The Health Care Reform Bill passed a key procedural vote in the Senate, shutting down the possibility of a filibuster, when Democratic leaders promised a moderate Democratic holdout $300 million for her state in return for her vote. Here is how the Washington Post describes this and other shenanigans:
Staffers on Capitol Hill were calling it the Louisiana Purchase.
On the eve of Saturday's showdown in the Senate over health-care reform, Democratic leaders still hadn't secured the support of Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), one of the 60 votes needed to keep the legislation alive. The wavering lawmaker was offered a sweetener: at least $100 million in extra federal money for her home state.
And so it came to pass that Landrieu walked onto the Senate floor midafternoon Saturday to announce her aye vote — and to trumpet the financial "fix" she had arranged for Louisiana. "I am not going to be defensive," she declared. "And it's not a $100 million fix. It's a $300 million fix."
It was an awkward moment (not least because her figure is 20 times the original Louisiana Purchase price). But it was fairly representative of a Senate debate that seems to be scripted in the Southern Gothic style. The plot was gripping — the bill survived Saturday's procedural test without a single vote to spare — and it brought out the rank partisanship, the self-absorption and all the other pathologies of modern politics.
I am aware that “horse trading” is how things get done in the Senate, but Sen. Landrieu is so brazen about it–bragging about the money she got on the Senate floor–that this strike me as particularly shameful. I wonder if that $300 million will be calculated into the costs of this bill. At any rate, if we get a new health care system, whether for good or for bad, we can look back years later and thank Sen. Landrieu and the Democratic leadership for this Louisiana purchase.
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Reminds me of the punch line from the old joke – “My dear woman, we’ve already established what you ARE – now we’re just haggling over the price.”
$300 million for your vote ma’am? No, I’m sorry, but that was for your soul. ….and your Senate seat. …but at least you know how to drive a bargain.
“…a moderate Democratic holdout…”
Mary Landrieu might be considered a “moderate” Democrat only if her pro-genocide-murder-by-abortion position approved the slaughtering of unborn children only every other day.
If we had men of honor in office, such bribery might not be tolerated as much as it is today.
Hey, they ALL accept bribes – liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans. We just rename bribery “campaign contributions” and “lobbying” to soothe everyone’s conscience.
I guess it’s not worth noting the mega-millions of dollars the insurance lobby spends on buying congress people and senators to keep them from supporting health care reform. We pay for that in higher health care premiums.
Meanwhile, here’s how the lone GOP congressman who voted for the health care bill made up his mind to do so.
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/new.php?n=17751
Washington D.C., Nov 19, 2009 / 03:04 am (CNA).- A U.S. Congressman from Louisiana who is a former Jesuit seminarian said his background in Ignatian spirituality has helped him discern right decisions in his work. His attendance at Mass before a major vote on health care reform particularly affected him, he reported.
The Vietnamese-born Anh “Joseph” Cao told National Jesuit News that he uses Ignatian methods like the examination of conscience and the practices of the 30 day silent retreat.
“I do that very often. Using the whole process of discernment to see where the Spirit is moving me has been extremely important, especially in my recent decision to support the health care reform plan,” Rep. Cao said.
He explained that the Jesuit emphasis on social justice and advocacy for the poor, the widow, and those who cannot help themselves plays a significant part in his decisions, but ultimately he bases his choices on his conscience and how the Holy Spirit is moving him.
“The issues that we contend with in Congress affect every single person here in the United States, so I want to make sure that my decisions are based on good principles and good morals,” Rep. Cao said.
Cao, the only Republican Congressman to vote for the House’s proposed health care reform bill, told National Jesuit News that he went to Mass and prayed before the vote. The readings were from Isaiah and the priest gave a homily about not being afraid.
“I really felt a personal touch during this homily, that this homily was meant for me,” he reported.
Rep. Cao said he knew if he voted yes he would be “the most hated Republican in the country” but the Mass gave him the strength to support the bill.
Sam–and if government types didn’t constantly try to infringe on free markets, we’d have insurance companies free to actually provide insurance, and yet lower premiums when people could purchase insurance with only the coverages they needed.
Put differently, campaign contributions and lobbying may not be the most seemly thing, but they are pretty much just self-defense.
Its not that this doesn’t go on, thats a different topic – its that it is so brazen and the reaction so far by others in the mainstream so weak.
Didn’t we elect someone as President who promised to “end business as usual in Washington”?
Louisiana seems to be uniquely prone to this kind of direct political bribery and corruption, going back to the days of Huey Long. As Sam pointed out, Joseph Cao was afraid to vote no on the House version of bill, because he is representing a D+28 district and there were a lot of goodies directed to his district. A former Congressman from Louisiana just got a 13 year prison sentence for storing $90,000 in bribes in his freezer. Of course, Sam’s apparent point that this is OK because everyone is doing it is abominable in its own right.
Fortunately, this action on Saturday night (notice how the Democrats are jamming these monstrosities through in Saturday night sessions?) is not the end of the Republicans’ ability to filibuster. They will have another opportunity when Reid and his liberal cronies move for cloture to end debate on the bill. Then, since this bill is so different from the House bill, there will be a Conference Committee to reconcile the two bills, and Senators can filibuster the conference report. So, there is still a long way to go here.
DonS – please stop misrepresenting my words. Thanks.
Richard–yes, we did elect someone who promised to end “business as usual in Washington.” Unfortunately, he seems to be replacing it with “business as usual in Chicago.”
(which would be why you’re seeing Census Bureau vehicles in your town’s cemetery….)
Well, the Census Bureau better get their vehicles out of there before election day when all of the buses come to the cemeteries to pick up Democratic voters.
Only Democrats will be resurrected?
Sam @ 11: I did not mean to misREPRESENT your words. Perhaps I misINTERPRETED them, however. In my defense, I attempted to account for possible interpretation errors by using the phrase “Sam’s APPARENT point …”
If you were not intending to say that what Reid and Landrieu did was OK, then I apologize.
DonS: Apology accepted. Thanks.
I’m surprised there’s been no comment on GOP Rep. Cao’s decision to vote for the health care bill. He put his decision to vote yes (after the abortion-restriction amendment had been passed) in explicit Christian terms.
I agree with him, but I’m nonetheless surprised no one here has called him out for not putting ‘free enterprise’ or ‘tax relief’ ahead on his concern for social justice in his district. One reason I’m a Roman Catholic is the emphasis the church places on social justice, working out one’s faith for the benefit of others.
When I was a Lutheran (WELS), I never heard the phrase. Don’t read that as an indictment of all Lutherans; I know that some care quite deeply for the poor and sick and show it. But the Catholic church expects it from all communicants.
Sam,
You’re welcome. I think serious, respectful debate is the best kind, and is particularly appropriate on a thoughtful website such as this one. Sometimes we get caught up in the moment and get a little careless and personal with our language. I know I do, and I always regret it later. First of all, it does not honor our brothers and sisters to do so, and secondly, it is an ineffective approach to argumentation. Once you get personal, the point of the underlying debate is lost.
As for your point about Joseph Cao. I am neither Lutheran nor Catholic, but I think we all agree that Christ called us to minister to the poor. Paul echoed that call, and particularly directed our attention to the widows and orphans. But, that call is personal, to us as individuals and to the Church as a whole. This is why, in the early church, deacons were established to handle this function on behalf of the church. Never were Christians called to fulfill their obligations to the poor and needy through secular government. Joseph Cao interpreted his faith as requiring him to vote to forcibly take money, through taxation, from some people, and give it to others. That requires no great act of sacrifice on his part. Nor does it in any way fulfill his obligation, as a believer, to PERSONALLY minister to the poor and sick.
Sam, my take on Cao’s move is that he voted based on feelings, not facts. Less than impressed by this justification, especially (as Don notes) he’s voting to help himself to everyone else’s pocketbook, at gunpoint if necessary, to achieve his ends.
I call that “theft,” not “godliness.”
I wonder if there is any awareness at all by people like Landrieu of how distressing and discouraging this sort of thing is to so many Americans. It just makes a farce of our whole system, what some are fond of calling the “rule of law”. It takes away hope, ambition, and a sense of order. It helps to make us into a third-rate nation.
Earlier this year Landrieu took the following oath:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
Now, assuming an average inflation rate of 0.7% over the last 2,000 years, Landrieu has betrayed her oath and her country for 30 pieces of silver.
I have no problem with Cao wanting to help the poor, I do too. But anyone who thinks this bill is going to “fix” health care in the US needs a remedial economics class.
This is how the U.S. federal government works.
The problem is not Mary Landrieu, Louisiana, or the Democrat Party. The problem is systematic and ubiquitous. If the federal government acted according to the Constitution – meaning exercising its limited enumerated powers and nothing else – it would not have the kind of raw power and money that it has now. In other words, the federal government should be so impotent and of minor importance in our lives that there would be nothing to bribe our representatives with.
But instead, the feds tax us through the teeth and take our money in percentages that the founders would never believe. The feds then run roughshod over the states. The people of the states then expect their congressmen and senators to “get the state’s fair share” back from Washington. The party machinery of both parties dole out money and favors in exchange for votes and support on this and that. The states must dance to Washington’s tune in order to get a cut of the “federal” money.
That’s how the system works. It’s basically run like the Mafia.
The morbidly massive and debt-poisoned federal government is a losing proposition unless it returns to its constitutional box – and soon. The federal government is too top-heavy, has too much power, collects too much money (while devaluing that same money through the Federal Reserve it created and tolerates), and passes every manner of laws reducing the states to puppet governments.
Landrieu is not doing anything nearly every other senator of either party does on a regular basis. And until the people reject the party bosses, the imperial federal government, impotent states, and the fantasy that there is a free lunch – this will simply continue.
The outcry against the Federal Reserve and the current interest in the Tenth Amendment are good signs. But given the economic tsunami that’s headed our way with the massive debt, the collapsing dollar, and the bubble of retirements of entitlement-demanding baby boomers (and now add in Obama-care and an Afghanistan escalation!), one can only wonder if it’s “too little too late” to restore the republic.