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| Home Front: Politix |
| Obamacare, We Hardly Knew Ye |
| 2011-11-17 |
| If the Supreme Court decision goes against the individual mandate, the progressive imagination will be haunted for decades by what historians will consider one of the great legislative and political blunders of all time. A rare perfect storm of political forces brought liberals the most power they have had since 1934 and 1964. If history records that this generationÂ’s progressive leaders threw that moment of power away by an easily correctable mistake in legislative draftmanship, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid will be forever remembered as the greatest legislative bunglers in American history. College students in generations yet unborn will rub their eyes in disbelief when they get to this part of the story. (Indeed, when we consider what future students will think about an era that includes the Lewinsky affair, the Y2K and bird flu panics, the WMD mistake in Iraq, and then, if the Court rules against it, the healthcare fiasco, it is easy to see why the Baby Boom is looking more and more like a generation of clowns.) I am less worried about the bitter mockery of future generations, however, than I am about what is in the rest of the bill. Even if the Court upholds it, it is clear that sheer arrogance and legislative incompetence led the architects of this massive reform to endanger their own handiwork by clumsy design. An inescapable question unavoidably follows. If the authors of this historic reform were that careless and clueless about the central pillar of their plan, what else did they get wrong? What other incompetencies and tomfooleries lie hidden in the depths of this bill? How many perverse and unintended consequences will emerge as the consequences of this law unfold? What clever lobbyists managed to get provisions embedded in the text that will make healthcare more expensive and less effective than it could and should have been? |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #4 Yeah, after all they didn't get the doctrine of eminent domain right. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2011-11-17 18:34 |
| #3 The thing is: courts preserve their own dubious Constitutional notion of "discretion" in judgment, by acceding to that exercised by others. Don't trust robed savages to do the right thing. |
| Posted by: Elmetle Splat4589 2011-11-17 18:02 |
| #2 It would be a lot shorter list to ask "What did they get right?" Take a look at their salaries/expense accounts. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2011-11-17 17:37 |
| #1 If the authors of this historic reform were that careless and clueless about the central pillar of their plan, what else did they get wrong? What other incompetencies and tomfooleries lie hidden in the depths of this bill? How many perverse and unintended consequences will emerge as the consequences of this law unfold? It would be a lot shorter list to ask "What did they get right?" |
| Posted by: gorb 2011-11-17 14:54 |