We get what we deserve

In the end we get the government we deserve. Everyone just go back to watching LOST and Idol...it’s not important to actually vote on important stuff anymore...Oh you mean you haven’t noticed what is going on in Washington? I mean its March Madness AND St. Patrick’s Day…

Why would you care anyway? At this point you are either for or against the bill depending on whether you watch MSNBC or FOXNews without really being able to explain 3 highlights of the bill.

Says the Speaker of the House about NOT ACTUALLY HAVING A VOTE ON THE HEALTH CARE BILL: "I like it," the Speaker said, "because people don't have to vote on the Senate bill."

This is politics at its absolute worst.

Destroying a 230+ year old process (I think it’s called Democracy and balance of powers) and ending up with a bad solution to a 50 year old problem of employee based health insurance doesn't seem like the best idea...(recall that the government actually caused this problem...see the end of this post: Why we have Employer based Insurance)

You see, if they don’t have to vote - they won't be held accountable for anything in the November elections. This is pure politics. During the campaign they Democrats can respond to those on the left who didn’t think the bill went far enough with "Well, I didn't vote for it". And they can respond to those on the right who are still wondering what the heck is in those 2500 pages "Well, I didn't actually vote for it you see..."

They think we are stupid enough to let them get away with it. Personally, I'd like to see every incumbent leader of BOTH parties tossed out of office in November. They are not fit to be leaders. If they can't work in a process that has been proven to work over 230+ years, we should not bend the process to their ineptitude. Its the process that is important, not the supposed leaders.

This has nothing to do with fixing health insurance anymore. This is purely a black and white war between three groups:

Republicans and Democrats
The House and the Senate
The White House and Congress

And it's appalling...but more appalling is that there is so little outrage about it.

If we screw it up because this set of 434 Congress-people can't figure out how to pass a bi-partisan bill on a serious issue that needs attention, we will be left with irreparable damage to our Democracy.

But that doesn't sound sexy in a 30 second sound bite.

Though I was being too hard on people for not caring…I think we do care but the problem is we feel powerless to do anything so it’s best to just ignore it. I mean I certainly feel that way but I find it hard to ignore so I write tirades on this blog and hope I educate 1-2 people on what’s going on.

That’s the saddest part of all this for me – the powerless feeling. We are going to get a bad bill to fix a serious problem, we will have lost faith in our foundation of a Democratic process, and because no one really cares anymore and is fed up, we will probably be stuck with the same leadership come November.

"House may try to pass Senate health-care bill without voting on it"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/15/AR2010031503742.html?waporef=obinsite