of the coddling of Democrats it would take to get those sixty votes.

The result has been health care bills that are loaded down with special interest perks and bloated with many new levels of bureaucracy. Americans are not pleased. Any good these bills could do is not sufficient to offset the pain and damage they would cause.

While the Democrats appeared willing to approve almost any special perk which a Democrat requested, they refused to even throw a bone the Republicans’ way. The inclusion of tort reform may have been sufficient to attract a few Republican votes. Americans approve of it. Republican continually requested it. But the Democrats are too beholden to attorneys for their campaign financing to even consider it. In a recent New York Times article, David Leonhardt had this to say about it:

Don’t you think Mr. Obama would have gladly taken some heat from trial lawyers in exchange for passing health reform with bipartisan support and making himself look like a transformational leader?

I think since he did not, we can definitively answer, No.

Every amendment to the health care bills which Republicans proposed has been summarily rejected by the Democrats.  They apparently don’t need no stinkin’ ideas from the fillibuster-challenged minority.

Many have claimed that Republicans are just as stubborn and in lockstep in voting against the bills. While that may be true to some extent, they have been given no reason to vote for them. Republicans don’t support government takeover of the insurance industry and most of the country doesn’t either.

The majority party has the responsibility to concede somewhat to the demands of the minority in order to obtain some of their votes. The Republicans were almost as arrogant when they were in the majority, but they did not have the sixty votes necessary to allow them to completely ignore the Democrats.

The best thing to happen to the Democrats in 2010 may actually turn out to be Scott Brown’s victory.  It may have pulled them back from the precipice over which they were sprinting.  It has the potential to get some of them to realize that the minority in Congress and the views of the majority of Americans really do matter.

Having that key 60th vote was the worst thing that happened to the Democrats last year. Without it, they may have already been trying for a bipartisan approach to reform. With it, in less than a year, they have allowed Republicans to become palatable again. Palatable enough to earn shocking wins in Massachusetts, New Jersey and Virginia, all states which Obama won by large margins last year.

We hate him, but thank goodness for Al Franken.

From the same group (Congress) which last year brought the unintended consequences of starvation in various third world countries by pushing ethanol, we now already have unintended consequences showing up from the soon-to-be-law stimulus bill.

An AP writer and Congress were apparently surprised to find that restricting executive pay would result in less tax revenues.  The following is a quote from the just-released article:

The Congressional Budget Office issued a new estimate that put the cost at $838 billion, an increase from the $827 billion figure from last week. Ironically, the agency said provisions in the bill intended to limit bonuses to executives at firms receiving federal bailout money would result in lower tax revenues for the government. {italics mine}

 It is only ironic if the result is unexpected.  Limiting taxable income has a corresponding effect on tax revenues.  It is obvious to those of us who think.

Congress has a habit of not thinking things through before acting.  They thought it would be nice if everyone could afford to be in a house.  They forced banks to allow customers to include welfare income when attempting to qualify for loans.  That resulted in lots of poor people losing their homes last year.  It was also key in the overall collapse of the housing market.

Can anyone tell me again why our President and Democrats in Congress (along with three turncoats) are in such a rush to push this so-called stimulus package?  Can we not allow a few weeks of thinking about this to determine if there are other unintended consequences lurking in the bill?

First a hat tip to President Obama for most of the following wording.  His words blasting Wall Street Bankers for their recent bonuses express sentiments I wish he would send to both houses of Congress.

There will be time for Congress to enlarge government, and there will be time for them to add pork to spending bills.  Now’s not that time.  That is the height of irresponsibility.  It is shameful.  And part of what we’re going to need is for the folks in Congress, who are pretending to help, to show some restraint, and show some discipline, and show some sense of responsibility.

If only President Obama would show his commitment to bipartisanship by taking his party to task for their spending rampage.  It will be interesting to see if he will sign a stimulus package with no support from the opposition or whether he will be the grownup he claims to be.  It would be childish not to veto either the swollen pork spending package recently passed by the House or the bloated pork spending package being considered by the Senate.  It would take an adult to stand up to Harry and Nancy.