This was the best Friday the 13th in memory. Someone once said that it’s all in the timing. When we planned a trip to Washington, D.C. months ago, there was no way to foretell that we would be sitting in the galleries of the House and Senate watching as H.R. 1 passed Congress.
Before the actual vote, most of the time was taken up by Republicans in both houses preaching against the bill in a last effort to defeat it.
Sen. Tom Coburn, R-OK laid it on about how the Stimulus Bill would give us socialism and a health system like Great Britain’s. Quite a stretch, even for Coburn. He also carried on about how treatment for seniors would be denied since it wouldn’t be worth the expense to give some treatments to old people. Another stretch. There is a component in the bill referring to “comparative effectiveness research” to determine what treatments actually work and what the costs are. Washington Post Prescription drug and medical device companies are against this because many of their products won’t stand up to the research. For example, drug companies may change a prescription drug (let’s use lowering blood pressure as an example) just enough to get a new patent once a drug goes generic. They then tout it’s effectiveness so the drug will be prescribed at the higher price. Are the generic drugs at 5-10% of the brand price just as effective? Yes, of course, but the drug companies won’t make as much profit. Does Sen. Coburn know this? He should as a medical doctor, but he prefers to take the Rush Limbaugh line.
We didn’t hear Mike Rogers say anything. We did, however, get to watch him swagger (yes, he does swagger) onto the House floor, to vote against the bill. Mike didn’t hang around for long. He left during the moment of silence called by the Representative from New York for the 50 people who lost their lives in a plane crash that morning. The other Representatives stood respectfully as did the visitors in the House gallery.
Then there was an unidentified congressman (these guys don’t wear name tags so if you haven’t seen them on the news or C-Span, it’s hard to identify them) who carried on about “Pelosi’s Mouse” with a cute poster of the mouse. Sometime during his harangue about the mouse and $20 million he caressed the photo around the mouse’s ear to show the mouse’s earmark. The congressman seemed as pleased about his little joke as a cat in cream. The fact that it’s all bogus, the mouse is not mentioned in H.R. 1 and funds are not “earmarked” for the little rodent didn’t bother the Republicans because they were having such fun. More of them joined in on the joke. Dan Lundgren, R-CA stood up and identified the mouse as the ‘salt marsh mouse’ and grinned happily as his cohorts complimented him on his knowledge of mice.
We watched the rant from Senator John McCain. McCain claimed that HR 1 was “generational theft”, a term made up by Michele Malkin, right-wing columnist. He never mentioned the great theft of taxpayers while the Iraq War has been waged. Or the theft from the middle class while we cut taxes for the rich. When parents don’t have jobs, their homes are foreclosed and the educational system collapses, the children suffer without a place to live, enough to eat and poor educational opportunities. Now that’s real generational theft. We can’t expect John McCain to know this, however, since he can’t even keep track of how many houses he lives in.
When the House vote results were announced and the conference bill had passed, the Democratic members applauded, joined by the Gallery. We weren’t able to see the final resolution in the Senate since the vote was kept open for Senator Sherrod Brown D-OH to fly in from his mother’s funeral to cast vote number 60. Too bad that Minnesota hasn’t settled its court case on the election. Al Franken would have been there and it wouldn’t have been necessary to fly in a grieving son.
Friday, February 13, 2009, a great day for the United States of America.
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