Reg Henry, one of the many sardonic, conceited liberals at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is not happy about Scott Brown’s victory:
And as we were recalling old times, the people of Massachusetts who recently thronged the streets for Ted Kennedy’s funeral were busy repudiating his life’s work by electing a Republican senator and making health-care reform well nigh impossible.
Henry goes on:
I returned to find a story in the Post-Gazette that said that Republicans think this is just the beginning of health-care reform and that their proposals will soon take flight.
Pull my other leg, it’s got a bell on it. If the Republican Party cared one whit for health-care reform, it would have done something about the growing crisis in the years when Bush had complete control of Congress. This “health care reform is just beginning” talk is merely a fig leaf of political cover. Clever as always, the Party of Family Values is vaguely aware that its vindication has come about by screwing countless families.
Do you see the gaping flaw in logic here? I have to wonder if Reggie does, and he’s just pretending that he doesn’t, being a dishonest liberal. But, I’ll just assume that he doesn’t see it, and perhaps he’ll read this and be informed.
First he tells us that Scott Brown’s victory has made “health-care reform well nigh impossible”. Why is that? Because the Democrats are left with 59 votes in the Senate, which is not enough to end a filibuster. In other words, in order to accomplish something that the other party opposes, Henry is telling us that you need a 60 vote majority in the United States Senate.
Now, class, who can tell me how many Republican Senators President George W. Bush had in office while he was president? If you answered “Fewer than 60″, you remember more about the last 8 years than Reg Henry does.
President Bush was in office from January 2001 until January 2009. Here is the breakdown of the US Senate during those years:
2001-2003: 50 Republican Senators
2003-2005: 51 Republican Senators
2005-2007: 55 Republican Senators
2007-2009: 49 Republican Senators
During the Bush years, the Republican-controlled Congress did indeed attempt some rational health care reforms, such as tort reform and making it possible to purchase interstate insurance coverage. Oddly enough, Reggie seems to have forgotten that all of those attempted reforms were blocked by the Democrats… just as the Democrats blocked Republican attempts to fix Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the Democrats blocked Republican attempts to pass pro-life legislation. Now Republicans are blamed for preventing health care reform, for destroying the economy, and for not doing enough for the pro-life cause. Isn’t that interesting?
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