2009/12/28
Obama to Congressman: “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) on Republican opponents of the health bill: “They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist.”
David Broder (Washington Post) on the need to hold his nose: “Incapable of summoning his colleagues to statesmanship, [Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid] made the deals look crass and parochial … encasing a historic achievement in a wrapping of payoff and patronage.”
Sen. Ben Nelson: “My vote is not for sale, period.”
Some of these quotes are really funny.
Buried in all the rhetoric about statesmanship taking a backseat to patronage is the fact that what is being touted as “health reform” violates the principles of fiscal discipline and freedom of choice. Moreover, the bill is not actually about reform. Rather, it is about Congressional leaders from left-leaning states intent on ramming through a bill that is both unaffordable and unsustainable in hopes it will ultimately lead to a government-run health care system.