Every good writer loves quoting or paraphrasing Winston Churchill, and I love it more than most. So I concluded a recent article on the health care bill's cesspool of corruption by saying that "Democrats in Congress had to choose between legislative defeat and dishonor. They chose dishonor. They will get defeat."
That is still the big story leading into the Massachusetts special election on Tuesday.
First, the dishonor. The Obama administration's latest brainwave—its version of a populist appeal—is to impose a special "crisis tax" on the nation's largest banks, with the supposed goal of recouping government bailout money from the Wall Street fat cats. Except that this tax would also be imposed on banks that have already paid back the bailout funds, and which often did not want those funds to begin with.
So whose bailout money is really being recouped from the banks? Answer: the bailout money taken by firms that have not and will not pay it back. That includes the government-sponsored entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, as well as GM and Chrysler, which have been universally written off as black holes from which federal bailout money will never return. These companies will not be required to pay the tax.
So Obama's plan is to tax healthy banks in order to make them pay back the money the government lost on failed firms.
As Larry Kudlow asks:
Who's being rewarded? Obama's bank-tax penalty is being used to finance the failed government takeovers of GM, GMAC, and Fannie and Freddie. And let's not forget the $75 billion failure of the so-called foreclosure loan-modification program. To this day, no one knows where that money went. But the big banks are going to be forced to finance this through a tax that will damage lending, stockholders, and consumers.
This is sheer political favoritism. Crony capitalism at its worst, with a sub-theme of bailing out Obama's Big Labor political allies. It's just like his bailout of the unions by exempting them from the so-called Cadillac insurance tax until 2018, all while the rest of us may have to suffer under that tax.
That brings us to the latest on the health care bill. The unions had objected that an excise tax on generous health insurance plans would hit some of their workers. So the Obama administration agreed to eliminate the tax—for the unions. According to reports on the compromise, "In a significant victory for unions, the 40 percent excise tax would not apply to policies covering workers in collective bargaining agreements, state and local workers and members of voluntary employee benefit associations through Dec. 31, 2017."
This is the key to the economic system President Obama wants to create: a system in which economic benefits go only to those with the right political connections—which is always the real meaning and end result of a socialist economy, anyway.
In less than a year in power, the Democrats have exposed themselves to the public as the party of massive, open, brazen corruption. In return, I suspect that they are about to be dealt a string of devastating political defeats.
The latest poll on the special election in Massachusetts shows Republican Senate candidate Scott Brown ahead by 50-46. This is significant, not just because of Brown's numbers, but because it is the first poll showing Democrat Martha Coakley below 50%. For the incumbent, or in this case the presumptive leader in the race, to slip below 50% is usually an indication that voters are inclined to take a chance on the challenger.
A few weeks ago, nearly everyone—myself included—described Scott Brown's candidacy as a shot in the dark, with nearly impossible odds of succeeding. He is quickly becoming the favorite.
Brown has been helped by a series of unforced errors by the Coakley campaign, including an ad denouncing Wall Street greed—which includes an image of that hated Wall Street icon, the World Trade Center.
By now, even a left-leaning Boston Globe columnist is describing the race as a "spinout" and blaming Coakley for taking Massachusetts voters for granted.
If Brown wins, Democrats have discussed various parliamentary maneuvers to push the health care bill through before he can be seated, or even to prevent him from being seated for weeks after the election. Some of the horse-race guys over at RealClearPolitics recently posted a note on Senate election procedures that seemed to give credence to the idea that such a delay might be legally required. Now they're back with a historical review showing that the winners of previous Senate special elections have been seated in as little as two days. So there goes that excuse.
I don't think any such maneuver will save the health care bill. Even far-left Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank is admitting that "If Scott Brown wins, it'll kill the health bill."
By the way, some time ago I mistakenly referred to Rep. Frank as a senator. The reason for the slip of the pen is that Barney Frank has all the pompous self-regard you would expect from a senator. But I should be able to remember the difference, because he has none of the gravitas of a senator. Instead, he projects the shrill, cynical shrewdness of a ward heeler. And that means that he is a man who knows how to count votes, so I take his verdict in this case seriously.
A Brown victory would have a shattering effect on congressional Democrats. In fact, it can be argued that this effect is already being felt. Another Democratic congressman from a right-leaning district has just announced his retirement, and a new poll shows California Senator Barbara Boxer below 50%. She still beats her potential Republican challengers, but as I mentioned above, 50% approval is generally considered a sign of enormous weakness on the part of an incumbent. And if a Republican has a shot at winning a Senate seat in Massachusetts, maybe one will have a chance at winning in California, too.
And just to make matters worse for the administration, Barack Obama has pledged to go up to Massachusetts and campaign for Coakley. This is a man whose personal intervention couldn't save Governor Corzine in New Jersey, couldn't get the 2016 Olympics for Chicago, couldn't rally the public behind Obamacare, and couldn't negotiate a breakthrough deal in Copenhagen. One more defeat, and Obama will be assigned to the ash heap of political irrelevance.
As if through some weird death instinct—perhaps they have just seen Avatar too many times—everything the Democrats have done in the past year has seemingly been calibrated to cause them the maximum political damage. If they lose the battle over the health care bill, they will lose it in the most unscrupulous, corrupt, and dishonest way possible, causing voters to want to keep them out of power forever. And they will lose after putting on the line the final remaining political credibility of their most charismatic national leader.
I believe in the operation of moral law in the real world—that the irrational and dishonest always reap the whirlwind sooner or later. For the Democrats, it looks like it's coming sooner.—RWT
Robert Tracinski writes daily commentary at TIADaily.com. He is the editor of The Intellectual Activist (TIA) and contributor to The Freedom Fighter's Journal
0 comments:
Post a Comment