Democrats Buy Healthcare Vote; $100M is Mary Landrieu's Price for Cloture

So the Democrats will have their debate on healthcare deform. Among Democrats. If this were a strict party-line vote, then higher taxes, more expensive premiums and expansion of the fraud-riddled Medicaid program would already be the law of the land. 

But the leftist cabal that has taken over the U.S. government has to first convince the "centrist" Democrats to go along with the hijacking of healthcare. Centrist must be political speak for high-priced, certainly not high morals or high principles. Because the Democratic leadership was able to buy off Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu with a promise of $100 million for additional Medicaid assistance for her state. (Well, actually not specifically for Louisiana. The aid is available to"certain states recovering from a disaster." So what if Louisiana is the only one that fits that bill?)

In this, Sen. Landrieu was no different than Rep. Joseph Cao (R-La.), who took a tenth round dive over on the House side a couple of weeks ago, also for the promise of more pork for his district. At least you can say that Mr. Cao was consistent with the will of the voters in his district, more than 90% of whom are Democrats. The district was formerly represented by William "Cold Cash" Jefferson, now on his way to serving a dozen years in a federal slammer for various improprieties. No matter how Rep. Cao votes on healthcare, there's a good chance he's a once-and-done congressmen after 2010.

I'll leave the gratuitous jokes about Louisiana politics aside for a moment. But when you see the votes of Sens. Landrieu, Nelson and Lincoln, who make grandiloquent speeches about this bad bill, and then fall in to the conga line behind the Senate leadership, it makes you wonder about the lack of integrity in our legislative system.

People like Mary Landrieu, Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln--and even Joseph Cao--get elected to the House or Senate, and the spend their entire terms working on their re-election. They take stands on nothing, attempt to please everybody and spend their entire terms meeting with well heeled corporations and unions so they can stuff their silk re-election purses with a speed that would make the bride at an Italian wedding blush. 

Here's the problem in a nutshell: If only 27% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, then why do incumbents get reelected at a better than 90% clip? Answer me that.

The answer is that Congress governs so poorly because its members spend their entire careers perpetuating themselves as a permanent political class, and we let it happen. 

Believe me, I'm not a throw-the-bums-out populist. If we did that you'd have 535 congressmen walking around the Capitol with maps, and the entire government in the hands of 20-something aides and interns. 

But we've got to get better production and better quality out of Congress. If not, then we get trillion dollar deficits, unfunded mandates, special interest giveaways, legalized bribes and this ugly, misshapen bill known as healthcare reform. 

Just thought you might like to know.