"The Senate majority’s contempt for the American people rears its ugly head again."That's Michelle Malkin's response to the action of the Senate Finance Committee yesterday when it voted down an amendment asking that the Democrat health care legislation be available online 72 hours before the panel votes.
No way. Every Democrat on the Committee (except Blanche Lincoln from Arkansas) voted against the common sense measure. And, in so doing, the Democrats cast a vote against transparency, against honest disclosure, against bipartisanship, against freedom of information...and against the interests of the American people.
It truly is a travesty.
In a condescending counter move, the Democrats offered to make “conceptual language” available -- meaning, "We won't let the public see any of the real stuff in those hundreds of pages of intrusive and hugely expensive laws that we're going to pass over their heads but we will give them some vague and flowery pages of fluff. And you'd better believe that all the shocking and controversial bits will be carefully removed before we let the citizens see even that. After all, we're in charge here. They don't need to know anything more than we're the Democrats and, by golly, we'll take care of the country as we see fit. For crying out loud, what do these Republican critics think anyhow, that we have a democracy in this country?"
Also conspicuously missing from the fluff the Committee will make available to the public is the precise figures from the Congressional Budget Office revealing just how much this boondoggle Baucus bill is going to cost us.
Goodnight, America.
Here's Michelle Malkin's post and over here is the Washington Times news report. And one more I'd suggest, Ernest Istook's column ("Senate Cloaks Obamacare") over at Human Events.
