Nancy Pelosi Loses Her Speaker’s Gavel

Today Nancy Pelosi lost her Speaker's gavel. But she hasn't gone quietly. She has been engaging in a massive public relations campaign to re-write her dismal record with outright lies. Yesterday, Pelosi demonstrated how far she is willing to stretch the truth. At her final press conference as House Speaker (thank goodness) Pelosi portrayed herself and fellow Democrats as deficit hawks:

Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go.

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Excuse me? When the Pelosi Democrats took control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8,670,596,242,973.04. By the last day of the 111th Congress and Pelosi's term as Speaker on December 22, 2010, the national debt had increased by about $5.2 trillion – a whopping 60 percent increase. The national debt is approaching $14 trillion, about a trillion dollars more than it was just last June! Although denouncing Pelosi's spin, Bill O'Reilly was charitable to Pelosi last night when he refused to call her an out and out liar. He chalked her contortion of the facts to a case of delusion. Maybe she took an overdose of medically prescribed marijuana back in her hometown of San Francisco during the holidays, which could explain what she had to say about Obamacare. I think she is just a congenital liar. Pelosi said the other day that her team would have passed Obamacare even if all Americans were happy with their existing health coverage. Why? Because, explains the San Francisco Leftie, the costs of the existing health system are unsustainable. Her fix? Replace it with a less efficient system run by the government. Contrary to Pelosi's fantasies, even according to government number-crunchers the health-care overhaul won’t significantly change national health spending over the next decade compared with projections before the law was passed. Actually, premiums and employee co-payments are already going up as a result of the increased burdens on the system imposed by Obamacare. Ironically, for example, the insurance costs of one of Obamacare's leading supporting organizations – AARP – are going up this year due to rapidly rising costs that are partly caused by Obamacare's new requirements. The New York Times today questioned in its lead editorial the wisdom of the new Republican House majority's decision to read out loud the Constitution this week and to require that every bill cite the constitutional power given to congress to enact it. The Times called such expression of reverence for our Constitution “vacuous fundamentalism.” The Times editorial also asked rhetorically:

Is this group of Republicans really trying to suggest that they care more deeply about the Constitution than anyone else and will follow it more closely?

The answer is that, by their own words, Democratic leaders in the last session of Congress couldn't care less what the Constitution said if it got in the way of their progressive agenda. For example, when CNS News.com asked Pelosi back in 2009 where the Constitution authorized Congress to order Americans to buy health insurance, Pelosi dismissed the question by saying: “Are you serious? Are you serious?” Apparently at least one federal district court judge, Henry E. Hudson of Federal District Court in Richmond, Virginia, answered that question for her. And then there is good old U.S. Representative Fortney “Pete” Stark (D-Calif.) who has been in Congress close to 40 years. In response to a constituent's question concerning the limits on federal power, Stark responded that there were very few constitutional limitations:

“The federal government can do most everything in this country.

As Pelosi gives up the Speakers' gavel, perhaps we are finally about to see our Constitution taken seriously in the “people's House.”