Be Careful What You Wish For…

How else does one react when our incompenet lawmakers shoot themselves in the foot?

Everyone has heard the old adage that one should be careful what he or she wishes for because they just might get it. A little more than two weeks ago congress went to amazing lengths to pass it’s highly disputed health care bill into law. They used every trick in the book and even made up a few new ones. They struck backroom deals, offered bribes, coerced, and manipulated anyone within their ranks to vote in favor of the over 2,000 page-long bill. It seems that many of them have even sacrificed any hope they may have had of being re-elected in the upcoming November vote. The bill was to be passed come hell or high water. In retrospect however, maybe they should have at least read the bill first. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi while speaking at the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties said that congress had to “pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it, away from the fog of controversy.” Recently however, the Congressional Research Service has taken the time to study the monstrous over 2,000 page health care legislation and has indeed found out what’s in it.

It seems there’s a part of the bill which states that the law may remove congress members and congressional staff from their current health care coverage. Since the coverage offered by the law for all Americans will not go into effect until 2014, it is conceivable that congressmen and congressional staffers could be removed from the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program without any alternatives being available for another four years. This is arguably the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Congress passed the bill with draconian fervor and now they get to find out what’s in it. I guess Nancy’s going to have to postpone those Botox treatments for the next few years and I’m pretty certain that Robert Byrd is doomed. Congressional Democrats will no longer be able to give him a booster shot and dunk him in formaldehyde for a few hours before trotting him out to the Senate floor to cast his vote. They no longer have the insurance to cover those pre-existing conditions. The irony just kills me. They wanted this bill to pass so very badly that many of these so-called representatives have sabotaged their own political careers to make it happen, and now they themselves are in danger of being uninsured as a result of that very same bill. It’s almost enough to make one believe in karma.

What’s probably going to happen now is congress will try to add a fix to the bill to undo this little oversight in the legislation. I say we shouldn’t let them. If they even try there should be a filibuster the likes of which the U.S. Senate has never seen. Let them go uninsured for the next four years. They should consider it penance. As far as I’m concerned they made their bed and now they have to sleep in it. While they ran roughshod over the U.S. Constitution to pass this bill, they mocked and ignored their constituents who made it perfectly clear that they wanted no part in this boondoggle. Now that it has come to light that the largely unread bill could potentially leave members of Congress without health insurance, these parasites are not only getting what they deserve but they’re getting it as a direct result to their own corruption and incompetence.

The portion of the bill that could potentially remove congress members and their staff from their current medical coverage can be traced to Sen. Charles E. Grassley from Iowa. He stated that the measure in question was to ensure that “political leaders live under the laws they pass for everyone else.” This seems fair to me and the confusion that seems to surround the details of the health care legislation gives me an idea for future bills. If libertarian measures can be sneaked into these leviathan monstrosity bills passed by Congress, they can function as a sort of Trojan horse. After all, it isn’t as though our elected officials will ever read any of the legislation they pass anyway. Potentially, one could include a measure abolishing the Federal government completely by discreetly tucking it away in a 3,000 page economic “stimulus” bill. I personally could think of no better way to stimulate the economy. If congress wants to keep shooting themselves in the foot the least we can do is supply them with the ammunition. We can make their laziness, corruption, and incompetence work for for the people instead of against us. Now that’s change we can believe in.