CANCEL THE VACATION

In one way, the Obama administration is conducting business as usual.
The president's drug "czar," Gil Kerlikowske, was in Fresno for a pot
bust last week, and he said that marijuana "has no medicinal benefit,"
just as Democratic and Republican administrations have been claiming
for decades. See how easy it is to lie about health care matters and
get away with it?

As we knew it would be, this is a season of major lying. Drafting of
health care legislation is before Congress, and the two political
parties have been engaging in debate that is truth-free.

Democrats constantly cut corners on likely costs, telling us that
"reform" can be accomplished on the cheap, claims disputed by common
sense and independent studies that get little attention.

Republicans constantly raise the specter of "bureaucratic" health
care, as though the private sector has not already bureaucratized
health care, and as though an existing federal health program,
Medicaid, were not a lean, efficient program with famously low
administrative costs of 3 percent or less.

Helping congressmembers along with their lies is journalism, which is
making no effort to scrutinize political claims and give the public
some trustworthy and independent readings of the accuracy of the
claims. Getting opposing comments from Democrats and Republicans in
news stories passes for balanced news coverage. (In the case of
Kerlikowske's lie, an opposing view was not even provided in most
mainstream stories.)

So this process of lies lumbers along, Democrats in the House and
Senate slapping together a politically driven health care "reform"
program built on bipartisan falsehoods.

Added to this flawed mix are the indolent work habits of Congress.
Leaders in both the House and the Senate say they will not be able to
finish the health care legislation before their August-September
"recess." Obviously, that calls for canceling the recess and staying
with it. So naturally, Congress is leaving town.

It's not as though the Congress has been keeping its collective nose
to the grindstone. In addition to being off most Saturdays and Sundays
this year, the Senate was off three weekdays in January, five in
February, three in March, 14 in April, seven in May, four in June, and
six in July. It worked one weekend day in January and one in February.
That comes to 40 days off since Jan. 1. In other words, of the first
seven months of the year, the Senate has yet to work a single full
month. After this brutal work schedule, Congress is celebrating not
getting its work done by taking a vacation--five weeks off for the
House, four weeks for the Senate.

Sen. Harry Reid said when he became Democratic leader that he would
crack down on Senate truancy. This doesn't show it.

So cutting this vacation short would simply be making up days not
worked earlier in the year. The congressional work ethic bears no
resemblance to that experienced by most workers in the United States,
and it's time it did.

Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid, cancel the vacation and keep
working.