Bankrupt Claim

I've got to the point where I pretty much ignore all the silliness surrounding the health care bill. The name-calling, the lies, the empty promises, the bizarre claims, the crazy confidence, the ridiculous numbers, etc. Better to treat Congress as a black box where, I still believe, a law will eventually pop out and I can only hope it won't be too damaging.

But I still don't understand why Obama, who's doing his best to push the bill through four months after his first deadline passed, said if his health care legislation doesn't make it, the government "will go bankrupt."

This particular claim fails without requiring any knowledge of what's in the law (which, by the way, no one has yet, so it's odd to see the President being so certain of its effect).

It may be true we're heading for bankruptcy if we remain on our present path, but that doesn't mean our only hope is the particular bill under consideration. It doesn't even mean the bill will help. There's lots of other potential reform, and the President pretending otherwise makes him seem more close-minded than prescient.

Incidentally, here's a decent piece by Jacob Sullum on the President's speaking style. I guess all presidents have rhetorical tics, but I'm getting a bit tired of Obama's "make no mistake" and "there are those who...."

I wonder what it was like to be in the press 40 years ago, listening to Nixon's "let me make this perfectly clear" and "let me say this about that"?