This afternoon, the Dmeocratic leadership offered a bill to essentially bribe doctors into supporting their health care legislation. The bribe would’ve added $247,000,000,000 to the debt. Unfortunately for Sen. Reid and the Democrats’ leadership, the bill was defeated by a 53-47 vote.

Lawmakers in both parties have expressed concerns about the size and scope of health care reform legislation. But leading Democratic leaders said their plan will drive down costs while reforming a system that’s broken.

That’s been the Democrats’ mantra for over 3 months. People don’t believe them, partially because of their credibility gap created by their predictions that the stimulus bill would create millions of new jobs. The lesson to be learned from this is that you’ll get nowhere if your credibility is shot.

“If you like what you have, you can keep it. We’ll protect Medicare and the middle class and pass a responsible bill” commented Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. “We are committed to passing health care. When asked about the government-run public insurance option, Reid said the idea is still in the running.

Republicans, and even some Democrats, have expressed concern about the public option, arguing that the government shouldn’t be in the business of running health insurance.

Nobody in their right mind believes Sen. Reid’s statement. They’ve seen studies, one from the Lewin Group and another from the Heritage Foundation, that gives them reason to not trust a crackpot like Sen. Reid.
Minnesotans need to know that Sens. AKlo and Franken voted with the extremists in the Senate Democrat caucus in support of this gimmick. They obviously didn’t think that voting to add another quarter of a trillion dollars to the deficit was a big thing. They obviously thought that Minnesotans wouldn’t mind having prosperity placed farther away from them because the deficit is sucking up all the credit.

Everyone knew that Sen. Franken was a liberal extremist. It isn’t a surprise that he voted like an idiot. What’s surprising to her supporters is that Sen. Klobuchar voted with extremists like Chuckie Schumer, Harry Reid, Patrick Leahy, Jay Rockefeller and Dick Durbin. Prior to this vote, AKlo had worked hard to maintain an image, albeit false, that she was a centrist.

Voting to play this trick on the American people is proof that she represents Hary Reid, Dick Durbin and Chuck Schumer more than she represents centrist Minnesotans. It’s also proof that she’s devoted to fiscal irresponsibility. Combine this vote with her voting for the stimulus, the $410,000,000,000 omnibus bill and the $1,000,000,000,000-a-year-deficit budget bill and there’s little proof that AKlo is anything but an out-of-control liberal.

Color me not the least bit surprised. To me, this is just proof of AKlo and Franken showing their true color, red, as in red ink.

Technorati: Al Franken, Amy Klobuchar, Harry Reid, Dick Durbin, Chuck Schumer, Gimmicks, Bribes, Deficits, Medicare, Democrats, Fiscal Irresponsibility