Now that the health care bill has passed the Senate, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are all set to get this thing shoved down our throats once and for all. Nancy Pelosi promised us the most ethical, open, transparent Congress ever — and here she is, giving us secret closed door meetings to ram through legislation that America hates, without the input of Republicans and a lot of Democrats, too.

Democratic leaders are looking to forgo a formal, public conference to merge the House and Senate’s health care overhaul bills, giving Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the White House free rein to hammer out the final measure behind closed doors and thwart Republican efforts to stymie it.

The maneuver gives Democratic leaders the ability to quickly work through hundreds of differences between the 2,000-page bills and to keep control over the deals they will need to make on politically touchy topics such as abortion, taxes and Medicare cuts.

… An informal conference is likely to reinforce claims that Democrats haven’t upheld Mr. Obama’s campaign pledge to keep the health care reform process transparent — complete with C-SPAN cameras.

“Harry Reid’s continued efforts to throw transparency out the window and shut out the American people on a bill that will affect one-sixth of America’s economy is an outrage,” said Brian Walsh, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “It’s clear his past statements about supporting transparency were nothing but lip service by a professional politician who has lost touch with the voters who sent him to Washington.”

This health care bill is a disaster for America. Voters know it and politicians know it. Taxes will skyrocket, care will start being rationed, and abortion will be taxpayer funded. It’s why Reid and Pelosi are trying to hammer this out in secret — away from voters’ eyes (and C-SPAN cameras) and away from Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who might be against this monstrosity.

Something like this would have greatly bothered Harry Reid a few years ago, of course. Today? Not so much.

The CEO of C-SPAN, Brian Lamb, wants Pelosi & Co. to at least let the cameras in . Pelosi’s response? Nein!

But Pelosi said Congress has already been transparent throughout the process.

“There has never been a more open process for any legislation,” Pelosi said at a press conference.

Pelosi also hinted that holding informal negotiations–likely without TV cameras–might be the most practical way to push the legislation through.

To call this transparency is to insult the American public. Obama could make these negotiations open and transparent, as they are taking place in the West Wing. But that won’t happen either. This is transparency in the eyes of Democrats: votes being held in the middle of the night, political bribes and afavors being used to buy off hesitant politicians, and secret committees.

(5 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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