It all boils down to electoral hypocrisy.

When a President you like spends everybody’s money on things you agree with – lets say an unwarranted war in Iraq, or abstinence taught in schools – you probably don’t complain.   I did complain, but I complained online on my blog, or in 2008 with my vote.  That’s the way Democracy works.  Or at least, is supposed to, if you don’t believe you’re entitled to power because because of your race, creed, color, faith or economic status.

Of course now that Obama is in office a lot of people are complaining about not wanting to pay for things they don’t want to pay for.  Whining about Cash for Clunkers, or talking about how the poor can wait for health care, even though those health care costs are anywhere between 16% and 20% of our economy.  Even though tackling those costs in a health care bill IS smart economic policy.

They complain – loudly, and sometimes with guns strapped to their sides – about this President spending their money.

I have not been left of center my entire life.  It’s a recent shift.

But for only 9 years since the 1980s, liberals – people to my left, have watched the government spend their tax dollars on things they didn’t want, didn’t believe in, didn’t care for.  They have watched funds dry up for things they were passionate over.  And I’m sure it sucked.

And here we are, not even into the first year of this president’s term – where he’s had to dig us out of the worst economic mess in our lifetime – and a lot of people – some who may very well have legitimate beefs about policy and others, quite frankly, who are flat-out bigots – going “waaaaa” over what their money is spent on.

And to you all, I humbly say… tough.

This is the way it works.  Majority votes, majority rules, and if it’s a big majority – say, your side was massively and biblically wrong about SO MANY THINGS that your party was tossed down the drain like so much dirty bathwater – thems the breaks.  The other side gets to set the priorities and make the changes now.

So I’m looking at this and I’m thinking – how could a guy as smart as I believe Obama to be, sit there and let himself get hammered on a daily basis?  How many times does he have to have the hand of bi-partisanship slapped away by some old, caucasian senator before he stops putting up with it?

And then I read this:

Reconciliation Now Has a Date: October 15

It’s been in the works for a while and now, according to senior Captiol Hill staffers, it’s a done deal: The final budget resolution will include a “reconciliation instruction” for health care. That means the Democrats can pass health care reform with just fifty votes, instead of the sixty it takes to break a filibuster.The deal was hatched late afternoon and last night, in a five-hour negotiating session at the office of Senate Majoriy Leader Harry Reid. A trio of White House officials were there: Rahm Emanuel, Peter Orszag, and Phil Schiliro. Also present, along with Reid, were House Budget Chairman John Spratt and Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad.

The reonciliation instruction specifies a date. That date, according to one congressional staffer, is October 15. (The original House reconciliation instruction had a late September deadline.)

In other words, the House and Senate each have until that day to pass health care legislation.

If they haven’t, then both houses will consider health care under the reconciliation process, which is relevant primarily for the way it affects the Senate. There will be a limit on the time of debate. Republicans won’t be able to filibuster it.