Obama To Take Victory Lap To Iowa

The time for talk is over…for everyone but him. And the time for gloating has just begun.

President Obama will take to road this week to sell his healthcare insurance overhaul package to the American people, whom polls show remain dubious about the package.

Obama is scheduled to travel to Iowa City, Iowa, on Thursday, the White House announced. By then, it is expected that he will have signed the healthcare overhaul legislation that the House passed on Sunday.

Yes, after a year of watching him lie, bully,  bribe, abuse the system,  and use every shady practice under the sun to pass ObamaCare you could say we’re “dubious”.

Obama has already made more than 50 speeches to sell healthcare, but this one will be a bit of a victory lap.

The president likely will remind people of the historic nature of healthcare reform, which has simmered on the public burner for a century. He will also stress his favorite selling points – the consumer issues that limit predatory insurance company practices.

Like all Democrats this election year, he will talk about government projections that the bill will cut the federal deficit by more than $1.3 trillion over 20 years – a pitch to those conservatives and independents worried about the effect of spending on future generations.

A “pitch”, huh? Is that what we’re calling bold-faced lies, now? Who but the most koolaid-drinking Obot believes anything the man says anymore? Who enjoys being lied to time and time again?

Charles Krauthammer takes the hammer to Obama’s pitch.

The $1 trillion is a hoax. The CBO talked about the second decade, but it said this is extremely chancy, iffy, this is not a hard number. And look, that trillion dollars of saving in the second decade assumes that Congress in 2018 is going to pass the tax on Cadillac health plans, which Congress today under all the pressure of the president won’t even touch.

So of course it’s not going to happen in 2018. Of course you are not going to have a $1 trillion surplus. We know that in the first decade, it’s not a plan of $1 trillion. It’s a plan that will cost us $2.5 trillion. We’ll be deeply in debt.

We’re supposed to forget everything that happened over the past year because of  a few more smoothly told pitches from TOTUS? I don’t think so.

Dick Morris correctly notes that voter anger will last well into November:

The anger of the voters at this total disregard of public opinion will power Republican candidates throughout the nation and will impel one of the greatest reversals of Congressional alignment in history.

But the aftershock of this political earthquake is yet to come. It will be upon us in the fall when Congress must decide whether to proceed with the Medicare cuts (particularly to cut in doctors’ reimbursement rates) or to postpone or cancel them and add the cost to the federal deficit.

Either they will make a shambles of Medicare or a mockery of their pretense of fiscal responsibility. The cuts would force broad swaths of the medical community – physicians and institutions – to refuse to treat Medicare patients. Their cancellation of postponement would swell the deficit and underscore the cynicism with which President Obama characterized the plan as a great deficit reduction measure.

This vote transforms the political landscape in a way that we have not seen in our lifetimes and the results will be cataclysmic for the Democratic Party.

Do not screw this up, Republicans.

MORE:

Jennifer Rubin is having a hard time seeing the upside for Democrats:

It’s therefore quite possible that the public (at least those who vote consistently) won’t — even after a sales job — come to appreciate the wonders of the bill. There just aren’t that many wonders. It is, as Zelnick points out, quite different in this regard from popular entitlement programs (”social security was carefully tailored to satisfy a pressing need for security among the elderly while Medicare and Medicaid also responded to well defined public need”). Here there is a lot of pain with uncertain gains. And that’s before we consider the aggregate impact on the nation’s fiscal health.

Perceptions change over time, but it’s hard to see how this becomes the sort of beloved entitlement plan that Democrats hope will earn the voters’ gratitude.

RELATED:

Aw. Apparently, some Dems are  little hung over, today. According to John Boehner, a few are already experiencing “voters’ remorse”.

HOUSE DEMS ALREADY COPING WITH MISGUIDED VOTE FOR UNAFFORDABLE, JOB-KILLING BILL

House Democrat: “I Feel Like I Am Walking The Plank.” “Obama May Pay Price By Pushing ‘Political Chips’ on Health Care. Still, Obama’s victory leaves him depleted. ‘There has been a large ‘opportunity cost’ that the president and the Democratic Party have paid for going down this road,’ said William Galston, a onetime domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton.  Obama is unlikely to find either Democratic or Republican willingness to work on issues of mutual concern. … Said Representative Baron Hill, an Indiana Democrat, ‘I feel like I am walking the plank.’” (Bloomberg, 3/22/10)

“Casting Votes … For Their Own Political Extinction.” “But House Democrats, who have endured months of draining debate and attacks from tea party activists … more relieved than overjoyed — and many may have been casting votes, on a warm spring night, for their own political extinction.  … But even Sunday’s stunning comeback victory couldn’t paper over the reality that congressional Democrats, who face a potentially devastating backlash in the midterms, won’t enjoy the benefits…” (Politico, 3/21/10)

Dem shills keep talking up how popular this thing is going to be as soon as Americans see how wonderful it all is. Then there’s Doug Schoen:

Dem Pollster: “They’ve Totally Divided The Country.” “By moving the package with Democratic votes alone, ‘they’ve totally divided the country,’ and it will be difficult for Obama to calm voters before November, said Doug Schoen, a Democratic pollster who worked for former President Clinton.” (The Boston Globe, 3/22/10)

Another reason why it will be difficult to calm voters….they don’t believe him.