Ain't No Sunshine in D.C.

A post on http://www.nola.com/ notes that a Democratic Aide, when discussing yesterday's compromise economic stimulus bill and disclosing that the dollar amount of proposed tax credits had been reduced, "spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations are private."

Private. Folks, this isn't the Constitutional Convention in 1787 where the delegates' very lives were in jeopardy and there was a legitimate need for secrecy. This is a discussion about how to saddle future generations with debt; a discussion about actions that will have the side-effect of rendering untold numbers wholly dependent on Government for their daily bread.

So much for sunshine.

So much for details.

So much for us being able to know what's really in that Bill.

Have you read the provisions that relate to healthcare in the version that the House sent to the Senate? At LEAST two new agencies with enormous names (the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research -- this'll be the one that decides whether it will be "cost effective" to treat your health issue, and if it's not, then it's R.I.P. for you; and the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, to be created by the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH, -- this'll be the one that transmits and stores all your personal, medical information in cyberspace) are in there. Can you spell Clintonian Universal Health Care? How about Tom Daschle's Critical: What We Can Do About the Healthcare Crisis?

Atlas Shrugged?

The healthcare issues alone deserve to be debated fully, fairly, and IN THE OPEN -- not buried in some behemoth tome full of boilerplate and bureaucracy-speak. This is nothing better than stealth legislation.

There's also a planned Accountability and Transparency Board, chaired by the Chief Performance Officer (you remember that brand new position -- it's the one that our Young President's first-choice nominee was bounced for failing to pay taxes). All the other members are also appointed by the Young President. Let's see -- this is a product of the Legislative branch, yet it refers to positions and bodies that don't really exist yet, and that will be created and staffed by the President as a function of the Executive branch. And it's pre-budgeted!

And all this "debate" takes place while our Young President is back on the campaign trail, mesmerizing the masses with his silver tongue.

Folks, we're being snookered, hoodwinked, and rooked by professionals that we pay to do it to us. Without lubrication.