Today I watched most of President Obama's bipartisan summit. I had an important doctor appointment at 1:45 and I was afraid I would miss too much. I put my feet up and leaned back; there was still an hour to go before I had to leave.
In the background, I could hear the melodious rhythm of the president's voice. There were rainbows, sugar plums and John McCain's voice. Oh no; I'd fallen asleep! I sprung from my chair and looked at the clock. It was 2:15 and I had missed my appointment. I called and rescheduled right away. Annoyed with myself for falling asleep, I decided I was going to force myself to watch the whole summit. I looked at it as sort of a penance. A word of advice, if ever you find yourself having trouble falling asleep, I suggest you keep a DVD of politicians talking around a table. It's the best sleep aid I have ever tried. I made a cup of coffee and hunkered down for a long afternoon. Surely there would be some fireworks, right? They did not disappoint. Well, Nancy Pelosi did.
After the president announced that only three people had spoken and they were already behind on time, Nancy Pelosi offered to share her time with Harry Reid and keep it short. Ms. Pelosi opened her mouth and waved her pinched fingers wildly in front of her as she spoke. I get the feeling someone taught her this maneuver in High School Public Speaking class. In my opinion, it is distracting and annoying. I think she believes this gives her the appearance of credibility. You already know what I think.
Nancy Pelosi's gestures did not irritate me nearly as much as her words. I could not believe my ears when she said, "The American people want this bill". Nancy Pelosi must not have looked at the polls in quite awhile. Last week, Rasmusson Polls reported that 58% of the American people oppose the house and senate bill. Perhaps she should pay attention to the Tea Party Movement whom she coined, "Astroturf." It was the threat of this terrible piece of legislation that actually stimulated middle America and prompted the organization of the Tea Party movement.
The Wall Street Journal called Nancy Pelosi's version of the bill, "The worst piece of legislation ever". With over two thousand pages of legalese, questionable language, fuzzy math and a whopping price tag, the house version of the bill became wildly unpopular. But you would never know it when listening to Nancy Pelosi. At the summit, she sounded out of touch when she spoke of the "backbone of our country," the middle class workers. Yes, middle class workers are the backbone of our country. Nancy might like to know that many of them are outside carrying signs, waving American flags and they do not want any part of her bill.
Nancy finished up her overly rehearsed speech and allowed Harry Reid to have his turn to speak. Senator Reid appeared to be angry during his opening statements. He commented on the Republican's concern over the possible "reconciliation" hanging over their heads. Senator Reid clenched his teeth when he spoke, "No one has talked about reconciliation, but that's what you folks have talked about ever since that came out, as if it's something that has never been done before."
Harry Reid sounded defensive and understandably so. Despite what he said, I had just seen him speaking of reconciliation several times during the past, two weeks. So he has been talking about it. Suddenly I had that feeling of deja vu. I knew I'd heard Reid say something like that before around Christmas. It was coming back to me. Yes, he was speaking of the back room bribes that went on before the voting of the senate bill. Whenever Harry Reid is accused of plotting something unsavory, he reminds us that the Republicans did the same thing. He does not get it. We didn't have YouTube several years ago. Our economy was not in shambles and unemployment was not so high. The American people woke up when their world started falling apart. We started paying attention and utilizing the technology we didn't have before. Most of us Americans, including the entire Tea Party movement are disgusted at the corruption in Washington. That includes Democrats and Republicans.
Harry Reid's tactics remind me of a sixth-grader pointing to his classmate, "Johnny hit me first!" It is juvenile teetering on vengeful. I wonder what his motives really are. Two wrongs don't make it right. We are learning more and more that when the Republicans had power, they did a lot of things most people would find unethical. That does not make it OK now. Many of us are paying close attention and rereading our history books.
Today, President Obama spoke for all Americans when he said, "The American people do not care about the process. They just want us to get the job done." On the contrary, I am one American who is very concerned about the process and I am not alone. Too much damage has been done. Most of us disapprove of the partisan bills and back-room bribes behind closed doors. Our eyes are open now. Americans are fed up and we are not going to tolerate this sleazy, Chicago-style politics.
I will give President Obama credit for being a decent moderator. At one point, the time keeper told him that so far Democrats spoke for fifty-six minutes and Republicans spoke for thirty-four. President Obama's answer to that was, "I am the President." No one could argue with that. There were a few times where the president's level of arrogance was distasteful.
At one point during Senator McCain's time to speak, Mr. Obama was going back and forth with him. He suddenly put his hand up to stop the exchange, "We're not campaigning anymore. The election is over. I won." I expected the President to crack a smile, but he was not joking. I found that odd and somewhat offensive. However, President Obama did seem to listen when the Republican officials spoke. He showed some interest and said he was willing to look at ideas again. There were two conflicting ideas hovering over the entire summit. The Republicans wanted to start working on the bill from scratch in a bipartisan manner. This was very clear. Just as evident, the Democrats had no intentions of even considering that notion. This was the bill and if Republicans wanted some ideas to be added to it, the President would think about it. There were no promises made.
The Republicans also brought up most of the concerns Americans had about the bill: the cuts to Medicare, the cost, the high taxes in a recession and the effectiveness of the bill to name a few. One of the most disturbing parts of the bill is the $500 billion in cuts to Medicare. At times, this was frustrating because the president always got the last word. He rebutted their findings, always with his cool, calm demeanor. He tried to clarify, this was not a "government takeover". He described the insurance "exchange" and how they worked again.
President Obama compared the insurance described in the bill to the same kind of health care congress received. It sounded great. If only it were true. Realistically, insurance in the exchange would be more comparable to Medicaid and Medicare.
Senator Chuck Schumer from New York addressed the issue of Medicare cuts. He explained that they wanted to keep the "good" and just get rid of the "bad" in Medicare. If it wasn't so disturbing, that answer would have been almost humorous. The Democrats consider the "bad" to be fraud and waste. Regrettably, the Democrats have never explained how they intend to do this. I would hope that they would already be cutting out fraud and waste if they new how.
The leaders on the left: Obama, Pelosi and Reid set the tone for the day and they were not budging. The original document was staying; additions would only be considered. Often when a Republican senator asked a question, President Obama would smoothly pass over it and move on. However, if he did not like a point being made, he would interrupt and make his point. However, these were the same points he made over and over again in his many speeches about health care reform. We had heard it all before.
It is a good thing I read a lot about the bill beforehand because there were times the Democrats were convincing. The cost of the bill is very misleading. All the elected officials from the right made good points, but it was one congressman from Wisconsin that brought some of the fuzzy calculations to light. Congressman Paul Ryan woke me from a near slumber when he was called upon.
Obama was literally speechless (if that is possible) when Ryan made these talking points:
* Medicare has a $38 Trillion Unfunded Liability - empty promises to our parents' generation, our generation, our kids' generation.
* According to the CBO analysis, the bill does not control insurance costs, does not reduce deficits
* Medicare has a $38 trillion Unfunded Liability - that means empty promises to our parents' generation, our generation, our kids' generation.
* According to the corrected, Congressional Budget Office analysis, the bill does not control insurance costs, does not reduce deficits
* The bill adds an entitlement when we do not have the money to pay what we need for Medicare and Medicaid
* The actual 10-year cost of this bill in 10 years is $2.3 trillion, not $847 billion as originally promised.
* The bill takes $52 billion in higher Social Security tax revenues and counts them as offsets. But that money is really reserved for Social Security. So either they are double-counting them or they don't intend on paying those Social Security benefits.
* The bill takes $72 billion and claims money from the CLASS Act. That is the long-term care insurance program. It takes the money from premiums that are designed for that benefit and instead counts them as offsets.
* Regarding the Medicare cuts, what this bill essentially does -- it treats Medicare like a piggy bank. It raids a half a trillion dollars out of Medicare, not to store up Medicare solvency, but to spend on this new government program.
Congressman Ryan referred to the bill as " a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud." I was impressed by Paul Ryan's nerve to speak his mind. He spoke of the Congressional Budget Office, whom he works very closely with. He reminded the attendees about Harry Reid's claim of the bill will reducing the deficit. He clarified how Harry Reid's calculations did not make sense.explained how Congressman Ryan pulled the lid off this bill. After commending the CBO for their good work, Congressman Ryan clarified that they were given a document full of gimmicks with smoke and mirrors. There were no mistakes in the calculation, but the CBO was given inaccurate numbers to work with.
At the end of the summit, President Obama brought up the pre-existing clause in the bill. Out of the clear blue, he told the Republicans how important the pre-existing clause was to the American people. The president spoke as if they had been opposed to the pre-existing clause. Now all day, I never heard a Republican official object to that clause. That was the one point everyone would agree on. I even googled it and there is nothing about the right being opposed to a pre-existing clause. Personally, it is my belief that the president wanted to plant that idea in the minds of Americans, to leave them with a negative impression.
A day after the Summit, all liberal reports state that the Republicans said "no' to everything.
One source on MSNBC said nothing was "good enough" for the Republicans. The bottom line is even if we were not in a deep recession, this would be a very expensive bill to make law.
As it is, America is in deep debt. We cannot afford to fund the programs we have already.
It is fiscally irresponsible for the left to add more debt to America's record-breaking deficit. Our country is in trouble and our president may have a Harvard degree, but he lacks common sense.
I was so impressed by Congressman Ryan's report. It answered every question I had about the cost and why it didn't add up. There was another senator who made a good impression.
I did not appreciate the way Obama spoke to him, but he kept pushing on behalf of America. After having the current administration ignore us in every way, one senator made a point to express the way many of us are feeling since this all started. He made a lot of good points, but John McCain let the president know we were not as simpleminded as he thought.
He interrupted Obama in the end and said, "Could I just say one thing, Mr. President? the American people care about what we do and how we do it. And I think it's a subject that we should discuss. And I thank you."
Yes, we do care, Mr. President. We do care about the process. We care about our country. And if you want to keep ignoring us, our voices will be heard later this year and again in 2012.
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