(Stephen Allott) – Last week, Senator Harry Reid, in a speech on the Senate floor, derided the House GOP proposal to cut $61 billion from the federal budget, saying, “This will go down in history as one of the worst pieces of legislation that we’ve drafted in the history of this Congress.”
“It’s a very, very difficult, bad piece of legislation,” he railed.
Of course, Senator Reid would know all about bad pieces of legislation. He was instrumental, along with former Speaker Pelosi, in the passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the 2,300-page boondoggle commonly known as Obamacare.
It is now almost a year since the passage of this law – passed, let’s not forget, against the will of the majority of the American people. There is still an enormous amount of confusion regarding the contents of the bill, with surprises being revealed continually. No wonder Mrs. Pelosi declared, “We have to pass the bill so you can see what is in it.” The law has now also been ruled unconstitutional by at least two federal judges and will undoubtedly need to be resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court. And Senator Reid has the temerity to criticize the House Spending Bill as being “bad legislation.”
The cost to the States to litigate this piece of legislation has to be enormous, not to mention the resources – both human and financial – of the Department of Justice.
Senator Reid in his speech on the floor also decried the actions of the House as a “political exercise” and “a game.” A game? Has he already forgotten the shenanigans and questionable tactics he employed in mustering the required votes for his health care bill, in what became known as the “Louisiana Purchase” and the “Cornhusker Kickback?” If the House and Senate had done its moral, if not legislative, duty last year and passed a budget when they had the votes in both chambers, as well as the White House, the spending bill would not be the subject for debate today.
Out of necessity, the current budget crisis may be producing bad legislation, but the crisis surely stems from Senator Reid handing us the worst piece of legislation in the history of congress.
Yes, Senator Harry Reid is at it again.
(Mr. Allott is owner of SMA Software Services, Inc. and lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.)
