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Subject: Lieberman Twists the Knife
Date: Oct 28, 2009 8:33 AM
Yo. You should try living
here if you think it's bad from
the outside. Kissinger lives
here, too.
Connecticut is as ugly on the
inside as it is beautiful on
the outside. But don't even dare
to drive through it. Don't even
*dare* to take the risk of having an
accident and then have the State
take your property in another state
under our now famous conservatorships:
http://www.actionlyme.org/dictionary_of_connecticutisms.htm
Or, your kids, Or anything you
have that isn't guarded by dot guv
employee nepotism or BigMoney.
Or, some tick might bite your ass
and then it's GAME OVER, too, through
the same LIES-FOR-PROPERTY formulary.
Kathleen M. Dickson
http://www.actionlyme.org
=================
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/28
Published on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 by TruthDig.com
Lieberman Twists the Knife
by Robert Scheer
Is there a more hypocritical figure in American politics than Joe
Lieberman? The Connecticut senator declared Tuesday that he would
support a filibuster of any health care reform bill that has a public
option—even the version with the “trigger” compromise accepted by
Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe—because it might cost money.
“I think that a lot of people may think that the public option is
free,” said Lieberman, one of the Senate’s big spenders, in a suddenly
frugal mood. “It’s not. It’s going to cost the taxpayers and people
that have health insurance now, and if it doesn’t, it’s going to add
terribly to our national debt.”
This from a senator who, as much as anyone, helped run up the national
debt since 9/11 by pushing to raise the military budget to its highest
level since World War II. It is a budget inflated by enormous
expenditures on high-tech weaponry irrelevant to combating terror,
such as the $2-billion-a-piece submarines—produced in his home state
of Connecticut—that he claimed were needed to combat al-Qaida, a
landlocked enemy holed up in caves. The same week that he and others
in Congress passed a $680-billion defense bill larded with pork of the
sort he has always supported, Lieberman is worried about the impact of
a very limited public option on the debt.
Lieberman, whose state is also home to insurance companies that are
opposed to any consumer-friendly medical coverage alternative, boldly
stated that his opposition to even the most limited version of a
public option should not be surprising: “I think my colleagues know
for a long time that I’ve been opposed to a government-created,
government-run insurance company.” Perhaps during his filibuster to
prevent a vote on the public option Lieberman can square that position
with his longtime support of the massive government–run insurance
programs Medicare and Social Security.
Maybe he can also take that time to justify his strong support for the
government bailout of troubled banking and insurance companies that
has tripled the federal deficit this year to $1.4 trillion. Is AIG not
now a “government-run insurance company,” and doesn’t the $185 billion
of taxpayer money tossed at that sorry enterprise add up to more than
twice the yearly cost of the health reform package? And that’s without
considering the trillions of tax dollars put into play to shore up
Citigroup, Bank of America, GM, Chrysler and those other suddenly
socialized sectors of American corporate life.
If a scant public choice in health care is so threatening to our way
of life, because health care alone must be kept a pristine captive of
the most destructive impulses of an unbridled free market, then why
not privatize Medicare as well as the publicly financed health care
programs for government workers—including those in Congress like
Lieberman, veterans and the active military? And while we’re at it,
why not revive that Republican fantasy, popular in their ranks just a
few years ago, of privatizing Social Security by turning the most
effective government program over to the vagaries of the stock market?
I do continue to begrudgingly respect the consistency, if not the
wisdom, of libertarians like Ron Paul who oppose all of this big-
government intrusion into the economy. At least their belief in the
efficiency of the free market, affirmed in opposition to the banking
bailout, is not compromised by a willingness to throw trillions in
taxpayer dollars into backing the riskiest of corporate bets. But it
is not possible to feel anything but loathing for those like Lieberman
who vote for every big government program, no matter how wasteful, in
support of big business, but draw the line at a program designed to
cut medical costs for the ordinary citizens they have been sworn to
serve.
Lieberman’s threat to thwart a vote on sorely needed health care
legislation, complete with a public option that a majority of
Americans have consistently supported, should spell the end of his
connection with the Democratic caucus. It should also cost him the
committee chairmanship he was granted in order to guarantee the 60
votes needed to prevent a filibuster. But a filibuster, which would
expose Lieberman and the others as irresponsible wreckers of essential
reform, is not the worst outcome. The surrender by the Democratic
leadership to this blackmail by the party’s disgraced former vice
presidential candidate would be a blow from which the party would not
deserve to recover.
Copyright © 2009 Truthdig, L.L.C.
Robert Scheer is editor of Truthdig.com and a regular columnist for
The San Francisco Chronicle.
"[Real] scientists are *fiercely* independent. That's the good
news."-- NIH's Top Fool, Anthony Fauci |
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