The Socialist Steamroller Cometh

As Charles Krauthammer pointed out in his column on Friday, it is clearly Obama's goal to use the economic crisis we are currently experiencing to turn us into a socialist state along the EU model. It can be seen in every act the administration takes, including the drive to socialized medicine with the recently proposed Obamacare health care bill. That bill would, if passed, create a public health insurance plan to compete in the private marketplace. As Krauthammer points out, it is a move that makes the march to full scale socialized medicine inevitable.

Of course, you will not hear that from Obama and most of the left. According to them, this is merely a step to reduce health care costs ostensibly needed because of the economic crisis. But some are a bit more honest, such as this, recorded in the People's Weekly World (guess their politics) several days ago:

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and co-sponsor of HR-676 answered criticisms from single-payer advocates. She said the public option is not a compromise, but a strategic step toward the single-payer system and the elimination of the private insurance industry . . .

The public option is simply the opening salvo against the private sector, Schakowsky and other speakers said.

Both Schakowsky and McNary stressed the need for solidarity among health care reform activists, in order to build mass support and momentum toward the goal of a single-payer system.

(H/T Verum Serum)

Obama is determined to have the Obamacare bill passed, and he is not going to let anything such as the democratic process get in the way. Indeed, he is so determined that he has enlisted key Democrats in the Senate to agree go bring his massive health bill up as part of a "budget reconciliation" in order to severely limit debate and eliminate Republican's right to fillibuster. John Sununu explains how obscene an approach this is in today's Wall St. J.:

Late last week President Barack Obama and Democratic congressional leaders agreed to use "budget reconciliation" if necessary to jam a massive health-care bill through Congress.

Most Americans probably greeted this news with the glazed eyes and yawns that should rightfully accompany any discussion of "the federal budget process" longer than 30 seconds. But this decision is a deeply troublesome attempt to circumvent the normal and customary workings of American democracy.

It's a radical departure from congressional precedent, in which budget rules have been designed and used to reduce deficits, not expand the size of government. And it promises bitter divisiveness under an administration that has made repeated promises to reach across the partisan divide.

Reconciliation was established in 1974 as a procedure to make modest adjustments to mandatory spending such as farm programs, student loans and Medicare that were already well established in law. Over the past 35 years, it has been used only 22 times -- and three of those bills were vetoed. There are good reasons it has been used so rarely. . . .

The power of a reconciliation bill is this: Senate rules allow only 20 hours of debate and then passage with a simple majority of 51 votes. This represents a lightning strike in the normal deliberative time-frame of the Senate. The historic precedent of open debate, and the requirement of 60 votes to close debate, are completely short-circuited.

Read the entire article.

How about that bi-partisanship. It was crystal clear from Obama's voting record at the State and Federal level that he was a doctrinaire socialist who never reached across the aisle. There should be no surprise now that his actions are in keeping with his history - and in total contravention of his campaign claims.

We really are not going to recognize this country by 2012. Undoing the damage the far left is doing to our economy and defense may prove impossible. Indeed, we are still paying for Jimmy Carter's horrendous presidency over three decades on, and Obama is, if anything, Carter on steroids.