Stars aren't aligning for PelosiCare

With unemployment reports "worse than expected," Speaker Nancy Pelosi urges members of the House to get out their shovels and dig that hole deeper. Jennifer Rubin thinks they should have voted yesterday:

The numbers are staggering in the aggregate: “Unemployment rose by 558,000 to 15.7 million, the government said. Of those, 5.6 million had been out of work longer than six months, representing a record 35.6% of the unemployed.” And the outlook is for continued unemployment at elevated levels, “barring a policy response, for several years into the future.”

But the Democrats have a policy response: they are about to vote on hundreds of billions in new taxes, a regimen of new fines and mandates for businesses, and a takeover of the health-care industry. That might make things worse, you say? Indeed. The notion that the Democratic Congress would even contemplate such a vote at this point says volume about the degree to which they are unaware of or simply don’t care about the concerns of voters — and the likely backlash that will ensue.

Even Robert Reich agrees.

And it now appears that Madame Speaker's tactics won't work. The vote scheduled for Saturday will likely be delayed due to lack of support. Ed Morrissey:

She couldn’t afford to wait too long for the vote after dropping 2,000 pages on members last week, and having them see the results of the elections this week. Pelosi and Hoyer thought that rushing a vote would allow them to bully recalcitrant moderates into support.

She chose … poorly.

What does this tell us? Moderates have apparently balked at the pressure Pelosi has put on them to swallow the public option and a $1.8 trillion price tag. Today’s unemployment numbers probably had something to do with that as well.

RTR. She's not omnipotent. Some representatives are keenly aware that the jobs they save may be their own. The bad economic news combined with last week's electoral cautionary tales, unresolved hot button issues, and the sheer massiveness and cost of HR 3962 is making too many legislators queasy.

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