The (S)Hits Just Keep On Coming

Transparency. Fiscal responsibility. Gone in sixty seconds.

First, this (yes I wrote this post a couple of weeks ago):

On MSNBC's "Hardball" Wednesday, Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), the new chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the Dems' House fundraising arm, accused Republicans of a double standard in blocking the disclosure:

ISRAEL: Every Republican voted to hide their own government health care, while many of them are pledging to repeal health care for everyone else. So, you go from hypocrisy to hypocrisy; from broken promise to broken promise. And this is just the first day of the new Congress.

MATTHEWS: You mean, they didn't want to admit that they're taking health care?

ISRAEL: This is a very straightforward amendment that we offered, that, if you're going to take government-sponsored health care and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, simply disclose. Let your constituents know that you are taking that government health care. Every single Republican voted to hide their health care while many of them are pledging to repeal it for their constituents.

Then, in reference to repealing health care reform, this, .

As a result of changes in direct spending and revenues, CBO expects that enacting H.R. 2 would probably increase federal budget deficits over the 2012-2019 period by a total of roughly $145 billion (on the basis of the original estimate), plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes that CBO and JCT will include in the forthcoming estimate. Adding two more years (through 2021) brings the projected increase in deficits to something in the vicinity of $230 billion, plus or minus the effects of technical and economic changes.

John Boner, of course, dismissed the report out of hand:

House Speaker John Boehner said today that the Congressional Budget Office is "entitled to their own opinion" - a striking statement in light of the deference usually shown information from the nonpartisan CBO from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle...

... He added that "I don't think anybody in this town believes that repealing Obamacare is going to increase the deficit."

Other than, you know, the experts who looked into it. With, uh, data.

Fortunately for our future, we've learned that deficits only matter if Democrats create them. And transparency is something you can't see through, when used by Republicans.

Simple, huh? And easy to understand.

And, though the above was written a little while back, yesterday House Rs made good on their silly and fact-free promise to repeal the health care law. Calling it "the repealing the job-killing health care bill act," a name which doesn't exactly trip off the tongue (bill act??) or rise to the lyricism of the founding fathers, they passed it knowing full well it was just for show. And, assuming they don't apply the same Bonerian logic detailed above, they know it's not job-killing, either. I'd love to hear Harry Reid explain why the Senate won't take it up: "They called it repealing the job-killing health care law," he could say. "But I've looked through the Congressional Record. There is no job-killing health care bill, so I have no idea what the f*ck they're talking about."

And let's not fail to notice that, despite earlier promises and perfectly in keeping with their "party of no" behavior over the past two years, they didn't even make a pretense of coming up with any ideas of their own with which to replace the bill. (They did, however, vote to continue their own government-provided healthcare.)

If it weren't so pitiful, it'd be quite entertaining.