The staggering incongruity of Congressional "thinking"

All of it bears repeating, no matter how philosophically cliché-ish it's become.

The Iraq war was no emergency; there was time for it to be lightly pondered by Congress, debated in editorial pages and on Sunday morning talk shows, argued about among friends and coworkers.

Another war was already in progress, at great, unfunded expense. The economy had not fully recovered from 9/11. Massive tax cuts had already been passed, and turn-of-the-century federal surpluses were marked for certain and severe reversal. More than a few Middle East experts were predicting that U.S. military forces could be bogged down in Iraq for years, even decades, to come.

There was no emergency -- and though many knowledgeable economists were predicting the anticipated war's extravagant expense to the public treasury, we nevertheless rushed in like unangelic fools.

Cost be damned. This, we were told by the Bush administration and an all too compliant Congress, was something we simply had to do. Inside the Beltway, real debate was fleeting.

Yet a trillion dollars in red ink and thousands of dead Americans later, suddenly the fiscal cost of caring for American lives becomes the idée fixe among a potential Congressional majority. Unlike the purported nobility of an unprovoked bloody war overseas, health care in America must be weighed and measured with nearly exclusive, meticulous attention to its price tag.

Furthermore, or so we're instructed, although bureaucrats and government forces are somehow able to manage and maintain an extensive global empire, it's foolhardy to imagine that a government-paid physician could ever competently manage to check your blood pressure.

Mostly, however, it's a cost thing. Congress is hawkishly looking out for your pocketbook, as reflected in the federal government's bookkeeping columns of debits and assets. Heaven forbid that Congress just jump into some major new adventure without first knowing -- precisely -- that its every effort is paid for. Congress doesn't work that way. Don't see above.

It was, then, with boundless crocodile tears that Congressional conservatives greeted the vaguest of news this week from the Congressional Budget Office's director, Douglas Elmendorf, who told the Senate Budget Committee that apropos of the various reform bills in motion, "We" -- he and his staff -- "do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount. On the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care costs."

As the Wall Street journal reported, "Elmendorf addressed his analysis generally to the main bills moving in the House and Senate. He suggested the analysis is evolving, noting the House bill was only released "two days ago.' "

But Elmendorf caught up with the House bill soon enough, releasing a statement yesterday, as the NY Times now reports, that in 10 years time the bill would "result in a net increase in the federal budget deficit of $239 billion."

Shock and appalled awe again reverberated throughout the halls of Congress. Oh my God! That total breaks down to an encumbering $1.9 billion a month -- somewhere between 10 and 20 percent of the monthly red ink we poured into Iraq. Oh my God!

The Washington Post characterized Elmendorf's initial appraisal as "a devastating assessment," which "fuel[ed] an insurrection among fiscal conservatives in the House."

Said, for instance, an Arkansas Blue Dog -- forget the Republicans; they're neither part of the debate or any ruling party -- "We have to take steps to hold health-care costs to the rate of inflation, or we will never balance our federal budget again and health-insurance costs will continue to become less and less affordable for the American people." He failed to connect that latter inevitability, in the absence of reform, to budget deficits; but hey, this is politics, where lobotomized bullshit reigns.

Said another Blue Dog, this one from Utah: Elmendorf's warning was "of great concern. If we don't reform the system to get costs under control, then nothing else matters."

Nothing else. Nothing else. Not you, not your family, not their health, not their lack of care or the exorbitant and rising cost of whatever care they may have, for the time being.

Nothing but the federal government's balance sheet counts -- you know, just like when Congress was pondering a potential 30 Years War, without one Lincoln penny to pay for it.