Video: Kline on the new “transparency” in Congress

(By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air) - Nancy Pelosi says that the process that produced the ObamaCare bill has been the most open and transparent process in human history, but Rep. John Kline (R-MN) says that’s absurd. In this clip from yesterday’s Neil Cavuto show, Kline — my Representative — tells Cavuto that we’re seeing the triumph of speed over policy, expediency over transparency, and radical partisanship over cooperation. Kline says that 'something' will get passed, but it doesn’t have to be what we see now:



Democrats will counter by saying that Republicans refused to go along with Democrats on the stimulus plan, and have been obstructionist on ObamaCare as well. That devolves to a chicken-and-egg argument, and in both cases, Democrats took positions that they knew would provoke that response. How many Republicans did anyone think would go along with massive pork projects masquerading as stimulus? How many did Democrats believe would go for an obvious Trojan horse for single-payer health care?

In both cases, Kline is correct in saying that Democrats could easily have called for open talks about reforms and stimulus proposals that could get wide-ranging support. Even just politically, that would have been smarter than the approach they took, which has placed all of the blame for failures on Democratic shoulders, and all of the blame for their overreach as well.