Obama's Frankenstein

At IBD, "Frankenstein Rx":

How do you make a legislative monstrosity better? By making it worse. Congressional Democratic leaders are now sewing new limbs onto their Frankenstein monster.

The details of what lawmakers are doing as they begin to mark up health reform legislation this week would make you think of a mad scientist and his hunchback assistant trying to bring artificial life to the various components of rotting corpses they collected in the dark of night.

What is described as a "phantom bill" will now be approved in the House and sent to the Rules Committee, where, as the American Spectator describes it, "it will be stripped, and then they'll insert in all of the actual changes that they've negotiated."

This week's new 2,309-page bill — actually an old version that passed some House committees — even contains the public option, to be stripped out as part of this convoluted process.

On top of the big increases in health care premiums that the Congressional Budget Office warns will come if this government power-grab passes into law, and on top of stepping on the gas toward fiscal disaster by in effect establishing a new government entitlement, Democratic leaders have now added, of all things, a student aid bill to win moderate Democratic votes.

Bet you didn't think health reform had anything to do with the establishment of a new "Advisory Council on Green, High-Performing Public School Facilities," as Section 343 on Pages 2,227 to 2,230 of the bill provides for. The new multibillion-dollar bureaucracy "shall be composed of appropriate officials from the Department of Education; representatives of the academic, architectural, business, education, engineering, environmental, labor, and scientific communities; and such other representatives as the secretary (of Education) deems appropriate."

Among the new Green School Council members' duties is "identifying federal policies that are barriers to helping states and local educational agencies make green, high-performing schools." "Health reform" also now features federal grants for things like the "retrofitting necessary to increase the energy efficiency and water efficiency of public school facilities."

This is what it was always about. More at the link, in any case.

Cartoon Hat Tip: Michael Ramirez.