Barney Links Health Care to Iraq

RUSH: Barney Frank is upset, ladies and gentlemen. He has a different theory as to why there’s a roadblock on health care and it’s all about defense spending. He was on MSNBC last night, and he was asked about the F-22, that they said we don’t need any more of those. Here’s what he said.

FRANK: We’re being told that we can’t afford to do health care, that we can’t afford to do housing, et cetera. Well, the military budget is the main reason we can’t afford it. If we had not fought that foolish and destructive war in Iraq, we would have the money to pay for health care. That whole debate wouldn’t happen.

RUSH: We have the money for health care in the stimulus package, Barn. We could have insured 12 million people, the poor, working poor, we could have insured 12 million people for $29 billion for one year. Chump change compared to the one trillion we spent. If this is so important, Barn — liberals never change. They never change. Cut defense, cut defense, cut defense — you know entitlements are over 60% of the budget? Entitlements. So Barney wasn’t through. He was all revved up here, as you can tell.

FRANK: If we don’t begin to curtail military spending excesses, then we will be in that bind. If we lose this fight, I give the president a great deal of credit for rallying, after we lost the — the — the first round, then all bets would have been off and we would have had an ever-increasing military budget almost literally eating everybody else’s lunch.

RUSH: There you have it, Barney Frank.