Thoughts of Obama from Bama

Week 48: Size Matters

“There's a great power in words, if you don't hitch too many of them together”.
Josh Billings, 19th Century American Humorist

Our Author of Long, Socialist, Incomprehensible Bills-in-Chief in cooperation with his comrade in the Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have conspired to create a colossal piece of legislation only a boneheaded bleeding heart liberal elitist could love. What the Senate’s Healthcare Reform/Socialized Medicine Act lacks in real reform; cost savings; better quality; cross state insurance competition; tort reform; patient choice; and keeping Uncle Sammy from rationing and controlling access to care it definitely makes up for in size; weight; length; girth; and width.

This legislative train wreck initially came in at 2,074 pages. With Leader Reid’s 383 page Manager’s Amendment, which includes all the backroom sleazy deals he made to buy off gutless so called Blue Dog Democrats, who really are more akin to yellow dogs considering their cowardly behavior, including the $300 million Louisiana Purchase of Senator Mary Landrieu; Nebraska’s Ben Nelson $100 million dollar annual bribe for Medicaid; Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders $10 and $14 billion for community health centers; Connecticut receiving $100 million for a "health care facility" affiliated with an academic health center in gratitude for Senator Dodd’s support; this big ass honking bill now totals 2.457 pages.

When you add it all up this mammoth piece of legislation comes in at:

· 24 pounds
· 3’ feet – 4’’ inches tall
· 2,457 pages
· Approximately 626,535 words
· 305 million Tons of BS, 1 Ton for each and every American who are all about to find out how expensive free Healthcare really is.

Abraham Lincoln once said before beginning a speech to supporters that if he had more time to prepare his comments would be much briefer. Point being, content; logic; clarity; readability; and brevity are far better measures of a document’s true value than a high word and page count.

Viewed from this perspective our Long Winded Master of Empty Rhetoric-in-Chief and Harry “Lets Make a Deal” Reid’s Government Takeover of Healthcare Bill just might be the most ill conceived; poorly written; confusing; irrational; misleading; and dangerous legislation ever created by our genius wordsmiths in Congress. A quick comparison to several of the world’s most important and influential written documents emphasizes the total lack of substance, coherency, and clarity contained in this bill.

1. Magna Carta – 25 pages, 6,435 words
2. Declaration of Independence - 5 pages, 1,320 words
3. US Constitution - 17 pages, 4,418 words
4. Bill of Rights – 2.5 pages, 580 words
5. Emancipation Proclamation - 3 pages, 621 words
6. Gettysburg Address – 1 page, 281 words
7. Ten Commandments – 2 stone tablets, 135 words

It only takes 135 words to establish the moral standards for all of mankind, 621 to free millions of slaves, 4,418 to govern the most powerful and freest nation on earth. Why does it take a 626,535 word bill to reform the best Healthcare system in the world? Simple answer, in the spirit of brevity, it doesn’t.

3 words – Kill the Bill!

Best wishes for a safe, joyous, and very Merry Christmas.

I am, “American by Birth and Southern by the Grace of God”

Ron W. Garikes