Opinion Forum

Good Old Harry

November 21st, 2009

As the time to vote for health care reform in the Senate speedily comes this way, we start to see and hear of different little sweetheart deals being cut by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and others to insure the passage of one of Obama’s favorites.

One of the principle holdouts in getting enough votes to pass the bill has been Senator Mary Landrieu (photo at left), Democrat from Louisiana. Her price to support Harry Reid is an extra $100,000,000 for her home state. Quite a bit more than the price of a small chicken, in fact more than we paid France for the whole Louisiana territory. I can’t blame Ms. Landrieu; she is taking advantage of this legislation to reap double benefits for her home state. Yet this is only one example what’s being done to pass this bill.

Louisiana, like Illinois, is known for the political corruption that it lets run rampant. How much of this $100 million will ever reach the voters in Landrieu’s state is unknown, but I can pretty much guess.

One bizarre aspect this screwy mess is the timing that is set to keep the true cost of this health care reform fiasco under wraps until 2014. Just look at it as a landmine waiting to explode.

One last thought. If there are 40 million people without health care insurance, why can’t we give each of them a million of Ms. Landrieu’s dollars for health care and save the other 60 million or use it for ticket money to bring our troops home?

Articles written by Larry Ennis
Tags: health care reform, Landrieu, Louisiana, Reid, Senate
Categories: Economics, News, Politics | Comments (11) | Home

11 Responses to “Good Old Harry”

Brianna | November 21st, 2009 at 11:58 am

“If there are 40 million people without health care insurance, why can’t we give each of them a million of Ms. Landrieu’s dollars for health care and save the other 60 million or use it for ticket money to bring our troops home?”

LOL! Thanks Larry!

Tom | November 22nd, 2009 at 2:43 am

I just read that Mary Landrieu’s bribe is a lot higher. According to a report by Dana Milbank in The Washington Post, Landrieu said on the Senate floor, bragging about the financial “fix” she had gotten for Louisiana, “it’s not a $100 million fix. It’s a $300 million fix.”

I keep seeing people comparing Landrieu’s payoff to the price we paid for the original Louisiana Purchase in 1803 — $15 million. Given inflation, it doesn’t seem fair to compare her $300 million to the amount paid so long ago. According to one handy website that calculates these things, in today’s dollars we paid $295 million for the Louisiana territory. Hmmm — so she’s still getting more!

Maybe we should try to get our money back….

Regarding all the deal-making Reid is making to get the health care bill passed, Milbank added, “And the big shakedown is yet to occur: That will happen when Reid comes back to his caucus in a few weeks to round up 60 votes for the final passage of the health bill.”

larry | November 22nd, 2009 at 7:42 am

Tom, Briana

Do you see why I tend to go crazy!!

Hey Briana the Rocket Scientist
If we took the ladies 300 million dollars in tens and laid em end to end we’d wind up where??

Tom
Is you saying that old Harry has limitless possibilities??

Aw life under Obama, Harry and Votox Nancy aint it a hoot!!!

Tom | November 22nd, 2009 at 9:12 am

No, Larry, I is not saying that old Harry has limitless possibilities. I don’t have any idea what you mean.

larry | November 22nd, 2009 at 12:23 pm

Tom
If Harry and friends can “Pony-Up” $300,000.000 to stroke Ms. Landrieu, they most likely can get more taxpayers money to give away to other deserving Democrats. I wonder if these little enticements are figured in as part of the $3.6 trillion this program is projected to cost?

larry | November 22nd, 2009 at 12:25 pm

i meant $300,000,000.000

Tom | November 22nd, 2009 at 12:54 pm

The projected total cost is around $1.3 trillion, according to all the reports I’ve seen. The net costs of the bills are estimated at lower numbers after offsets of various kinds.

Do you have a source for the $3.6 trillion number?

Brianna | November 22nd, 2009 at 6:57 pm

Larry – probably somewhere about 3,000 m. A little under 2 miles.

Tom – as though 1,300,000,000,000.00 is so much better.

Brian | November 23rd, 2009 at 12:58 am

Tom, I would suggest recent history of programs like MediCare/MedicAid would demonstrate that $1.3T is a low figure. If it’s what the government is telling, triple it.

Tom | November 23rd, 2009 at 3:03 am

Brian and Brianna, I agree with both of you — the mind boggles over numbers of dollars in the trillions. I don’t have any faith in the estimates of cost, either, and I don’t doubt that they’ll go higher. But 3.6 is almost three times higher than 1.3, and I was wondering what the source of that number was.

Brian Bagent | November 23rd, 2009 at 2:34 pm

Just a gentle reminder of how much a trillion dollars is.

If you spent 1 million dollars a day, it would take 2739 years to spend a trillion dollars.