Bipartisan Baloney

The IBD skewers any notion that the Baucus Grand Government Healthcare Takeover proposal is somehow bipartisan.

Bipartisan Baloney

Health Reform: As predicted, the Democrats are using the vote of one very liberal Republican as proof their health care takeover is "bipartisan." It's nothing of the sort. But then, we're getting used to such exaggerations.

To ensure passage even in a Congress where they have an overwhelming, veto-proof majority, the Democrats have used deceit and outright lies to make their case. Calling the Baucus health overhaul "bipartisan" simply because Republican-in-name-only Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine opted to vote for the bill is just one example.

Snowe in fact is more liberal than most of Blue Dog Democrats, some of whom have shown the wisdom to object to the nationalization of 17% of the U.S. economy.

Before Baucus, she voted for the bogus $787 billion "stimulus" package that's done nothing for our economy but promise to send our children into perpetual debtor status. So in one year, she voted to expand our deficit by a minimum $1.5 trillion in the next decade.

Bipartisan? Democrat Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut says he won't vote for the bill's passage, as it stands now. Nor will Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller. He objects to taxes on high-income health care recipients — who happen to include, believe it or not, many coal miners in his home state of West Virginia.

Doesn't that show opposition to the bill is more bipartisan?

And what about the 158 House Democrats who, like Rockefeller, won't vote for the Senate bill if it includes the 40% tax on so-called "Cadillac" health care plans — supposedly a tax on "the rich," but in reality one that will hammer the job-creating entrepreneurs in many Democratic districts.

As for Snowe and her fellow Maine Republican, Susan Collins, their possible embrace of the Baucus bill doesn't make it bipartisan either. Heck, they aren't even "moderate," as the media have described them. They're liberal. And that's not merely an opinion.

The American Conservative Union scores legislators on a number of key votes to gauge how conservative or liberal they are. Here's what the ACU had to say about its 2008 tally: "For the first time, two Republicans scored as absolutely liberal in voting."

The two? Snowe, with a score of 20%, and Collins, at 12% — more liberal even than then-Sen. Barack Obama, who scored 17%. Not surprisingly, Collins says she may also back the Baucus bill.

No, none of this is "bipartisan" in the least. But that's par for the course in this debate, where so many outright falsities masquerade as truths.

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