Two For The Price Of One! Obamacare And Amnesty Will Die Together
As President Barack Obama and
his family pack their suitcases to head off to
Martha`s
Vineyard later this month, I`m quite sure of one thing. [Obamas
Rent Republican` $20 Million House on Martha`s Vineyard,
by Alex Spillius, The
Telegraph, July 28, 2009]
The last
thing on Obama`s mind is
“comprehensive immigration reform”
a.k.a.
amnesty.
Before I get started on just how badly off
amnesty advocates find themselves these days, permit me to
detour briefly to comment on the stupidity of Obama`s choice of
Martha`s
Vineyard as a vacation destination.
While a
growing number of Americans will settle for a “staycation”,
the Vineyard Gazette
reports the Obamas have agreed to rent a $20 million, 28.5-acre
private compound—Blue
Heron Farm—with a swimming pool, private dock, movie
theater,
basketball court and golf practice tee, for a reported
$35,000 to $50,000 a week, during the last week in August. [First
Family`s Vacation Take Shape Around Familiar Chilmark Farm,
by Sam Bungey, Vineyard
Gazette, July 28, 2009]
If the
rental sum reaches the high end of the estimate, it will equal
the national median household income put by the U.S. Census
at $50,233.
The
nearly 10 percent of
unemployed
Americans can`t be comforted by the idea of the Obama
hanging out with
Cape Cod elitists like
David Letterman,
Mike Wallace,
Diane Sawyer and
professor of victimology
Henry Louis Gates
When Obama
returns to Capitol Hill after
Labor Day, he`ll confront the most public and private
resistance to his
far left agenda that he`s
yet come across.
Here, listed according
to the importance that I believe Obama assigns them, are his top
two pre-vacation concerns.
-
First,
his poll
ratings.
To the vainglorious Obama, nothing is more essential than his
popularity. For Obama, however,
bad news is everywhere.
In most major polling categories his numbers have been
trending downward for
more than a month.
As of July
29, the Rasmussen Reports`
daily presidential tracking poll
showed that only 29 percent of the nation`s voters
now “Strongly Approve”
of Barack Obama`s performance as president. Thirty-nine percent
“Strongly Disapprove”
which gives Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -10, a
four point drop over the past week and an 11 point decline over
the past month.
Since March, Obama`s
approval index has dropped from a high of +30 to its current low
of -10, a forty-point swing.
(In a
less well known poll,
but one that ties in with Obama`s vacation plans and underlines
his diminishing popularity, more Americans would rather spend a
week in August with television talk show host
Kelly Ripa than the
president. If that doesn`t alarm him, I don`t know what would.)
-
the status of his
health care reform package.
Writing
about
health care, even one day
ahead of my filing deadline, is risky because the issue is in a
constant state of fluidity.
For
example, on July 29, the
New York Times published two stories that reflect the
turmoil surrounding health care legislation.
In the
first, the NYT
reported that House Democrats ended their 10-day impasse between
its liberal and
conservative members by agreeing to cut the bill`s cost and
exempt many small businesses from having to provide health
benefits to workers.
What is
to Americans a more important part of the Democrat`s accord is
that party leaders promised to defer any vote by the full House
until September. By so doing, Congressmen returning home to
their districts could take the time test public sentiment on
health care. [House
Democrats End Impasse on Health Bill, by Robert
Pear and David M. Herszenhorn,
New York Times, July
29, 2009]
Awaiting the returning Congressmen will be an increasingly
skeptical audience.
The second
NYT story reported
that:
“Americans are concerned that
revamping the health care system would reduce the quality of
their care, increase their out-of-pocket health costs and tax
bills, and limit their options in choosing doctors, treatments
and tests, the poll found. The percentage who describe health
care costs as a serious threat to the American economy—a central
argument made by Mr. Obama—has dropped over the past month.”
[New
Poll Finds Growing Unease on Health Plan, by Adam
Nagourney and Megan Thee-Brenan,
New York Times, July
29, 2009]
That
Americans are “concerned”
about healthcare`s cost is easily understood—not
surprisingly, one of the big problems legislators face is how to
pay for the trillion-dollar health reform initiative. No one
knows for sure which individuals or what care will be covered or
what those who might be covered
would have to pay.
[How
Much Health Care for $1 Trillion?,
by Susan Page, USA Today,
July 15, 2009]
In
addition, voters have no confidence that Congress will even read
the legislation`s final version.
Further
hampering health care`s prospects is that Americans have finally
awaken about the true consequences of the $787-billion
economic stimulus plan
Obama proposed and rammed through Congress in February.
Three of four voters
believe it hurt the economy rather than helped it. If the
stimulus is an expensive failure, then why should anyone believe
that a Democratic-sponsored health care bill that could cost
more than $1 trillion
would be any more effective?
Weaving
together Obama`s self-obsession with health care and
comprehensive immigration reform, I came up with the following
analysis.
Remember
that all along the
Democratic game plan for
an
amnesty assault was to begin the full court pressure in the
fall after health care legislation had been signed.
Now, at
best, health care will pass only after nasty Congressional
infighting that would leave the legislators wary about
undertaking a more contentious subject:
amnesty.
A more
likely chain of events may lead to health care`s defeat. The
Congressional summer recess will give its opponents plenty of
time to expose some of the proposal`s uglier elements,
specifically that
illegal immigrants would be covered
if certain versions of the bill pass.
In a brazen move, one
Hispanic Caucus member
speaking anonymously to
Roll Call told House Majority Leader
Nancy Pelosi that
“We`re
pushing to
include everyone
in the health care bill. Everyone.”
Even money
says that because of its price tag and
illegal alien coverage,
health care will be defeated.
Once
that happens, three things would be set into motion.
-
A
further erosion of Obama`s already sinking popularity and a
diminishing of his bully pulpit leverage. -
A
leeriness among Congressional incumbents about their
2010 reelection
chances. See the
Democratic wipe out
during the 1994 mid-term elections post-Hillarycare for an
example of how badly things can go for incumbents who try to
push bad legislation on an unwilling electorate. -
Removal
from life support of whatever
infinitesimal chance
an amnesty bill has of being introduced this year.
No
Obama
bully pulpit
and a gun-shy Congress, combined with a deepening recession and
an angry public, means that only the
most radical, well entrenched
politician
would go near amnesty.
In my
May 8 column
about the dwindling chances of an amnesty, I quoted former
Democratic Congressman Martin Frost
who advised Obama
that:
“No year is ever a good year
to seek immigration reform. Immigration reform makes Social
Security reform look like a walk in the park. The Obama
Administration should concentrate on health care and energy
legislation this year and not waste capital on this most
difficult of all subjects.”
But if,
as it now appears probable, health care fails then amnesty will
take its
last gasp
right along with it.
Joe Guzzardi
[email
him] is a California native
who recently fled the state because of over-immigration,
over-population and a rapidly deteriorating quality of life. He
has moved to Pittsburgh, PA where the air is clean and the
growth rate stable. A
long-time instructor in English at the Lodi Adult School,
Guzzardi has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It
currently appears in the
Lodi News-Sentinel.
