Mary Landrieu was awfully upfront about her $100 million vote in Senate debate Saturday:
She blamed “very partisan, Republican bloggers” for reporting on that section of the bill, but it was first reported by the well-known, right-wing outlet, ABC. The nerve of any of us to insinuate she could be bought for a measly $100 million. Landrieu’s justification for the extra money for Louisiana is that federal emergency aid surrounding Katrina had incorrectly inflated Louisiana’s per-capita income for a short time, thus leading to insufficient Medicaid funds for the state, due to the federal government’s calculation based on per-capita income. She followed up with another odd assertion:
Perhaps not the thing to highlight so dramatically, when you’re a senator who’s been serving for 12 years. Landrieu said her yes vote Saturday, to proceed to debate on Reid’s health-care bill, should not be construed as a vote of support for the bill in its current form.
