Sleaze and Massachusetts

No matter how you slice or dice it, the election of Scott Brown to fill Ted Kennedy’s vacant Senate seat marks a turning point in the political history of the United States. America is the big winner, and in many ways a big loser, in this landmark political event.

Why it happened is no big mystery. While Americans were grappling with the effects of the Great Recession, the political party and its leader elected in 2008 chose to promote an ideological agenda instead of a pragmatic economic agenda. Instead of dealing with an economy in shambles, Obama, Pelosi and Reid chose to go on an ideological spending spree (“we don’t need any more jobs for white construction workers”) and attempted to nationalize the health care industry. With a filibuster proof majority in both houses, it was time for fulfill the long time Democratic dream of nationalized health care. The rest of the country could wait.

The country would have survived, but what it couldn’t tolerate was the sleaze factor which grew geometrically over the past 4 months as the Democrats cut deal after deal with one special interest group after another, mostly those who were party supporters, at the expense of seniors and small business owners and their employees. We looked the other way with the payoff to Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. We bitched but tolerated the unprecedented bribe to Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, pushing Nebraska’s Medicaid costs off on to the rest of the nation. We moaned when Florida was granted exemptions to allow it to maintain its Medicare Advantage program while eliminating it everywhere else.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was the bribe to the unions, giving a tax exemption to union Cadillac health plans, while small business and the rest of us would have to pick up the slack. Let’s face it. The bulk of those exemptions were to go to government employees who were already making substantially more than the rest of us on the taxpayer dime, and the UAW who magnanimously gave up raises for 2 years, and the job bank, as part of an engineered bailout of the US auto industry. How many times do the rest of us have to pay for these people? At a cost of $60 billion, the sleaze even smelled in Boston.

If you look at the polls, the tide began to turn towards Scott Brown in December with the Louisiana and Nebraska deals…and completely turned with the union exemption deal. Sleaze is like pornography. You can’t define it, but you know it when you see it.

America is the loser specifically because health care needs to be reformed. Democratic uber liberal Congressman Anthony Weiner said it best when he commented that Congress needs to listen to the people, and devise a simpler plan that is easily understandable, and fair to everyone, not just Democratic special interest groups. Democrats AND Republicans should heed his words and look at health care reform anew.

America also loses because we elected Barack Obama who promised a centrist platform, a post partisan administration, transparency and accountability. Instead, he ran to his ultra liberal base, shut out all Republicans, closed the door to the press, and made some of the sleaziest deals I have seen in all my years of following politics. He should be ashamed of himself.

So normally Democratic Massachusetts, the bluest of blue states, once again strikes a chord for freedom from tyrannical government as it did in 1776. In the best of worlds, Obama would learn from his mistakes and move to the center. He would re-open the health care debate, this time being honest about costs and solutions instead of trying to fool both the people and special interests. In his drive for his vision of health care reform, he has managed to screw everyone but his basic core constituent groups. But don’t bet the rent. Ideologues rarely know when to fold them. America should not blink in this cold hearted game of ideological poker. Now we know what they are capable of.