"The Death of Fiscal Conservatism"

Says who? Michelle Malkin, rightwing pundit and conservative pin-up girl. Attacking the "mother of all bailouts", a planned $1 trillion plus financial plan to rescue the United States financial system, Malkin declared "the death of fiscal conservatism" in a September 19th commentary (no I won't link to her, scoop your own poop). And she was very blunt in her critcism:

"This is your Bush legacy — not Pelosi's, not Reid's, not Obama's," Malkin wrote, naming the leaders of the House and Senate and the Democratic presidential nominee. "Fiscal conservatism has been on life support for quite some time. Bush/Paulson pulled the plug permanently today."

So where is John McCain, "The Deregulator"? After opposing the bailout of insurance giant AIG on Wednesday of last week, he was for the bailout on Thursday, and is now on board saying that he will support George Bush's bailout plan (maintaining his 100% support of Bush-o-nomics!). Then in breaking news over the weekend, McCain tells us in the October issue of the health insurance trade journal (American Academy of Actuaries), that he would bring the miracle of his bank deregulation to American Healthcare!

Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

McCain, He. Just. Doesn't. Get. It.

Barack Obama:

As anyone who has health care knows, the one thing we don’t need to do is give insurance companies an even freer hand over what they charge, who they cover, and what they’ll cover,” Obama said, according to prepared remarks.

The radical idea that government has no role to play in protecting ordinary Americans has wreaked havoc on our economy. And we cannot let this dangerous philosophy spread to health care.