Frankenstein Rx

How do you make a legislative monstrosity better? By making it worse. Congressional Democratic leaders are now sewing new limbs onto their Frankenstein monster. The details of what lawmakers are doing as they begin to mark up health reform legislation this week would make you think of a mad scientist and his hunchback assistant trying to bring artificial life to the various components of rotting corpses they collected in the dark of night. On top of the big increases in health care premiums that the Congressional Budget Office warns will come if this government power-grab passes into law, and on top of stepping on the gas toward fiscal disaster by in effect establishing a new government entitlement, Democratic leaders have now added, of all things, a student aid bill to win moderate Democratic votes. Bet you didn't think health reform had anything to do with the establishment of a new "Advisory Council on Green, High-Performing Public School Facilities," as Section 343 on Pages 2,227 to 2,230 of the bill provides for. It's all part of a federal takeover of the student loan industry that has already passed the House of Representatives and will now be paired with health reform to allow budget reconciliation to prevent any Senate filibuster. As Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell remarked, Democrats seem to want government to "expand its tentacles into absolutely everything."...read more