Admittedly, the Right’s attention span has always been short, and their capacity to revise history to make themselves look glowing (see Ronald Reagan) has always been remarkable, but President Obama has been in office for 18 months and not only are conservatives trying to pretend that he’s not still busy cleaning up the messes of the past 8 years (“hurr when will you stop blaming the last guy for what’s happening now, hrurr”) but also conveniently shaping today’s issues in short-term language (instead of properly pointing at the near 30-year history of American conservatism as responsible for the deregulation of our financial industries, energy industries, and transportation industries to the point where they’re only accountable to their shareholders and the desires of their executives to line their pockets – at the expense of the American people.)

Bumper stickers like “How’s that change working out for you” and “Miss him yet?” have been appearing on the cars of the angry, who want you and I to believe that the world may as well have ended 18 months ago and now we’re all picking through the smoldering ashes of our civilization. To those questions, I have two very simple answers:

* That change is working out great for me, thanks for asking!
* No, I don’t miss him at all – in fact, I’m happily on my way to forgetting he ever existed.

Starting at the very bottom, I’m particularly glad that I have a President who, while he isn’t perfect, is leaps and bounds more perfect than the last guy, and a President who I don’t have to worry will lock me up and waterboard me if I disagree with him and don’t march in lock step behind. Now I have a President who, as a matter of policy, doesn’t strip American citizens of their rights and due process just so they can be thrown in a dark cell until the powers that be can think of what do to with them. Again – our current Administration isn’t perfect on this point, but at least they’re willing to listen to suggestions and open to changing course – the last Administration would have simply called you “un-American,” “un-patriotic,” and thrown you in a cell just for speaking your mind.

The last Administration listened in on the phone calls of American citizens without a warrant, and the last Administration locked up American citizens for no reason. The last Administration was responsible for the Patriot Act, which while it hasn’t been repealed, has been used with significantly more caution and judgment than it had been in the past. The last Administration was obsessed with the State Secrets Act and shutting down human rights lawsuits just by invoking it.

So no, I don’t “miss him yet” at all, and that “change” has been a huge breath of fresh air.

Let’s move on to some more tangible examples though:

Would Mad King George have appointed two women to the Supreme Court? Likely not.

Would McCain have signed the Lucy Ledbetter Act, mandating equal pay for equal work? Never.

Would Bush Jr. have committed to drawing down troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, even if those plans are slow to take shape? Never – they would have said even talking about leaving would have emboldened our “enemy.”

Would the Little Bush or McCain ever strive to provide health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans, pass a Patient’s Bill of Rights, put Medicare on sound financial footing, and cut near a trillion dollars from the budget defecit over the next 10 years by reforming the way Americans get and spend on health care? It would have been a laughable proposition.

Would McCain or Palin have signed an executive order mandating that “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” be repealed? Wouldn’t have even crossed their minds.

Would Bush Jr. ever thought to close Guantanamo, much less actually try? Never.

Would a Republican president ever have sought to re-vitalize the Civil Rights wing of the Department of Justice, ousting political appointments that sought only to minimize the amount of work the agency did by throwing out legitimate cases and complaints and marginalizing career lawyers who have fought for equal rights their entire lives? Nope.

Would McCain or Palin have fought to restore science and scientific analysis to its rightful place in American discourse, especially on such important topics as climate change, space science, and medicine? Never.

Would McCain or Bush Jr. be on nearly as solid terms with our allies as Obama is, and managed to completely turn around our antagonistic relationship with Russia the way he has? Never – we would have seen more bluster and saber rattling, and likely be in the middle of another war with another faceless enemy designed to make us afraid by now had we voted differently.

Would McCain ever have gleefully signed ethics reform into law that would ensure there were strong rules to make sure the the field day that Republicans had during their majority time in office prior to 2008 (remember the cascade of ethics and sex scandals coming out of Congress back then? Oh how soon the right wing forgets…) never happen again? Not a chance.

Would Bush Jr. ever have given woefully needed money to the American auto industry – even if it was unpopular – and then been able to stand behind them as, as happened last week, they all post revenue gains and profits as opposed to the record losses and debts they had over a year ago?

The economic downturn was in full swing when President Obama was elected, as were both wars and all of their issues – so blaming President Obama is only ad accurate as you can blame someone for not cleaning up someone else’s mess fast enough. Someone recently pointed to a story about the vast majority (something like 96%) of money slated for reconstruction in Iraq being unaccounted for, and snarkily commented about whether or not this was something that people would just blame President Bush for – to which I responded that yes, it is – it’s only the right that seeks to unload accountability for their own actions and leadership decisions onto the people that follow them. President Obama has accountability to cleaning up that mess, but he has no accountability for having made the mess in the first place.

To that end though, would Bush Jr. or McCain ever have pushed through legislation designed to stimulate the economy, fund thousands of new infrastructure projects, put hundreds of thousands of Americans back to work, and, with time, eventually turn the job decline into a slow but steady job incline? Not at all – there would have been some tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans (like the Bush tax cuts being debated now in Congress – you remember, the ones that did nothing to stimulate the economy or create new jobs?) and the Republicans would have resorted to their old stand-by, that people who are unemployed somehow “want to be jobless” or “deserve it.”

Would Bush ever have had the gravitas or political will to push through a massive financial system reform bill into law that not only forces more accountability in the financial sector but also establishes a new government agency that the public can turn to for their own protection against those massive Wall Street entities? Never. Would McCain? Hardly – he may have handed over some more money to them, but never have fought on our behalf.

So when you ask me if that “change” is working out for me, I’m more than happy to say yes.

When you ask me if I “miss him yet,” I can answer with a smile and say “miss who?”

Because overall, there’s plenty of work left to be done, and we’re not out of the woods, and everything isn’t perfect, but I’m more hopeful now than I ever have been, and I’m confident that America is moving in the right direction under a leader who at least considers the best interests of the people and the nation over their own personal whim or delusional personal “calling.”

Yup, that change is working out for me just fine, thanks. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

This really shouldn’t surprise anyone – most red states don’t believe in community well being, instead touting the line of low taxation as the path to prosperity, which in turn means that everyone gets more money in their pockets due to low or no state income or sales taxes but also has the side-effect that conservatives ignore: poor health care, underfunded health and wellness programs, understaffed and understocked hospitals, health clinics that are few and far between, and fewer doctors left to take care of the people who need medical care the most.

Blue Texan over at Instaputz pointed to a couple of data sets, where I found an interesting correlation.

The first is Gallup’s ranking of states by ideology, according to the share of residents who self-identify as liberal or conservative. The second is this United Health Foundation ranking of states by the health of their citizens, according to a combination of 22 different metrics.

The ten least healthy states are all among the “red” states*. Five of the least healthy states are among the ten most conservative.

Nine of the ten healthiest states are among the “blue” states. Five of the healthiest states are among the ten most liberal.

Sound familiar? Now of course correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation, and there are several factors at play here, but it’s hard to not acknowledge that the people who most self-identify as conservative, claiming that they can take care of themselves and they don’t need “big government intruding into their lives” are the ones who really are the least likely to take care of themselves and the most likely to wind up being the problem that the rest of us have set out to solve: the people sitting in emergency rooms because they have no primary care physician, because their communities couldn’t raise the money to build a clinic in their neighborhoods, for example.

It’s very likely we’ll see more of this kind of conservative ideology coming home to roost in the next several decades unless we do something to stop it – but there’s only so much you can really do when you have an entire group of people who are not only willing to deny the medicine that can save them, they’re willing to deny everyone else the same medicine as well.

[ Conservatism Is Bad for Your Health: “Red” States Sicker than “Blue” ]
Source: AlterNet

“Starting in September, some of the worst abuses will be banned forever. No more discriminating against children with pre-existing conditions. No more retroactively dropping somebody’s policy when they get sick if they made an unintentional mistake on an application. No more lifetime limits or restrictive annual limits on coverage. Those days are over.” – PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

And here’s the Patient’s Bill of Rights. Make yourself familiar with it, because even if you never voted for Obama and even if you’re one of these tea party nuts out there calling for the repeal of the reform act, these are the rights and privileges you enjoy under the new law – and these are the rights and privileges that Republicans and their far-right allies are looking to take away from us as soon as possible:

The Patient’s Bill of Rights:

1. Prevents insurance companies from canceling your policy if you get sick. Right now, insurance companies can retroactively cancel your policy when you become sick if you or your employer made an unintentional mistake on your paperwork.
2. Stops insurance companies from denying coverage to children with pre-existing conditions. Beginning in September, discrimination against children with pre-existing conditions will be banned—a protection that will be extended to all Americans in 2014.
3. Prohibits setting lifetime limits on insurance policies issued or renewed after Sept. 23, 2010. No longer will insurance companies be able to take away coverage at the very moment when patients need it most. More than 100 million Americans have health coverage that imposes lifetime limits on care.
4. Phases out annual dollar limits on coverage over the next three years. Even more aggressive than lifetime limits are annual dollar limits on what an insurance company will pay for your health care. For the people with medical costs that hit these limits, the consequences can be devastating.
5. Allows you to designate any available participating primary care doctor as your provider. You’ll be able to keep the primary care doctor or pediatrician you choose, and see an OB-GYN without referral.
6. Removes insurance company barriers to receiving emergency care and prevents them from charging you more because you’re out of network. You’ll be able to get emergency care at a hospital outside of your plan’s network without facing higher co-pays or deductibles or having to fight to get approval first.

Read the whole thing and a few more details at WhiteHouse.gov, and start to read about how the health care reform law is making a difference in the lives of everyday Americans right now at HealthCare.gov.

[ The Patient's Bill of Rights ]
Source: Organizing for America

It’s kind of like that legendary stunt on the prime-time soap “Dallas,” where we learned that nothing bad had really happened because the previous season’s episodes were all a dream. We now know that the wave of anger that crashed on the Capitol as the health care bill passed last month — the death threats and epithets hurled at members of Congress — was also a mirage.

Take it from the louder voices on the right. Because no tape has surfaced of anyone yelling racial slurs at the civil rights icon and Georgia Congressman John Lewis, it’s now a blogosphere “fact” that Lewis is a liar and the “lamestream media” concocted the entire incident. The same camp maintains as well that the spit landing on the Missouri Congressman Emanuel Cleaver was inadvertent spillover saliva from an over-frothing screamer — spittle, not spit, as it were. True, there is video evidence of the homophobic venom directed at Barney Frank — but, hey, Frank is white, so no racism there!

“It’s Not About Race” declared a headline on a typical column defending over-the-top “Obamacare” opponents from critics like me, who had the nerve to suggest a possible racial motive in the rage aimed at the likes of Lewis and Cleaver — neither of whom were major players in the Democrats’ health care campaign. It’s also mistaken, it seems, for anyone to posit that race might be animating anti-Obama hotheads like those who packed assault weapons at presidential town hall meetings on health care last summer. And surely it is outrageous for anyone to argue that conservative leaders are enabling such extremism by remaining silent or egging it on with cries of “Reload!” to pander to the Tea Party-Glenn Beck base. As Beck has said, it’s Obama who is the real racist.

I would be more than happy to stand corrected. But the story of race and the right did not, alas, end with the health care bill. Hardly had we been told that all that ugliness was a fantasy than we learned back in the material world that the new Republican governor of Virginia, Robert McDonnell, had issued a state proclamation celebrating April as Confederate History Month.

In doing so, he was resuscitating a dormant practice that had been initiated in 1997 by George Allen, the Virginia governor whose political career would implode in 2006 when he was caught on camera calling an Indian-American constituent “macaca.” McDonnell had been widely hailed by his party as a refreshing new “big tent” conservative star when he took office in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederacy, in January. So perhaps his Dixiecrat proclamation, if not a dream, might have been a staff-driven gaffe rather than a deliberate act of racial provocation.

That hope evaporated once McDonnell was asked to explain why there was no mention of slavery in his declaration honoring “the sacrifices of the Confederate leaders, soldiers and citizens.” After acknowledging that slavery was among “any number of aspects to that conflict between the states,” the governor went on to say that he had focused on the issues “I thought were most significant for Virginia.” Only when some of his own black supporters joined editorialists in observing that slavery was significant to some Virginians too — a fifth of the state’s population is black — did he beat a retreat and apologize.

Before I left Rich continue, I really can’t get enough of the whole Confederate History Month situation in Virginia – a state closely neighboring my own but that I’m consistently frightful of. Wavering somewhere between the blue and the red, Virginia is a frightening beast, and when McDonnell managed to lie his way into office (partially thanks to Democratic candidates that spent so much time fighting amongst each other and not supporting each other that they were outgunned and outspent to the very last minute) even with the help of prominent Black leaderrs in the state -like one of the founders of BET – they thought maybe he could be true to his word and truly be a reformed conservative.

When McDonnell’s letters from graduate school came to light, showing him for the deep red conservative he is, complete with racist, homophobic, and sexist opinions and tendancies and the desire to weave them all into law all while cementing his own white privilege, he cried foul, claimed his opponents were playing “gotcha politics,” and that he had changed and grown a lot since then.

Perhaps he has, but the whole Confederate History Month debacle proves that even if he thinks he’s grown, he hasn’t grown enough – and when that same BET founder that supported his campaign made a personal, public, and impassioned plea for him to reconsider that shamed him in front of the people who used to support him, he had no choice.

But what did the scorpion say to the frog again? “It’s my nature?”

Now to let Rich continue (and conclude):

Most Americans who don’t like Obama or the health care bill are not racists. It may be a closer call among Tea Partiers, of whom only 1 percent are black, according to last week’s much dissected Times/CBS News poll. That same survey found that 52 percent of Tea Party followers feel “too much” has been made of the problems facing black people — nearly twice the national average. And that’s just those who admit to it. Whatever their number, those who are threatened and enraged by the new Obama order are volatile. Conservative politicians are taking a walk on the wild side by coddling and encouraging them, whatever the short-term political gain.

The temperature is higher now than it was a month ago. It’s not happenstance that officials from the Sons of Confederate Veterans in Virginia and Mississippi have argued, as one said this month, that the Confederate Army had been “fighting for the same things that people in the Tea Party are fighting for.” Obama opposition increasingly comes wrapped in the racial code that McDonnell revived in endorsing Confederate History Month. The state attorneys general who are invoking states’ rights in their lawsuits to nullify the federal health care law are transparently pushing the same old hot buttons.

“They tried it here in Arkansas in ’57, and it didn’t work,” said the Democratic governor of that state, Mike Beebe, likening the states’ health care suits to the failed effort of his predecessor Orval Faubus to block nine black students from attending the all-white Little Rock Central High School. That battle for states’ rights ended when President Eisenhower, a Republican who would be considered a traitor to his party in 2010, enforced federal law by sending in troops.

How our current spike in neo-Confederate rebellion will end is unknown. It’s unnerving that Tea Party leaders and conservatives in the Oklahoma Legislature now aim to create a new volunteer militia that, as The Associated Press described it, would use as yet mysterious means to “help defend against what they believe are improper federal infringements on state sovereignty.” This is the same ideology that animated Timothy McVeigh, whose strike against the tyrannical federal government will reach its 15th anniversary on Monday in the same city where the Oklahoma Legislature meets.

What is known is that the nearly all-white G.O.P. is so traumatized by race it has now morphed into a bizarre paragon of both liberal and conservative racial political correctness. For irrefutable proof, look no further than the peculiar case of its chairman, Steele, whose reckless spending and incompetence would cost him his job at any other professional organization, let alone a political operation during an election year. Steele has job security only because he is the sole black man in a white party hierarchy. That hierarchy is as fearful of crossing him as it is of calling out the extreme Obama haters in its ranks.

At least we can take solace in the news that there’s no documentary evidence proving that Tea Party demonstrators hurled racist epithets at John Lewis. They were, it seems, only whistling “Dixie.”

[ Frank Rich: Welcome to Confederate History Month ]
Source: The New York Times

Not only will this bill wind up extending benefits to millions of Americans and eventually mandate that all Americans have access to health care and health insurance, it contains tons of provisions that take effect immediately that Americans will come to take for granted in the coming years. We will – very shortly – come to the position where Americans will take the benefits they now have – significant improvements in our overall health care – for granted, and the same people who were in the streets shouting racist slurs at Congressmen will probably be the same folks benefiting the most from the expanded access to care and restrictions against pre-existing conditions. The “keep your government hands off my Medicare” crowd – of which they’re largely the same people anyway.

Regardless, this is a huge moment for all Americans, and a huge triumph for progressives and any American with the best interests of the American people at heart. The bill is now law, and even though right-wing crazies rushed to the courthouse to try and get the law overturned, and while tea party wingnuts are talking about repeal, the bill is law and the accomplishment has been made when everyone said that we couldn’t do it.

It’s indeed a proud day.

[ Obama Signs Health Care Overhaul Into Law ]
Source: TruthOut

I don’t think this deserves much explanation. Art by Adam Zyglis, and originally published in The Buffalo News!

Changes happening immediately:

1. Adult children may remain as dependents on their parents’ policy until their 27th birthday
2. Children under age 19 may not be excluded for pre-existing conditions
3. No more lifetime or annual caps on coverage
4. Free preventative care for all
5. Adults with pre-existing conditions may buy into a national high-risk pool until the exchanges come online. These pools won’t be cheap, but they are still a lot better than being excluded. And there is expected to be some advantage due to the wider pool of the uninsured.
6. Small businesses will be entitled to a tax credit for 2009 and 2010, which could be as much as 50 percent of what they pay for their employees’ health insurance.
7. The “doughnut hole” closes for Medicare patients, making prescription medications more affordable for seniors. The government would offer a $250 rebate to Medicare beneficiaries to help pay their prescription drug costs when they hit the “doughnut hole.” Next year, Medicare beneficiaries would see a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs to further close that gap.
8. All insurers will be required to post balance sheets on the Internet and fully disclose administrative costs, executive compensation packages, and benefit payments.
9. Authorizes early funding of community health centers in all 50 states (Bernie Sanders’ amendment). Community health centers provide primary, dental and vision services to people in the community, based on a sliding scale for payment according to ability to pay.
10. No more rescissions. Effective immediately, you can’t lose your insurance because you get sick.
11. Effective immediately would be a 10 percent tax on tanning salon services, which opponents say would lead to higher costs for indoor bronzing.

That’s a pretty damned good list of effects, I would say. Maybe the only people who will complain are the same ones who always complain: rich white folks who are headed to the tanning salon and see that the cost to give themselves skin cancer has gone up.

Now for the changes that will take a little time to take effect:

The following changes will occur over time. I have included the date of all implemented changes.

1. By 2014, all Americans must have health care coverage or pay a fine. Subsidies would be offered to help those making less than $44,000 or $88,000 for a family of four, afford insurance. Fines would be $95 in 2014, gradually rising to $695 by 2016, or up to 2.5 percent of income.
2. The most notable tax increase will occur in 2013, on individuals making more than $200,000, or $250,000 for couples. Taxes would be 0.9 percent on earned income above those amounts, and 2.9 percent on investment income (dividends, rents, royalties, etc.)
3. By 2014, no adults can be denied insurance due to pre-existing conditions.
4. Companies with more than 50 workers would be required, by Jan. 1, 2014, to provide health care for their employees or face a penalty of $2,000 per worker (exempting the first 30 workers.) Up to $40 billion in tax credits would be offered to help companies buy insurance for their workers.
5. For individuals: Beginning Jan. 1, 2014, those making less than $44,000 annually, or $88,000 for a family of four, would be offered subsidies to buy health care. The subsidies would be on a sliding scale up to 9.5 percent of income.
6. For small businesses: Beginning this year, companies would be offered tax credits of up to 35 percent of health premiums to buy insurance for their workers. Tax credits would rise up to 50 percent by 2014. Those businesses with fewer than 10 workers would receive a full credit to cover costs.
7. New taxes would be imposed, on Jan. 1, 2018, on high-value health insurance plans held by individuals — the so-called “Cadillac plans” often offered to union workers or executives. The tax would be 40 percent on the value of individual plans above $10,200 and family plans above $27,500 (slightly higher, at $11,850 and $30,950, for retirees or workers in high-risk professions.) Excludes dental and vision plans.
8. Pharmaceutical companies would face a $4.8 billion fee beginning in 2011; medical device manufacturers would be hit with a 2.9 percent fee in 2013; and insurance companies would begin to see a nearly $70 billion fee in 2014.
9. Government payments to the Medicare Advantage program would be frozen in 2011 and decline in subsequent years.
10. By Jan. 1, 2014, most states would establish new health care exchanges, where those without job-based insurance could purchase policies, much the way members of Congress now buy insurance from an array of suppliers.

How incredible is that? Sure, those dates may slip and slide depending on political will in Washington, but at least the legislation is passed and we have solid ground to fight on. Well done – I’ve never been more proud of my congressional representatives (all of whom voted in favor of this legislation.)

[ Health Care Reform, Just the Facts: Immediate Changes, Others That Will Happen Over Time ]
Source: AlterNet

Demonstrators outside the U.S. Capitol, angry over the proposed health care bill, shouted “nigger” Saturday at U.S. Rep. John Lewis, a Georgia congressman and civil rights icon who was nearly beaten to death during an Alabama march in the 1960s.

The protesters also shouted obscenities at other members of the Congressional Black Caucus, lawmakers said.

“They were shouting, sort of harassing,” Lewis said. “But, it’s okay, I’ve faced this before. It reminded me of the 60s. It was a lot of downright hate and anger and people being downright mean.”

Lewis knows what’s up. He’s faced far more hatred than this bunch of glorified trolls, but it’s just another example of the cancer that the right-wing has in their ranks – one that they desperately need to remove if they expect anyone to take them or the mainstream Republican party (if there is such a thing anymore) seriously in any election.

But it didn’t stop with racism:

Protestors also used a slur as they confronted Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., an openly gay member of Congress. A writer for Huffington Post said the crowd called Frank a “faggot.”

Frank told the Boston Globe that the incident happened as he was walking from the Longworth office building to the Rayburn office building, both a short distance from the Capitol. Frank said the crowd consisted of a couple of hundred of people and that they referred to him as ‘homo.’

“I’m disappointed with the unwillingness to be civil,” Frank told the Globe. “I was, I guess, surprised by the rancor. What it means is obviously the health care bill is proxy for a lot of other sentiments, some of which are perfectly reasonable, but some of which are not.”

“People out there today, on the whole, were really hateful,” Frank said. “The leaders of this movement have a responsibility to speak out more.”

This, everyone, is the ugly, horrible face of conservative America. The worst part is that they don’t see anything wrong with their hatred and ignorance, and have absolutely no desire to join the rest of the American community in any kind of intelligent, civil discussion. Heaven forbid they educate themselves – willful ignorance and hatred feed on this mentality, and if they had to enlighten themselves, they’d be in a world of trouble.

[ Racism, Homophobia Dominates Tea Party Protest Over Health Care Bill ]
Source: TruthOut

CBO told lawmakers that the health package would cost $940 billion over the next decade, reducing the deficit by $130 billion. It will reduce the deficit by $1.2 trillion in the second decade of the plan’s implementation, according to those who have seen the score.

That’s a larger deficit reduction than the healthcare measures passed by both the House and the Senate last year, though the CBO said the current bill would spend more than those bills.

This – this is why Democrats are the party of fiscal conservatism; they know where to invest the country’s money and on which things matter the most to us. Not only will it save us money in the long run, it’ll put taxpayer dollars into things that really matter to the American people – our own internal priorities, like the well being and care for our families and our neighbors. And they’re doing it all with an eye towards saving money and making programs like Medicare and Medicaid financially viable.

This is why this measure passed the House in historic fashion last night.

[ CBO: Health Package Costs $940 Billion; Hoyer Eyes Sunday Vote for Measure ]
Source: The Hill

So how did conservatives react? Did they stop and think about how their last argument – like all of their others – had again been revealed to be a lie? Not at all – they simply decided to call the CBO liars and dismiss them outright. Yeah – pretty much the same tactic they take whenever reality doesn’t line up with their political ideologies. Plug your fingers in your ears and sing loudly to yourself.

The conservative response to the Congressional Budget Office analysis that health care reform will cut the deficit more than $1 trillion over the next two decades is simply to call the nonpartisan analysts liars.

For some reason, when the CBO was harshly criticizing early drafts of Democratic health proposal, conservatives thought the CBO was so awesome, and some even claimed Democrats would devilishly refuse to let CBO score the final bill before the vote.

Let’s take a Hot Tub Time Machine journey all the way back to 2009.

Bill Scher, writing for the Campaign for America’s Future, calls out this hypocrisy for what it is, and takes us back to last year when the Republicans were using the CBO analysis to bolster their arguments that the bill was too expensive. Now that the bill has been revised – and includes their ideas – and actually saves the country money in the long run, they just can’t handle it:

* The CBO director Doug Elmendorf just told Congress that early Democratic draft would raise the health care cost curve. And top Republicans thought the CBO was pretty sharp. From the W. Post:

Republicans also seized on Elmendorf’s remarks, with House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) saying they prove “that one of the Democrats’ chief talking points is pure fiction.” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Elmendorf’s testimony should serve as a “wake-up call” to Obama and Democratic leaders to heed requests from lawmakers in both parties to slow down the process.

* Boehner’s office put out a statement heralding the CBIO: “Exposed: CBO Confirms Democrats’ Plan Will Increase Americans’ Health Care Costs.”

* GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley was calling the CBO “God.”

* GOP Rep. Mike Pence really appreciated the CBO analysis of his own bill, with a news release headlined: “Pence Hails CBO Report on Republican Health Care Bill.”

* The Heritage foundation blog trumpeted: “CBO Deals Another Crushing Blow to Obamacare.”

Now, get back in the Hot Tub Time Machine and return to the present day, 2010.

* RNC Chair Michael Steele said of the CBO conclusion that the pending bill will cut the deficit more than $1 trillion: “That’s a lie.”

* Multiple Fox News personalities trash the CBO, with the Fox Nation website also calling the CBO score “a lie.”

* Hell hath no fury like Rep. Boehner’s CBO love scorned: “That’s why the whole so-called CBO scoring issue is a fallacy.”

* And Rep. Pence is not “hailing” the CBO anymore: “Only in Washington, can you spend a trillion dollars and say you’re gonna save the taxpayers’ money.”

When the CBO gave the Democrats analysis that was politically harmful to their position, Democrats respected the CBO analysis and responded by modifying the legislation to make it even more fiscally responsible.

When the CBO gave conservatives numbers politically harmful to their view, they ended their love affair with the CBO, and decried the agency as not credible.

But it’s not the CBO’s credibility that’s drowning.

Good work guys, way to undermine yourself at every single turn. It makes me wonder why we even need more proof that the right-wing is off the deep end.

[ Take A Hot Tub Time Machine Trip To 2009, When Conservatives Loved The CBO ]
Source: The Campaign for America’s Future