Thread: Pelosi: ObamaCare incompetence “not my responsibility”

Pelosi: ObamaCare incompetence “not my responsibility”

posted at 10:01 am on January 31, 2014 by Ed Morrissey

Video at the Page Link:

This appearance by Nancy Pelosi on The Daily Show starts to run off the rails almost immediately. Jon Stewart starts off by asking Pelosi about why people talk about politics rather than policy, to which Pelosi answers by … complaining about Republicans. Stewart doesn’t take the bait, though, and starts pressing Pelosi for answers as to why big-government politicians can’t produce competent government — and gets stunned by her admission that she can’t explain why ObamaCare failed:

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Stewart said that Democrats are then required to make a stronger case. He said that Democratic governance now appears “chaotic” and their execution of legislation appears to “lack efficiency.” When Pelosi again blamed Republicans for this condition, Stewart became even more agitated.
When he asked why it was so difficult to get a company to execute the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchange website “competently,” Pelosi replied, “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean you don’t know? How do you not know?” Stewart asked laughing.

To which Nancy Pelosi responded: “It’s not my responsibility.” Hmmm. Who ran the House when the ObamaCare bill passed, with only votes from her party? Who claimed at the time that we couldn’t know how awesome this bill would be until it passed, because you couldn’t expect politicians to actually read a 2800-page bill before they voted on it? Given that this passed entirely on votes from her own party, and with some procedural chicanery thrown in for good measure, does she feel no responsibility at all for the results of this legislation she herself championed?
That’s a pretty good answer to Stewart’s broader point. He cites the ongoing problems at the VA as evidence that there is “clearly something systemic” in government incompetence:

“Do we have a foundational problem? Is there a corruption in the system that needs to be addressed?” Stewart asked. Pelosi went on to detail the issues with bureaucracy and the failure of departments to communicate with each other. “Okay, do something about it,” Pelosi said.
“I was actually going to say that to you,” Stewart interjected.

The systemic problem is the fact that big-government regimes like ObamaCare won’t work because central planning of large economies never work, for reasons laid out by economist F. A. Hayek decades ago in The Road to Serfdom. History has only proven Hayek correct over and over again, while utopians keep insisting that the problem is just the people involved in its implementation. And Hayek predicts why incompetents and bullies end up at the top of those systems, too. Maybe Stewart should read it. It’s far too late for Pelosi.
Update: Here’s a rebuttal from someone who doesn’t grasp the difference between ObamaCare and, say, SNAP or Social Security:

From Road to Serfdom, pages 148-149:
There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attained the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom. …. [T]here can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody. … Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individual in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision.
”Where, as in the case of sickness and accident, neither the desire to avoid such calamities nor the efforts to overcome their consequences are as a rule weakened by the provision of assistance – where, in short, we deal with genuinely insurable risks – the case for the state’s helping to organize a comprehensive system of social insurance is very strong. There are many points of detail where those wishing to preserve the competitive system and those wishing to super-cede it by something different will disagree on the details of such schemes; and it is possible under the name of social insurance to introduce measures which tend to make competition more or less ineffective. But there is no incompatibility in principle between the state’s providing greater security in this way and the preservation of individual freedom.
The product of approximately 30 seconds of Google searching. You should issue a correction for misrepresenting Hayek’s work. But you won’t. You won’t respond to my email to explain why you won’t issue a correction either. You aren’t interested in being right, only in winning. But feel free to prove me wrong on any of these counts.

Of course I’m aware of this passage. I don’t disagree with it, either; I’m not a Randian. But the key difference is that social-insurance programs like SNAP don’t impose top-down control over the economy or a significant part of it. ObamaCare explicitly does do that by issuing mandates for coverage, mandates on employers, and mandates on people to buy it. Central control over this economy is its main purpose. SNAP, Medicaid, and even Medicare (in principle) don’t force everyone under the rubric of that control, either; there is no “grocery insurance” mandate, as an example. They are voluntary programs which allow for people to choose entry or refuse it for the regular marketplace. ObamaCare controls exert force universally in the health-care market, thanks to its mandates.
Just as Hayek argued, when government takes top-down control of economies, they remove choice, innovation, and get things incredibly wrong — because central controllers cannot possibly know the proper choices in the millions and billions of transactions in those economies. Innovation dies quickly, especially when people try to work around it to actually have their needs met, and it gets more dysfunctional rather than less. Furthermore, the dysfunction and failures in the system will always get blamed on lack of cooperation, resulting in escalating punishments and intrusion – and more arbitrariness in following the law, which we’re already seeing. The people getting rewarded in those systems end up being the people more willing to abuse power in order to achieve the political ends of the top-down central controllers — and become less and less accountable as that process moves forward.
This is what happens when one Googles for excerpts rather than reading and comprehending the entire work. It reminds me of people who Google Bible verses to use in arguments with no comprehension of their meaning.

http://hotair.com/archives/2014/01/3...esponsibility/

Is Nancy Pelosi Competent to Serve in Congress?

62 Comments

Just when you think "Granny Nan from San Fran" can't possibly say something more stupid than "We have to pass the bill to see what's in it"- she never disappoints. The other night on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Nancy Pelosi was asked about why the Obamacare website failed and her response is nothing short of hilarious. She said, "I don't know," and when Stewart asked her "How could you not know," she said, "It's not my responsibility."
Will someone please explain how this obviously mentally impaired person got elected to public office? Are the voters in California drinking water with hallucinogenic drugs in it?

Here is her exchange with Stewart:

JON STEWART: Why do we have so much trouble executing the plans with any kind of efficiency?

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, again, if you're dealing with people who have no agenda, you know, who nothing -- nothing is their agenda and never is our timetable, it's very hard to negotiate with them. So we are responsible. In other words, call us responsible. They know we're going to vote not to shut down government. They know we are going to vote for the budget no matter how unpleasant it is. The choice we have is to be irresponsible and follow their path or we don't want to be fearmongers but to explain this to the public is very bad news. We want to be positive.

STEWART: Aside from that aspect, I meant more in terms of, 'Okay, we are going to set up a health care web site that is an exchange. People are going to come to it.' Why is it so hard to get a company to execute that competently?
PELOSI: I don't know. As one who was very --

PELOSI: No, and that is my question.

STEWART: Let me get the House Minority Leader here, I can ask her. Hold on. What do you mean you don't know? How do you not know?

PELOSI: It's not my responsibility. But I will say this, we worked very hard to honor our responsibility to pass the bill that honors the vowels of our founders: life, a healthier life, liberty to pursue your happiness.

STEWART: Really?

PELOSI: Yeah. If you want to be a writer, if you want to be a comedian, if you want to be a camera person, if you want to start a business.

STEWART: But those are theoretical. I'm talking about practical.

PELOSI: So for us, this vision that we have, this actual legislation that makes life better for people was our contribution to the future. That they would have -- that there would be a web site that didn't work is so appalling, so shameful. So I share the concern that the public does [have], but it is getting better.


"I share the concern that the public does"? That response coming from the same person who said "We have to pass the bill to see what's in it." She is also one of those who promised "If you like your current health care plIs an and doctor you can keep them." What planet does this woman come from, because it's not this one.

Video at the Page Link:

Nancy Pelosi has also referred to the TEA Party as "Nazis," "Astro-turf" and a myriad of other insulting labels. Are there any responsible, productive and or, reasonably intelligent members of the DNC? Nobody seems to know anything. Nobody takes responsibility for anything that goes wrong. It baffles the imagination as to why in God's name, people like Pelosi keep getting re-elected. Pelosi is also personally responsible for brow-beating those democrat members of congress who were hesitant about signing on to a piece of legislation that nobody read. Yet, her best response when asked about it is to say "I don't know"? Pelosi has grown incredibly wealthy during her tenure in congress. Both she and her husband, like the Obamas, have used her position in government to acquire as much wealth as possible. I made mention in a previous article that politicians like Pelosi, who signed the Affordable Health Care Act without reading it, should be arrested and tried for treason. I still stand by that statement, because nobody can possibly be as stupid as this woman acts.

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http://freedomoutpost.com/2014/02/na...erve-congress/