How GOP Plans To Kill Health Care Shows Lust For Power Leads To Hypocrisy

This story is rich!  And typical of the Republican Party.

If America votes for the Republican hucksters in 2010 then they deserve what they get.  Sometimes one  can no longer feel sorry for the voters when they knowingly stick their hands in boiling water.

The first news item that caught my attention this morning is enough to make the case for every article about the craven desires of the Republicans that we have read (or in some cases written) over the past two years.    Recall how self-righteous and outraged the GOP was over the way  the Democrats passed health care?  Now we are aware that what the GOP once opposed is the path that they will try to use to repeal health care.  As I stated, this story is rich! 

The fact is the GOP will use any tactic or argument to advance their dreadful agenda, even tactics they blasted only a year ago.  This has nothing to do with policy, but everything to do with power.

First, let state very clearly there is nothing wrong with the process called budget reconciliation.  I had urged and pleaded for Democrats to use the method to pass health care many months before the bill was finally passed.  But at the time I and others were making the argument for reconciliation one would have thought the idea to Republicans was akin to asking Nancy Reagan to wash dishes……by hand!  

Now…..NOW…….there seems to have been an epiphany within the plotter’s minds about how to kill health care.  They are going to use budget reconciliation!

Which leads me to where we all knew the GOP was the past two years.  Every action of theirs has been purely political for their own ends, not the nation’s best interests.

Take notice America, you are about to stick your hands in boiling water come November if you vote Republican and no one say you were not warned.

Recall back in 2009, when Democrats gingerly toyed with the idea of using the 51-vote budget reconciliation process to pass health care reform in the Senate on a majority-rules basis? Republicans howled. The GOP’s two top budget guys, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) in particular blasted Democrats. Gregg compared it to “running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River.”

With Republicans poised for big gains in November, though, the two of them have had a change of heart. Appearing on CNBC yesterday, the two were asked “Can you use reconciliation to chip away and gradually roll back some of the unpopular Obama policies?”

Sure!

“Yes, you can,” Ryan said. “Reconciliation is the fastest best path to get there. We do want to use reconciliation, you ultimately have to use reconciliation to get there.”

“Absolutely,” added Gregg. “Reconciliation passes the Senate with 51 votes and it can adjust entitlement programs so they’re affordable.”