“Grifter – A person who swindles by means of deception or fraud”
Pork barrel politics has a long and mixed history. Fighting for Federal dollars has long been a part of the process. But lately, it’s gotten completely out of hand. Senator Ben Nelson’s (D- Neb) decision to support one of the most flawed bills in our history in exchange for hundreds of millions in Medicaid support exclusively for the citizens of Nebraska, along with Senator Dodd’s $100 Million grift and Senator Mary Landrieu’s $100 Million price tag will in the end foist trillions of dollars in debt on every taxpayer in the country. These have to be the most expensive votes in the history of graft. Then there is $300 Million for California Medicaid payments, $10 Billion for the Unions in a reinsurance program, Vermont & Massachusetts’ payoffs for their underfunded state programs that haven’t worked out very well; a $7 Billion tax payoff for Blue Cross/Blue Shield and other “nonprofit” health insurers, the Big Pharma payoff, Bernie Sander’s (Socialist – VT) $10 Billion free clinic fund, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, as Yul Brynner said in The King and I.
Nelson sold his lifelong anti-abortion stance down the river, while Dodd makes no bones about a simple grab because the grabbing was good. He would have voted for the bill regardless. Landrieu simply exhibited pure hypocrisy after posturing for months about the cost of the bill.
The latest version of the bill was released only 3 days ago and is 2,000 pages. The Congressional Budget Office graded it as revenue neutral, and yet there are so many gimmicks and gimcrackeries no one knows the real cost. How can the CBO have fully analyzed the bill in 3 days? As their previous scores were, even with the accounting tricks, clear about the hit on the federal budget, it seems now someone has told them to toe the party line.
None of the common sense cost solutions are in this bill. No limits on outrageous malpractice awards. No increased competitiveness. No efficiencies of scale or service. On the one hand it’s a money grab, and on the other it’s a power grab. Plain and simple.
By sleight of hand and in the middle of the night we are losing even more of our freedom and government will expand even further. And we will have unprincipled grifters like Nelson, Landrieu, and the rest to thank for it.
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