Bank tax to special interest health carve out...

...gross hypocrisy is thy name:

Krauthammer's Take [NRO Staff]

On the bank tax announced by President Obama yesterday:

This is being sold with incredible demagoguery as a payment. The president says: “I want my money back.”

In fact, the majority of banks have repaid. Some of the banks never received any of the TARP money, and some of them were forced into receiving [it] at the point of a gun in the Bush administration.

And, as you pointed out, the real delinquents here, GM and Chrysler, are not being asked to pay anything because of Democratic ties with Michigan and the UAW.

Now, there is merit here if it [the bank tax] were portrayed in a different way. The banks, the larger banks, have, as a result of what happened in '09 and '08, an implicit understanding around the world that the U.S. government will step in [if they fail]...
But this is not how it's portrayed. The way Obama is selling it, it is a punishment for old behavior [causing the crisis in the first place] rather than a fee that you would collect in return for a certain advantage [implicit government guarantee] as a result of what happened in 2008 and 2009. …

On Obama’s deal with union executives on taxing health-care plans:

The hypocrisy here is really staggering. This is the president who ran on a premise that he would bring new politics, where the special interests would not write the bills, where this would be a politics of the people, that there would be transparency. And this is the most corrupt, deal-swapping piece of legislation in memory.

What you have is a bill being written by Democratic constituencies on behalf of Democratic constituencies.

Here [with the “Cadillac” insurance plans], of course, are the union members who are getting a break.

And the biggest corrupt deal of all is what's not in the bills. The biggest drain on health care in the country — huge, in the hundreds of billions a year — is the unnecessary procedures and practices as a result of a legal malpractice system out of control, defensive medicine. Everybody understands that.

There is not a word about it [malpractice reform] in the bills. That's because the trial lawyers own the Democratic party.

This is a bill where if you are a Democratic constituent like a member of a union, you get a break. Or if you are a trial lawyer, you get a break. If you are not, you pay for everybody else.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/page4.p