O's ego booster shot - NYPOST.com

O's ego booster shot

By MICHAEL GOODWIN

Last Updated: 5:46 AM, March 24, 2010

Posted: 4:07 AM, March 24, 2010

Truth delayed is truth denied. Or at least truth was denied until yesterday, when the fig leaf of "health-care reform" was shredded. Finally exposed was the Holy Grail of the ruthless quest.

It was so our Narcissist-In-Chief could claim another notch on history's belt.

Don't think for a second the whole last year was about reducing the deficit or bending the cost curve. Nor was it ever really about helping Americans who need better medical care. A handful of those poor souls were there again yesterday, human props for his show.

As he smugly read the roster of predecessors who tried and failed, from T.R. to Bill and Hillary, there was no pretense of modesty. This was about him.

The imperial trappings of coronation -- of all things, a rock-star introduction of the president at a signing ceremony! The giddy celebration of self and party, the hailing of bureaucrats and congressional hacks as heroes and more odes to the Kennedy clan were as welcome as fingernails on a blackboard.

Yet it was also predictable. A presidency dedicated to the pursuit of glory is a presidency squandered on ceremony.

"You're the reason we're here," Vice President Joe Biden said obsequiously to his boss. Never has a phrase been more pregnant with double meaning.

Yes, Obama is the reason the Democrats were celebrating -- and the reason not a single Republican was with them. Not all Democrats were there, for at least opponents were bipartisan.

Obama is also the reason more than half the country could feel uninvited to the party in the people's house. They made clear every chance they had -- from elections to polls to demonstrations -- that they were voting no.

For their trouble, they were ignored and often demonized. Their government does not represent them.

It represents itself and its advocate acolytes. The party-in-a-hot house is what the Dems have become under Obama.

Their disconnect from the people who pay for their imperial courts is now complete. They acted like children at a birthday party, oblivious to the pain in a nation where perhaps 15 million are out of work.

Obama's the reason they are unbothered. He has reduced the jobless to a statistical annoyance.

A president is elected to lead, and Obama is leading America into a dead end. He could have gone for honest reform by agreeing to important changes that enjoy broad public support.

The chief aim should have been to arrest rising costs. The savings could have been used to expand coverage and ensure health care and the economy were on a stable course.

Instead, he opted for a misguided takeover of 17 percent of the nation's product on the backs of a rented slice of Congress. The new entitlement will create a gusher of red ink and there is a very good chance the world's finest health system will be diminished by longer waits, shoddy care and higher costs.

This is Obamaism. It is sold with claims so false they are odious.

Glib lies repeated daily are means to the end in which the state assumes more power, more money, more control. When he says "we," he means "we the party, we the government."

Sunday night, after the House acted, he crowed that "this is what change looks like."

Indeed it does, at least the change he brings. Washington is now a one-party town, determined to work its will on a nation increasingly united against it.

It is not the change Americans want.

If we are smart and brave, the good change, the change that will rescue the nation, comes in November. Oh, hurry.

CLONE THIS ONE BRAVE CITY POL

STOP! Thief! That's what Mayor Bloomberg is saying about ObamaCare's impact on the city.

The combined tax hikes in the Medicare portion on earned and unearned income will siphon over $5 billion a year from New Yorkers, starting in 2013, his office says. The plan for a 40 percent tax on so-called "Cadillac" health plans would cost city taxpayers $1.5 billion more when all its sticky-fingers take effect in 2020.

That money would be picked from New Yorkers' pockets and shipped to Washington for the bureaucrats to dispense. Maybe their bridges to nowhere could be dedicated to the New Yorkers whose sweat paid for them.

The folly is that the city's congressional delegation put party ahead of its New York constituents and neighbors. It is not representation, it is misrepresentation.

Put the $6.5 billion a year in context: Total city tax revenues now run about $37 billion. The added federal bite would thus shift the equivalent of about 17 percent of annual city taxes to Washington. Every year.

It is unconscionable and ruinous drain of New York wealth for a ravenous national government that knows no limits. That is not an ideological argument.

As Bloomberg said, the money we ship to Washington is money that won't be spent here on food, doctors, clothing, apartments, cars. That means jobs won't be created here so ObamaCare can spread the wealth there.

Bloomy aides are still trying to decipher the impact of the final bill to add up the total hit, as are Albany bean counters. The vast expansion of Medicaid won't be cheap, with New Yorkers paying for it either through local taxes or federal ones.

All city reps are Dems, and the only one with the sense to vote no on the monstrosity was Mike McMahon (above) from Staten Island. Maybe some of our money could be used to clone him.

Cab-scam watchdog gets a flat

Each day brings more proof the Taxi and Limousine Commission is the gang that can't shoot straight -- or count.

Let's review the bidding. The cab-ocrats missed the overcharge scam for years, then announced riders had been ripped off by $8.3 million. They were specific in saying 35,558 hacks, out of 48,300, were part of the scam.

Now they're not sure of anything. Matthew Daus, outgoing TLC boss, told a City Council hearing that new data show some suspect drivers never received an improper dime even though meter receipts showed the wrong rate code.

"It could be accidental," he said.

Yes, and I can pitch for the Yankees. Here in the real world, all that's certain is the TLC can't be trusted to dig itself out of its own mess and guarantee riders they're not getting ripped off.

A thought from an insolent subject: Perhaps Lord Bloomberg could stir himself to get the truth.

Politics on the cheap & cheat

The Post's revelations about part-time council members and Albany porkers spending millions of public money to reward their friends and buy votes reveals the mindset of many legislators. They pay no attention to oversight, or even the details of the laws they vote on.

Their sole concern is how much money they can dole out. Of course, most of the big givers are tightwads when it comes to their own charitable giving. They're only big spenders when it's taxpayer dough.

One hot jokester

Maybe it was Nobel Prize envy when Bill Clinton dinged his former veep the other night. Bubba dead panned that spring is "other wise known to Al Gore as proof of global warming."