19 Jun 2009 Chaos on Capitol Hill

Roll Call reports that negotiations over climate legislationamong Democrats on Capitol Hill blew up last night.

This mimics the disorder among members of the Congressional majority on health care. CNN reported today that that the Democrats’ plans to advance government’s role in health caremay be “on the rocks”; that’s our sense of things as well.

Believers in a free market should not become overconfident, however; the left still holds most of the cards, and it has shown in the past that it is willing to pass nearly anything, as long as it is left-wing and/or shovels tax money to groups and individuals allied with the left. The Congressional majority will gladly pass bad, even horrendous, bills on climate and health care (indeed, from what I can see, they are only considering horrendous bills), so the odds against our team remain high.

That said, I’m amazed at the incompetence and lack of discipline going on in leftist ranks on the Hill. Congressional liberals were mostly out of power from 1995-2007 (House liberals were the entire time). They wanted to curb our use of energy and increase government’s role in health care decisionmaking during that entire period, so why did they not get together and make plans? Work out drafts and get those drafts scored?

The Republican majority in Congress had its problems, but it sure hit the ground running in 1995.

This makes no sense to me.

P.S. One possibility just occurred to me. Possibly the environmental groups, with their hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, did not expend enough effort to get folks together on their version of climate heaven because they figure, if a climate bill passes, they wouldn’t be able to do fundraising on global warming anymore. That’s just a guess on my part, though. Could be they’ve just been incompetent.

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Labels: Climate, Congress, Environment, Government Health Care, Health Care, Liberals, Retirement