The Kentucky Senate race was getting quite boring. Leave it to eccentric, Looney Tune Jim Bunning to heat things up. One would like to think that the outgoing Senator who was shunned by the McConnell machine because he is a can or two short of a six pack decided to shake up this race but then you realize that well, Bunning is a can or two short of a six pack. However, his callous, uncaring and hypocritical "stand" earlier this week against the nation's unemployed has indeed ignited the Kentucky Senate race, which quite frankly was becoming a yawner.
Boy, the Senator for Communist China Mitch McConnell has some nerve. After spearheading the Republican "do-nothing good" Congress that rubber-stamped every failed policy of the worst President in American history he is seeking to lecture others on debt, taxes, healthcare and the economy. I mean these are the folks that brought us a trillion wasted dollars on failed wars and whose only solution to anything was to put it on the American credit card or borrow it from China. Now, McConnell seeks to bemoan the commission started by President Obama to reduce the Federal Deficit.
While the healthcare debate has devolved and sputtered, we still see the need for real reform almost daily. Whatever one might believe is the solution it is almost impossible for anyone to admit we have serious problem. While the real solution, single-payer has been off the table, healthcare costs continue to spriral through the kitchen ceiling. Reports today show just how bad the recession has made things.
I found an article today that sums the times up for Progressives quite nicely. It seems that the administration may be "weighing" a fee to recoup taxpayer dollars from the big banks. You know, those very same banks that took advantage of Bush Administration policies to crash the economy and recieve a huge taxpayer bailout after causing huge unemployment among the American people?? Those very banks that are back to business as usual raking in huge profits and paying fatcats excessive salaries. Why are we "weighing" anything??
The House of Representatives voted today to shift student loans to the government freeing up $80 million dollars for other investments. The Student Loan and Fiscal Responsibility Act now goes to the Senate where most believe it will be enacted and signed by President Obama. Proponents of the bill cited that it would assure that students could still get loans in a tough economy and that it would save money to be re-invested. Republicans touted that it was more big government that would take loans away from their buddies in the credit industry and that it would add to the deficit, ingnoring that it would actually save money.
Boy, to hear many Republicans tell it they have been the watchdogs of fiscal responsibility. They have recently begun squawking about deficits and spending. They try to say our country is spending too much and we cannot afford Universal Healthcare. Of course, they conviently leave out the facts about why our deficit is where it is right now.
(Thanks a million for the post - promoted by Hillbilly)
Thursday night I was channel surfing and came across the meeting of the Ways & Means Committee on C-Span 3. I was just going to watch long enough to see what subject it was when I heard them talking about the healthcare bill. I immediately sat down and started to watch more intently.
It didn't take long to realize that there were very different intentions at the meeting. The Democrats wanted to pass legislation that would work for the majority of Americans, even if it didn't quite work as well for the HMO, insurance companies.
Republicans hoped to amend the legislation so that insurance companies would make even more money and there would be less, or no healthcare reform.