Nelson Gets His Deal-Reid Gets His 60

Now that the latest Democratic senator (Ben Nelson) has gotten his 30 pieces of silver and deal-maker Harry Reid has reached his 60 votes, another giant step has been taken in the rapid socialization of America.

It is so stunning how our lawmakers can say on one day that they would filibuster a bill, as Nelson did, then after their pot has been sufficiently sweetened, turn around and support it. We saw it with Mary Landrieu, then with Joe Lieberman, now with Nelson. In a way, these three are the worst of all the senators who will vote, "yes." The other Democrats at least believe in it. These three were merely holding out for more goodies or bickering over a couple of points. To me, it's not a matter of one or two provisions being added or cut out, or whether something good can be added for their particular state. You either believe this is right for America or wrong. Principled people should have been for or against this thing from the very start. In Nelson's case, it is reported he got a sweetheart deal for Nebraska by having his state exempted from Medicaid costs forever.

So now we are another step closer to seeing our government take over another 1/6th of our economy. This means more money to Washington and more power and control over our lives to the faceless bureaucrats in the nation's capitol.

On other fronts, we see out-of-control spending by the government while our spending capacity dwindles. Obama, Reid and Nancy Pelosi think that the government can spend its way out of the recession. They are wrong. It is we who should be spending our way out of the recession. Instead government employment has become more lucrative than the private sector. Tons of money are being dropped on government agencies so they can spend more-for what purpose?

When I worked for the government, we always accepted that we would be making less than our private sector counterparts, which we considered as a trade-off for greater job security and good benefits. Now we see government employees rising above the private sector employees. It's true here in California (which is a scandal in itself), and it's true in Washington. Just in the past year, the number of government employees making over $100,000 a year has skyrocketed while the rest of us are dealing with a bad economy. Meanwhile, corruption in Washington is reaching new highs as government considers even more restrictions on the rest of us. At what point do we wake up and realize that we are becoming the servants of "public servants". By the way, the term "public servant" was one I used to proudly apply to myself as a DEA street agent rather than "government bureaucrat".

Of course, there is a broad section of society here in America that applauds this expansion of government, in the case of health care, as a step toward benefiting all-including themselves. When, however, does one stop and think that the more you expect from government, the more you must give to the government in terms of power and money. We also have to keep in mind that we are not like countries such as Sweden, which tax their citizens heavily in order to provide everybody with benefits. Here in America, we get taxed largely to provide benefits to others-even those in the country illegally. Government health care will turn out to be just such an example.

What a depressing sight to watch our elected representatives (who WE have put in office)go about their dirty business exhibiting that they have few abilities and qualities beyond sheer ambition. Here we have a Senate majority leader named Harry Reid, a petty little man, whose only apparent talent is in back-room deal-making, pleading, cajoling and/or threatening hold-outs like Nelson, a man who portrays himself as some sort of moderate. (There is a story going around that Nelson had been threatened with the closure of a key strategic Air Force base in Nebraska if he didn't get on board. When I say strategic, I mean strategic to our nation's air defense system. If true, that is a scandalous disgrace.)

Is it not now clear that the Democrats, including Obama, are rushing as fast as they can to get as much done as possible before an angry electorate rises up and starts throwing them out of office in 2010? Possibly, they are cynically counting on the anger to dissipate by then. Past history suggests they may be correct. It is up to us to continue to keep the spirit of the tea parties alive in the coming year. With all that is on the Democratic plate, I'm betting we will. There seems to be no let-up in sight on the abuses coming out of Washington. Today, it's health care. Tomorrow it's Cap and Trade. Then comes amnesty for illegal aliens, "Card Check", which will force people into unions, a so-called Fairness Doctrine aimed at conservative talk radio, and government control over blogs and the Internet.

And you wonder where all the Communists went when the Soviet bloc broke up a couple of decades ago?