Testing the Law of Unintended Consequences Posted by: McQ
on Saturday, November 22, 2008
Henry Waxman managed to change the guard yesterday, by defeating Democratic Rep John Dingell for the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Dingell was more of a heartland traditional Democrat, and one who might or might not have played ball when it came to the more ambitious and radical agenda of the incoming administration as it pertains to health care and the environment.
Nancy Pelosi, who claimed to be neutral in the whole thing, but most believe tacitly backed her fellow California contingent member Waxman, said this in a statement after Waxman had secured the chairmanship:
"Henry Waxman will bring to the post of Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee the outstanding leadership he has demonstrated as Chair of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. He has been a longtime leader on health care, drug safety and affordability, and climate change. Under his leadership, the committee and the entire caucus will make progress toward making America energy independent, making health care available to all Americans, and addressing the greatest challenge of our time, global warming.
"House Democrats will move forward from this vote with unity to take America in a New Direction."
Waxman is a rabid partisan with antibusiness tendencies and certainly someone more inclined to do the bidding of Pelosi when it comes to health care and environmental issues. He's also more likely go after oil companies, big pharma, insurance and any of the other corporate entities that show up on the ever changing Congressional "enemies" list while also driving legislation that will "cap and trade" us into economic oblivion. And unions - they should prosper, relatively speaking.
The irony is that Democrats have found, in Mr. Waxman, an even more extreme antibusiness tribune, who will no doubt use his new powers to go after any concern that turns a profit but refuses to pay his party the obeisance of campaign cash and regulatory submission. In short, the Democrats have ousted the dean of the House for the spleen of the House.
Meanwhile, in another sign of the Waxman ascendancy, President-elect Obama has named Philip Schiliro, a Waxman loyalist and his former chief of staff, as the new White House director of Congressional relations. Robert Sussman, who leads the transition's Environmental Protection Agency "review team," has been an astringent critic of Mr. Dingell on carbon regulation. And Carol Browner, Al Gore's protégé turned Clinton EPA administrator turned director of Mr. Obama's "energy working group," is another old Dingell foe.
It's obvious who now pulls the Democratic levers of power, and anyone in the energy or health-care business had better erect the barricades.
So Waxman in the House, Daschle as HHS and Emanuel as CoS. A triangulation of a different sort. The team, with Kennedy pushing from the Senate, is set to ram health care through the system soon after January 20th and stage a government takeover of a huge sector of the economy the likes of which haven't been see for ... well a few weeks, as a matter of fact.
Yes, in a matter of about 6 months or so, our government may have essentially taken over the financial, banking and health care industries - and perhaps, the auto industry just for fun.
Absolutely nothing can go wrong with that, can it?
we are always so behind the Europeans, they have gotten rid of most of their nationalized industries after decades of disaster. Now we must make the same mistakes all over again.
we are always so behind the Europeans, they have gotten rid of most of their nationalized industries after decades of disaster. Now we must make the same mistakes all over again.
There’s no European country that would not have bailed out its auto industry if all of it was at risk. One they may let go, the entire ball of wax, no.
In fact, Germany put together over $1 billion dollar bailout package for GM’s European Arm, without GM North America even asking. It looks as if they are ready to ’liberate’ Opel off GM’s hands if it goes under.
There is also a limit of how deeply they’ll accept market share penetration from imports.
I congratualte Henry Waxman on his appointment as our new Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. We expect great things from his sage leadership.
The first thing we ask Chairman Waxman to investigate is the log jam that took place on november 20th when many companies, like How2SaveFuel LLC with whom I am working with, experienced. We we had been assured we could enter our requests for grant until the end of the day via Internet. After spending hundreds of hours in preparation, the Internet URL could not handle the load. We tried for over 5 hours to get our petition in, and finally managed to do so, but unfortunately, by then we were three hours late.
How much of this was planned and how much was just plain incompetence is yet to be determined, but it is an issue in great need of correction immediately. This can break small companies doing their level best to aid America in its need to reduce the depencency on foreign oil and cledaning up the environment.
This is the year for change. May we find leadership in the fight to make government responsibe again.
This should be a very interesting year coming up. The dems are pretty much in complete control of everything when you throw in the RINOs. I predict they will do severe damage to any industry, heck, anything, they touch. When the damage becomes apparent they will blame everyone but themselves. They will then enact more of the same legislation that caused the damage in the first place, causing even more damage, and so on.
They will never accept that their collectivist ideas do not bring growth and prosperity in the real world.
It makes me feel so much better to know that the author of the "Waxman Amendment" for Long Term Care is going to cost the taxpayers even more money in even more ways for precisely the same idiocy.
Indications are that the Donkeys are going to face a bloodbath in 2010 that will make what happened to the Elephants in 2006 look mild.
