{"id":1088,"date":"2009-10-05T10:48:52","date_gmt":"2009-10-05T14:48:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=1088"},"modified":"2009-10-05T11:43:16","modified_gmt":"2009-10-05T15:43:16","slug":"shopping-with-max-baucus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/1088\/shopping-with-max-baucus\/","title":{"rendered":"Shopping with Max Baucus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Over the weekend, I had the misfortune of shopping in the same grocery store with the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus.\u00a0 Senator Baucus is currently front-and-center in the debate over health care reform, and the bill that passes through his committee could be the final version that the President signs.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1090\" title=\"max_baucus1\" src=\"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/max_baucus11.jpg\" alt=\"max_baucus1\" width=\"190\" height=\"172\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This was regrettably my second encounter with the senior Senator from Montana.\u00a0 The first was on a flight out of Minneapolis.\u00a0 The Senator, not surprisingly, was seated in first class.<\/p>\n<p>During the Senator&#8217;s shopping experience I passed him in the wine section.\u00a0 Chairman Baucus, like many shoppers, was in the French wine section of the store.\u00a0 As capitalists, we can all appreciate the value of choice.\u00a0 Senator Baucus believes that French wine is the best value for the price and no one should stop him from making that choice.\u00a0 &#8220;Buy American&#8221; means little to Senator Baucus, even though his voting record might indicate otherwise.<\/p>\n<p>For example, even though the Senator prefers choice in his wine purchasing, last week <a href=\"http:\/\/voices.washingtonpost.com\/ezra-klein\/2009\/10\/the_status_quo_wins_in_health-.html?hpid=topnews\" target=\"_blank\">he denied<\/a> Senator Ron Wyden&#8217;s health care free choice amendment from coming up for a vote in committee.\u00a0 Senator Wyden&#8217;s amendment would have allowed consumers to shop across state lines for cheaper insurance.\u00a0 For Senator Baucus, &#8220;choice for wine: yes; choice for health care: no, unless you&#8217;re paying me to vote otherwise.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In addition, although Senator Baucus prefers foreign wine, he evidently doesn&#8217;t like foreign sugar.\u00a0 In 2005, Senator Baucus <a href=\"http:\/\/www.senate.gov\/legislative\/LIS\/roll_call_lists\/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&amp;session=1&amp;vote=00209\" target=\"_blank\">voted against<\/a> the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).\u00a0 CAFTA would have normalized trade relations with the Dominican Republic and other Central American countries, driving down prices for American consumers.\u00a0 Yet, Senator Baucus chose to vote with the sugar industry in his home state of Montana (sugar beets) and deny consumers a chance to purchase lower-priced foreign imports.<\/p>\n<p>So, when it comes to choice and competition, Senator Baucus enjoys the freedom of the market in his personal life, but he&#8217;ll do his best in Congress to ensure that you don&#8217;t have it in your life.\u00a0 That&#8217;s hypocrisy, pure and simple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the weekend, I had the misfortune of shopping in the same grocery store with the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus.\u00a0 Senator Baucus is currently front-and-center in the debate over health care reform, and the bill that passes through his committee could be the final version that the President signs. This was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[231,12,230],"class_list":["post-1088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-choice","tag-health-care","tag-max-baucus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1088"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1096,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1088\/revisions\/1096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}