NANNY NANCY KNOWS BEST: IF EVERY AMERICAN LOVED THEIR HEALTHCARE DEMS WOULD STILL TAKE IT OVER, REPEAL IS ‘VIOLENCE’
At her final press conference as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, "Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go."
The numbers tell a different story.
When the Pelosi Democrats took control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8,670,596,242,973.04. The last day of the 111th Congress and Pelosi's Speakership on December 22, 2010 the national debt was $13,858,529,371,601.09 - a roughly $5.2 trillion increase in just four years. Furthermore, the year over year federal deficit has roughly quadrupled during Pelosi's four years as speaker, from $342 billion in fiscal year 2007 to an estimated $1.6 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2010.
Speaker Pelosi's Final Presser: Health Care Reform Won't Be Repealed
Posted Tuesday, January 04, 2011 11:07 AM | By David Weigel – Slate.com
Nancy Pelosi's final press conference as speaker of the House -- the gavel changes hands in 25 hours -- kicked off Democrats' fightback against the mostly-doomed repeal of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Pelosi left it to Rep. Rosa De Lauro (D-Conn.) to express the view of Democrats that the repeal bill, a campaign promise of the GOP, is a stunt.
"This repeal of health care reform is political theater," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro. "It's a kabuki dance... repeal of health care reform is not going to happen."
Pelosi and the Democrats who joined her onstage stressed the most popular elements of the bill, such as a ban on denying health insurance based on pre-existing conditions. That led one reporter to ask whether the unpopular mandate, which goes into effect in 2014, was negotiable.
"If you're going to have a Patient's Bill of Rights, you have to have comprehensive health care reform," said Pelosi. "Otherwise you're just giving license to the insurance companies to cut people off."
Again and again, Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, Chris Van Hollen, and the other Democrats at the pressure employed a conservative argument against repeal. They drafted legislation that, according to the CBO, would cut the deficit. Republicans could not promise that. Everything Democrats supported, Pelosi said, would have to pass the test of "whether it creates job, strengthens the middle class, and reduces the deficit."
"They're going to employ budget gimmicks to try and hide the cost of their actions," said Van Hollen. "They're going to engage in Enron-type accounting to argue that repeal won't have that much of an impact on the deficit. They're going to rely on flim-flam."
More from Hoyer: "It seemed to me there were two compelling messages: We need to grow the economy and create jobs, and we need to do something about the deficit and the debt."
So that's the argument: HCR repeal might poll well, but they're going to attack the GOP over how much it costs. They're going to do so by presenting themselves as very considered about passing on debt, which is something Republicans will laugh off as long as they can get away with doing so.
‘WE HAVE NO REGRETS’: PELOSI MARKS LAST DAY AS SPEAKER
WASHINGTON (AP/The Blaze) — Democrat Nancy Pelosi said she had no regrets on her last day as House speaker Tuesday, a reign that lasted four years and is ending after the November elections.
Pelosi said Tuesday she looks forward to leading a loyal but tenacious opposition in the House. She started by calling Republicans hypocrites for trying to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, saying it would add to the federal budget deficit.
Republicans won the House majority in the November elections and John Boehner of Ohio will be sworn in as the new speaker on Wednesday. Pelosi — the first female speaker — will be demoted to minority leader.
Video: Pelosi: ‘No Regrets’ on Last Day as Speaker
“I don’t really look back, I look forward, and we look forward to, as I said before, being a willing partner and solving the problems of the American people,” Pelosi said at a news conference with other House Democrats. “When our Republican colleagues have positive solutions, again, they will have a willing partner in solving the problems of the American people.”
Pelosi said House Democrats will focus on creating jobs, improving the economy and shrinking the federal budget deficit. The deficit hit $1.3 trillion in the budget year that ended in September — a year in which Democrats controlled Congress and the White House.
With unemployment stuck above 9 percent, Pelosi was asked whether she regretted not doing more to improve the nation’s still-struggling economy while she was speaker. Pelosi said the nation’s economy was in a “near-depression” two years ago, when Obama first took office.
Since then, she said, the House passed numerous bills designed to create jobs that were ultimately blocked in the Senate, usually because the two chambers couldn’t agree on how to pay for them.
“We have no regrets,” Pelosi said. “This administration and this Congress inherited a near-depression. And so the initiatives that we took were positive for the American people. It’s not enough to save people from a depression, though. Nine-and-a-half percent unemployment is intolerable and as long as we have that we have to continue to fight for job creation.”
Pelosi even marked her abdication of the Speaker’s gavel via Twitter:
Pelosi chided House Republicans for scheduling a vote next week on a bill to repeal the new health care law. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the massive law will slightly reduce the federal deficit over the next 10 years. Repealing the law would therefore increase the deficit, Pelosi said.
Republicans say repealing the law is one of their top priorities, but they are sure to fail in the Senate, where Democrats still have a majority.
However… repealing ObamaCare or at least making the attempt is a mandate from the 2010 Election.
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