Obama and Reid on verge of midnight vote on health care bill that is long on payoffs but short on reform

Let’s recount some of the promises that President Obama and Democratic members of Congress have made:

• Obama will reach across party lines and work closely with Republicans on key legislature
• Health care amounts for 1/6 of the US economy and it is crucial to get it right
• The White House will be the most transparent administration in history and will change the way Washington works
• Obama promised that the health care reform would not happen with deals made behind closed doors, but instead the process would be public and televised on C-SPAN
• Obama stated that earmark reform was critical and that he would go line by line through every bill presented to him to insure they aren’t loaded with earmarks

Has ONE single thing that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress said about health care reform been true?  Have they followed through on one promise to the American people about changing how Washington works?

The negotiations have not only been 100% partisan, but have occurred behind closed doors — not televised on C-SPAN as Obama promised.

Not only has President Obama broken his promise and signed into law bills with many thousands  of earmarks, but this new health care bill has blatant payoffs to a handful of Senators that wouldn’t vote for cloture without getting something in return.

The President, along with members of Congress pledged transparency and stated that they would post bills on public websites so that American voters would have time to read and give feedback to their representatives BEFORE they voted on bills.

Doctor Zero of Hot Air summarizes the state of the bill:

Far from being a brilliant plan constructed by top doctors and financial experts in a government brain trust, this health-care bill is a twisted, deformed political document, seen in its entirety by only a few high-ranking politicians belonging to a single political party. Its components have not been precisely crafted as part of a fantastic system calibrated to ensure the maximum access to quality health care for all Americans.

The bill is not being examined with transparency and careful deliberation by representatives who behave as humble servants of the people and their Constitution. Instead, it’s being hastily rammed through in the dead of night, over the objection of powerful majorities of the American people, with desperate last-minute deals cut to acquire the necessary votes, financed by vast sums of taxpayer money. The primary consideration is not crafting the most sophisticated and intelligent health care reform… it’s getting a bill pushed through before angry voters have a chance to blast the Democrats out of Congress. Look at it this way: if the average middle-class American paid about $5000 in federal income tax last year, then you might be one of the 20,000 people who paid for Mary Landrieu’s vote, in the hope of giving Barack Obama a bill to sign as a Christmas present.

Now, in the dark of night, at 1:00 am Monday morning, Harry Reid will summon his 60 Democrats in to vote for cloture in order to end debate, before debate has ever begun.  The vote for cloture is essentially the ‘real’ vote for the health care bill, because they will have no problem getting 51 Democrats for the final vote on Obamacare.

Once again, they are counting on the stupidity of the American public.  They believe that Senators like Blanch Lincoln can get away with carefully worded false statements like, “I didn’t vote for the health care bill, I voted against it. My opponents are trying to confuse you.  The vote they refer to is simply a procedural vote that must take place before the real vote on a bill can take place…”

They are counting on the fact that most Americans are distracted by Christmas.  That many conservative talk show hosts who would normally be screaming about this bastardization of the legislative process are off on their Christmas holidays.

They are counting on the fact that voters in 2010 won’t punish their representatives for what they did in 2009.

In 10 1/2 months, we will see if Obama and friends are right.  Are American voters as stupid as President Obama and the Democrats in Congress think?

Let’s hope not.  Let’s hope that the American voters send Obama and company a message that we counted on our representatives to vote in our best interests, and since they didn’t we will pull a Donald Trump on them and say, “you’re fired!”