Blue Dogs should be applauded

    It was rather humorous to read Rick Howell’s column last week, blasting members of his own political party. A member of the “Democratic” Party, Mr. Howell usually directs his ire at Republicans.

    Although I’m not a political party member, and thus am free to antagonize everybody, I usually disparage “Democrats.”

    As hard as it is for me to say anything nice about the Donkey Party, I have to give the Blue Dog Democrats credit. They put the brakes on ObamaCare, preventing a House vote before the beginning of the August recess. Mr. Howell alleged that they did this because health care industries paid them off via campaign contributions, ignoring the fact that Supreme Leader Nancy Pelosi ranks 55th in the amount of campaign money that she has received from the health insurance industry. Nor does he mention that Congressman Tom Perriello applauded the delay.

    Both Perriello and Congressman Bob Goodlatte send us a weekly letter from Congress and we post them on our Web site at www.bedfordbulletin.com in the Opinion section. Last week, Perriello wrote, “So my stated position was that Congress should take the month of August to present ideas to the American people and give them time to understand, critique and improve those plans so that we could get this done right, rather than just done right away.”

    Mr. Howell seems absolutely hysterical to see that the tide of history in this country is not running in his liberal direction. The “Democrats” owe their current majority to the fact that the “Democratic” Party’s national leaders deliberately recruited relatively conservative Democrats to run in center-right and swing districts previously held by Republicans. These fellows won because they ran to the right of where “Democrats” usually run. This increased the number of fiscally conservative Democrats in the House.

     Another factor is that many of these congressmen voted for the Cap and Trade bill, and got an earful from their constituents when they came home for the July 4 break. That vote probably put a few of them on the endangered species list and they weren’t about to take it on the chin for the party, again, on ObamaCare.

    Now, we can all take a look at this Legislation. Go to thomas.loc.gov and you will see “HR3200: America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009” at the top. Click on that, then click on “Text of Legislation “ and you can look at this monster for yourself.

    One item you may be interested in is “SEC. 401. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.” According to this, if you don’t have acceptable health care coverage during a taxable year, you get assessed a 2.5 percent tax on your modified gross income.

    With this in mind, suppose you get laid off in July. You are unemployed for six weeks before getting a new job. Both jobs provide employer subsidized health insurance, but you have no health insurance during the time you are unemployed. It sounds like you are going to get nailed with what amounts to a fine of several hundred dollars, even on a very modest income, when tax time rolls around the following year.

    Of course, your employer provided insurance may disappear. The bill contains a public insurance option. This could easily be used to squeeze private health insurers out of business. Barney Frank, who chairs the House Finance Committee said last month that, as liberals don’t have the votes to impose a single payer system, the public option is the best way to achieve it. Obviously, squeezing private insurers out of business is precisely what liberals have in mind.