The Speaker of the House of Representatives is a powerful position, third in line to the Presidency, scholars like to remind us. The current Speaker is Nancy Pelosi of the 8th District of California. She is credited with gathering the votes needed for the House to pass the Senate’s version of the Healthcare Bill, which occurred on Sunday night, March 21, 2010. This paves the way for the President to sign it into law.
While much has been made of the way the Democratic leadership rushed the bill through using strong-arm tactics and questionable parliamentary procedures, not enough has been shed on the person doing the rushing, Speaker Pelosi.
A good place to start would be her speech on March 9, 2010 in Washington, DC to representatives of the National Association of Counties. About ¾ of the way through this 2,458 word talk, we find the following:
“But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy. Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President’s economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation—innovation begins in the classroom—clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform. Health insurance reform is about jobs. This legislation alone will create 4 million jobs, about 400,000 jobs very soon.”
Take a minute to read it. You may find yourself taking two or three as you’ll need to read it several times to ensure that it does indeed, make no sense. The first sentence would be challenged if it came out of the mouth of a 4th grader:
Adult: Johnny, what do you mean we have to pass the bill to see what’s in it? Aren’t there printed copies of the bill all over Washington, DC? Can’t the bill be viewed and downloaded from many web sites so anyone can read it?
Johnny: I guess.
Adult: Why would you say such a thing?
Johnny: I was hoping that the representatives would sign it without actually knowing what they were doing.
Adult: Don’t you know that to push our elected people to sign something they aren’t familiar with is just not right?
Johnny: Yes, I’m sorry. I promise not to do it again … until the time the next unpopular bill comes along that needs passing.
In the middle of the above passage, she seems to want to identify health care reform as one of the President’s three pillars of prosperity, but then gets herself tied up in the first two. At the end of this passage she establishes that health care reform apparently isn’t about affordable health care after all, but about… jobs? How is this reform going to save the country money if it is going to create 4 million jobs, the bulk of which we can bet will be government supported?
Is anyone flying the plane?
For a complete transcript of the speech, visit: Pelosi Remarks at the 2010 Legislative Conference for National Association of Counties.