"Sec 246 — NO FEDERAL PAYMENT FOR UNDOCUMENTED ALIENS Nothing in this subtitle shall allow Federal payments for affordability credits on behalf of individuals who are not lawfully present in the United States."
____________________
While some statistics are little more than pull-quotes, prepared for an author who wants to grind an axe, some are well-nigh-incontrovertible.
The statistics on health-care are damning to America - 46 million people have no health care at all and nearly a million bankruptcies per year based solely on unfunded health care costs - but this is somehow of no consequence to half of our lawmakers, who have been bought-and-paid-for by the pharmaceutical and hospital companies in America.
Some lies are just lies -- "I went to the store", when you really went to see your boyfriend/girlfriend in 11th grade is a lie. It's of no particular consequence; you did it so you wouldn't have to have an argument with your parents. These are things which you laugh about over Thanksgiving dinner with the extended family ten years later when that person is now married to you and you're minding a two-year-old in a high-chair.
Damned lies are different.
They're hurtful things - and sometimes the accusation of a lie, especially in politics, can be a lie itself.
Take Obama's speech the other day.
As the speech wound down, he recapped his health-care plan. It's not perfect - in fact, there are some things which need serious work in order to be functional. However, when Representative Wilson decided to half-jump out of his chair and yell "You lie!" to the President in the middle of a speech to Congress, he chose to do something which was not just poorly-reasoned and wrong - he chose to deliberately lie to the American people about the contents of the House bill on healthcare.
As you can see from Section 246, above, there will be no payments to people in-country without documents -- 'illegal aliens', if you will. While this is counter to the programs in several other countries (even third-world nations), this section is important to many Americans, who don't want to see lettuce-pickers and dishwashers treated for life-threatening diseases on the national dime.
Why Mr. Wilson didn't see fit to do his own research (I'm assuming that's what the people of South Carolina elected him to do, among other things) is quite beyond me. Instead, he decided to reach down beyond his considerable experience to dark areas more-visceral, and pull out a spontaneous rebuke.
By failing to do so, he perpetuated in turn the lies being disseminated by Corporate Medicine, which has the most to lose from this. Perhaps it's the money he's taken from the pharmaceutical industry; perhaps it's his state-of-origin, which is one of the most-red of red states - but I'm willing to bet that the main culprit is his narrow-mindedness and his complete unwillingness to read anything coming from the White House.
As a result, he made a king-sized ass of himself. Now, what's more amazing is that no one on his side of the fence called him on it - and several Republican apologists have actually applauded him for his abysmal ignorance.
Perhaps I haven't made this as starkly clear as I should -- he called the President a liar, and he was wrong.
Not just wrong, but he crossed a line which should never be crossed; not in the halls of Congress. In so doing, he lied, himself.
Where was Mr. Wilson when President Bush lied? Where were the constituents of
Thousands of Americans are dead because Bush lied.
We have spent over a trillion dollars in the twin sandboxes of Iraq and Afghanistan, because Bush lied.
The Justice Department ran roughshod over the Constitution because Bush lied.
Where was Mr. Wilson? Where were all of the members of the git-r-dun constituency he represents?
I'll say it here, as equally-plain as I can: Right now, I'm not concerned with a country which is safe for my savings. Frankly, it's too late for that. I'm not concerned with having a country which is safe for my retirement -- thanks to the actions of all eight presidents from 1968-onward, it's too late for that, either.
I just want a country which is safe for those of us who stayed awake in class.
I want a country where such egregious comments are called-out by both sides of the aisle, and harshly, for what they really are.
I know -- that's too much to ask, also.
_____________________________________
Folks, as another friend of mine said today, if we screw up the next year, we will be responsible for destroying this country.
It's time to get real -- starting with telling the truth.
6 comments: