The contents of these articles are based on Fact and Truth. Challenges are invited.
The day’s top political news:
Obama to Say Democrats Will Use Reconciliation to Pass Senate Health Care Reform Fix, If Not Given Up or Down Vote
White House officials tell ABC News that in his remarks today Obama will indicate a willingness to work with Republicans on some issue to get a health care reform bill passed but will suggest that if it is necessary, Democrats will use the controversial "reconciliation" rules requiring only 51 Senate votes to pass the "fix" to the Senate bill, as opposed to the 60 votes to stop a filibuster and proceed to a vote on a bill.
Lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been awaiting the president’s remarks direction on how health care reform will proceed.
In his remarks, scheduled to be at the White House, the president will paint a picture of what he will say will happen without a health care reform bill – skyrocketing premiums, everyone at the mercy of the insurance industry as recently seen with the 39% premium increases proposed by Anthem Blue Cross in California.
Charles Rangel Steps down as Chairman of tax writing committee
House rules would give the gavel to Rep. Pete Stark (D-Calif.), but leadership would prefer the gavel go to the more temperate Rep. Sander Levin (D-Mich.).
Rangel had previously denied plans for stepping down while under fire for serious ethical and tax violations. He caved Wednesday morning.
Rangel not only headed the tax writing committee of Congress, but has been among the most eager to do so or raise the taxes of Americans. Rangel is accused of being a tax cheat himself.
Rick Perry wins without a runoff in Texas, Democrats pounce
Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry's convincing primary victory over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and party activist Debra Medina should give his general election campaign against former Houston mayor Bill White a boost of momentum in the short term.
But, Democrats, meanwhile claim they are convinced that Perry's victory has turned Texas into a real pickup opportunity for them due to the incumbent's polarizing presence -- particularly among independent and unaligned voters.
Perry’s victory over Washington star player Hutchison, may send a shiver up the backs of many moderate incumbents. Perry’s victory was largely based on alliance with tea-party movement groups.
http://webmail.aol.com/30746-111/aol-1/en-us/Suite.aspx
Opinion:
Obama – “Damn the torpedoes”, full speed ahead on imposing the Democrat government-run health care scheme.
It is predicted that Obama will use today to issue his “my way or the highway” threat on health care. His call for an early up or down vote on his health scheme will almost certainly be rejected by the GOP, just as a majority of Americans reject it.
Some Democrats such as Bill Clinton have advised Democrats to “go ahead and just pass it” – predicting the American public will forget what they did in a matter of a few months.
Not likely given the emotion that has been brought to this debate. So intense was the argument, Senate Leader Harry Reid slammed shut his office door and contrived the Senate bill in secret – a devious process sparked by a large cluster of out right bribes to secure passage.
Obama’s handling of his health care conspiracy has provided normal Americans with a peek inside the very worst side of the political process as played out on Capitol Hill. It was not an honest bi-partisan effort by any means. Republicans were held at bay as Democrats cobbled together whatever they deemed necessary.
Of course, they bristled at observations regarding “death panels” and ardently denied the obvious assault on the nation’s senior citizens – people least able to fight back and overcome the damage the Democrat process will inflict.
Many far left House Democrats demand public options – a device designed as a pathway to Canadian-style socialized medicine. Democrat plans thus offer reduced quality as well as reduced access.
None the less, Obama is said to be prepared to deliver his ultimatum as early as today.
Veteran Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah sums up the reality of the pending action:
"While the House is designed for action, the Senate is designed for deliberation. That is why Senate rules and procedures give a minority of senators the power to slow or even stop legislation. Both parties do it when in the minority, and both find it frustrating when they are in the majority. But such checks are central to the nature of the institution and to the Senate's place in our constitutional system. These rules temper majority power and generate strong incentives to develop mainstream legislation that commands broad, bipartisan support.
"To impose the will of some Democrats and to circumvent bipartisan opposition, President Obama seems to be encouraging Congress to use the "reconciliation" process, an arcane budget procedure, to ram through the Senate a multitrillion-dollar health-care bill that raises taxes, increases costs and cuts Medicare to fund a new entitlement we can't afford."
The Wall Street Journal provides an appropriate benediction:
"The goal is to permanently expand the American entitlement state with a vast apparatus of subsidies and regulations while the political window is still (barely) open, regardless of the consequences or the overwhelming popular condemnation. As Mr. Obama fatalistically said after his health summit, if voters don't like it, 'then that's what elections are for.'"
In other words, he's volunteering Democrats in Congress to march into the fixed bayonets so he can claim an LBJ-level legacy like the Great Society that will be nearly impossible to repeal. This would be an unprecedented act of partisan arrogance that would further mark Democrats as the party of liberal extremism. If they think political passions are bitter now, wait until they pass ObamaCare.
Do Democrats have a death wish? Can they possibly be this tone deaf?
Nancy Pelosi offers insight on that speculation:
"Asked this weekend to grade her performance as speaker, Nancy Pelosi gave herself an 'A for effort.'”
Nothing could be farther from reality – we can hope it is wishful thinking on her part. If not, given what she, Obama, and Democrats as a whole are doing of late – we get a feeling not unlike being a passenger in a car careening down a steep hill with a driver who is totally blind.
Buddy
The Top blogs of the day:
1.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704625004575089362731862750.html
Abuse of Power
'An undemocratic disservice to our people and to the Senate's institutional role.'
A string of electoral defeats and the great unpopularity of ObamaCare can't stop Democrats from their self-appointed rendezvous with liberal destiny—ramming a bill through Congress on a narrow partisan vote. What we are about to witness is an extraordinary abuse of traditional Senate rules to pass a bill merely because they think it's good for the rest of us, and because they fear their chance to build a European welfare state may never come again.
***
The vehicle is "reconciliation," a parliamentary process that fast-tracks budget measures and was created in 1974 as a deficit-reduction tool. Limited to 20 hours of debate, reconciliation bills need a mere 50 votes in the Senate, with the Vice President as tie-breaker, thus circumventing the filibuster. Both Democrats and Republicans have frequently used reconciliation on budget bills, so Democrats are now claiming that using it to pass ObamaCare is no big deal.
Yet this shortcut has never been used for anything approaching the enormity of a national health-care entitlement. Democrats are only resorting to it now because their plan is in so much political trouble—within their own party, and even more among the general public—and because they've failed to make their case through persuasion.
"They know that this will take courage," Nancy Pelosi said in an interview over the weekend, speaking of the Members she'll try to strong-arm. "It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare," the Speaker continued. "But the American people need it, why are we here? We're not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress."
Leave aside the irony of invoking "the American people" on behalf of a bill that consistently has been 10 to 15 points underwater in every poll since the fall, and is getting more unpopular by the day, particularly among independents. As Maine Republican Olympia Snowe pointed out in a speech last December, Social Security passed when Democrats controlled both Congress and the White House, yet 64% of Senate Republicans and 79% of the House GOP voted for it. More than half of the Senate Republican caucus voted for Medicare in 1965. Historically, major social legislation has always been bipartisan, because it reflects a durable political consensus.
Reconciliation is the last mathematical gasp for ObamaCare because Democrats can't sell their policy to Senator Snowe, any other Republican, or even dozens of Democrats. This raw exercise of political power is of a piece with the copious corruption and bribery—such as the Cornhusker kickbacks and special tax benefits for union members—that liberals had to use to get even this far.
Democrats often point to welfare reform in 1996 as a reconciliation precedent, yet that bill passed the Senate with 78 votes, including Joe Biden and half of the Democratic caucus. The children's health insurance program in 1997 was steered through Congress with reconciliation, but it, too, was built on strong (if misguided) bipartisan support. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that created Schip passed 85-15, including 43 Republicans. Even President Bush's 2001 tax cuts, another case in reconciliation point, were endorsed by 12 Senate Democrats.
The only precedent within historical shouting distance is Ronald Reagan's 1981 budget, which was controversial because it reshaped dozens of programs. But the Senate wasn't the problem—it ultimately passed the budget 80 to 14. The real dogfight was in the Democratically controlled House, where majority rules have always obtained, yet Reagan convinced 29 Democrats to buck Speaker Tip O'Neill. Reconciliation, in other words, wasn't used to subvert the 60-vote Senate threshold, but rather to grease the way for deficit reduction.
The process was designed for items that cut spending or affect tax revenue, to meet targets in the annual budget resolution. Democrats want to convert it into a jerry-rigged amendment process: That is, reconciliation wouldn't actually be used to pass ObamaCare per se. Instead, it would be used only to muscle through substantive changes to the bill that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve, without which 216 House Democrats won't vote for it. So Democrats would be writing amendments to current law that isn't in fact law at all—and can't become law without those amendments.
President Clinton preferred to use reconciliation to pass HillaryCare in the 1990s, but he was dissuaded by West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who argued that it would be an abuse of the process. Mr. Byrd, author of a four-volume history of Senate rules and procedures, told the Washington Post last March that "The misuse of the arcane process of reconciliation—a process intended for deficit reduction—to enact substantive policy changes is an undemocratic disservice to our people and to the Senate's institutional role," specifically citing health reform and cap and trade.
***
Regrets, they've got a few. Yet these Democratic Sinatras will still do it their way. President Obama is expected to endorse reconciliation in remarks this morning.
The goal is to permanently expand the American entitlement state with a vast apparatus of subsidies and regulations while the political window is still (barely) open, regardless of the consequences or the overwhelming popular condemnation. As Mr. Obama fatalistically said after his health summit, if voters don't like it, "then that's what elections are for."
In other words, he's volunteering Democrats in Congress to march into the fixed bayonets so he can claim an LBJ-level legacy like the Great Society that will be nearly impossible to repeal. This would be an unprecedented act of partisan arrogance that would further mark Democrats as the party of liberal extremism. If they think political passions are bitter now, wait until they pass ObamaCare.
2.
Nancy Pelosi's brutal reality check
JOHN BRESNAHAN & JONATHAN ALLEN
Asked this weekend to grade her performance as speaker, Nancy Pelosi gave herself an “A for effort.”
But Pelosi knows that the real test is still to come.
Pelosi is inarguably one of the strongest speakers in modern history — an authoritarian figure in an era of centralized power in the House. But the coming months are a make-or-break period for her, a brutal reality check of her ability to manage all aspects of her job — consensus-building, agenda-setting, vote-counting, fundraising and campaigning.
Now in her fourth year as speaker and eighth overall as the top Democrat in the House, Pelosi has never faced such a daunting set of challenges:
Health care: Pelosi and other top House Democrats say publicly that they have the votes to push through a comprehensive package, but privately, they know they don’t. Pelosi must balance the diverging interests of her own members while simultaneously satisfying Senate Democrats and working with President Barack Obama and his chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, a former House colleague with whom she has an uneasy relationship.
The voters: The electoral winds that were at Pelosi’s back in the past two cycles thanks to having George W. Bush in the White House are blowing this year in Democrats’ faces. Prognosticators both inside and outside the party are laying odds on an outcome that seemed unthinkable just a few months ago: a GOP takeover of the House.
Democratic infighting: The factions that make up the House Democratic majority, from the conservative Blue Dog Coalition to the liberal Progressive Caucus, are increasingly willing to fight for their own priorities at the risk of party unity. That dynamic was evident last week when a simple $15 billion jobs bill was punted from the floor schedule over a series of Goldilocks-like objections about too little spending, too much spending and misdirected spending.
Brutal campaigning: Pelosi faces a tough year on the fundraising circuit, with a punishing travel schedule and hard environment in which to raise money. She’s collected $18.5 million for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — with a goal of $25 million for the election cycle — and $3.6 million for vulnerable Democratic incumbents and challengers. But hints of GOP victory in the fall could to make it more difficult for her to raise money from Corporate America and K Street.
Loss of allies: Pelosi suffered a tremendous personal loss with the death of her friend and her most influential ally in the House, Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman John Murtha. Another of Pelosi’s powerful colleagues, Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel, has seen his influence diminished by ethical problems — including an admonishment last week by theHouse ethics committee.
The “bullet in the head” factor: Pelosi insists she will fight for every Democratic seat this November. But as Election Day draws nearer, Pelosi will most likely have to make tough calls on which vulnerable Democratic candidates to help and which ones to cut loose. Those choices would cause conflict in her caucus and could threaten the Democratic majority if she picks poorly.
Internal polls look bad for the Democrats, and Charlie Cook has warned that the party may lose its majority in November.
But in an interview over the weekend, Pelosi said unequivocally that the Democrats will hold on to their majority in November.
“I’m not yielding one grain of sand; we’re fighting for every seat,” the speaker said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Pelosi’s supporters point to her past successes as a sign that she’ll succeed again this year, despite all the obstacles and the gloom and doom.
“It is fair to say that we are seeing a confluence of some of the most challenging issues in one of the most challenging times,” said California Rep. Xavier Becerra, vice chairman of the Democratic Caucus. “Is she up to it? Look at the record. She is.”
“Do I agree that she has a very tough job? Yes,” said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the Financial Services Committee. “Sometimes the job is more fun than other times. This isn’t one of those times. But she’s tough, and I don’t see any signs of her wilting.”
Pelosi galvanized and energized a moribund Democratic Caucus to build the foundation for overturning the GOP majority in 2006 and followed it up with a freshman term as speaker that laid the groundwork for another big Election Day victory two years later.
And even as Obama, Emanuel and Reid have struggled to execute the Democratic agenda, she has delivered on her end of the bargain, winning House approval of a health care bill, a climate change bill and a jobs bill.
“[In] the House of Representatives, my mark is the mark of our members. We have passed every piece of legislation that is part of the Obama agenda. Whether it’s the creation of jobs, expanding access to health care, creating new green jobs for the future, regulatory reform, we have passed the full agenda,” Pelosi said over the weekend on ABC’s “This Week.”
Still, those victories have come at a cost — leaving Democrats in more conservative districts exposed and some others bristling over the “Pelosi style.”
“She doesn’t delegate,” said one House Democrat close to the speaker. “It’s her biggest flaw. She has to have her hand in every decision.”
That means there’s no one else to blame for Democratic setbacks other than Pelosi, and she will have to answer if the party suffers at the polls.
A corollary to that complaint is that Pelosi has dealt with House Republicans’ penchant for short-circuiting the legislative process by writing key bills in partisan fashion behind closed doors.
That, according to one senior lawmaker, hurts Democrats’ chances of enacting laws that are acceptable to the public — and it takes committee chairmen and rank-and-file members of both parties out of the legislative process.
“There are instances in which regular order is not being followed,” the Democratic lawmaker complained.
Pelosi, who can be as loyal as they come if you’re her friend, can also be ruthless as a political enemy — especially if someone threatens her party’s majority.
Pelosi “will put a bullet in the head of anyone she needs to,” said a Democratic insider. “Rangel, any incumbent that looks like he’s going to lose. She’ll do anything it takes to keep her majority, anything.”
While Democrats are concerned about their poll numbers, interviews with a broad swath of Democratic members reveal little sense of panic — and some confidence that Pelosi and the party will navigate a choppy stretch ahead and retain their majority in November.
“Pressure always comes with that job,” said Rep. Mike Capuano (D-Mass.), a Pelosi ally. “There are many of us who think she takes on too much on her own, because we don’t want her to burn out. I’m one of the hardest-working people I know, and she makes me look like a laggard. I tell you, I think she’ll be fine.”
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0210/33670_Page2.html#ixzz0gxnYiWpN
3.
Reconciliation on health care would be an assault to the democratic process
Orrin Hatch
America's Founders gave us a system of governance designed to limit government power and maximize liberty. The legislative branch is different from the executive, and the Senate is different from the House. No single branch has all the power. That can be frustrating for those with ambitious agendas, but everyone benefits by respecting those checks and balances even as we fight over policies.
While the House is designed for action, the Senate is designed for deliberation. That is why Senate rules and procedures give a minority of senators the power to slow or even stop legislation. Both parties do it when in the minority, and both find it frustrating when they are in the majority. But such checks are central to the nature of the institution and to the Senate's place in our constitutional system. These rules temper majority power and generate strong incentives to develop mainstream legislation that commands broad, bipartisan support.
To impose the will of some Democrats and to circumvent bipartisan opposition, President Obama seems to be encouraging Congress to use the "reconciliation" process, an arcane budget procedure, to ram through the Senate a multitrillion-dollar health-care bill that raises taxes, increases costs and cuts Medicare to fund a new entitlement we can't afford. This is attractive to proponents because it sharply limits debate and amendments to a mere 20 hours and would allow passage with only 51 votes (as opposed to the 60 needed to overcome a procedural hurdle). But the Constitution intends the opposite process, especially for a bill that would affect one-sixth of the American economy.
This use of reconciliation to jam through this legislation, against the will of the American people, would be unprecedented in scope. And the havoc wrought would threaten our system of checks and balances, corrode the legislative process, degrade our system of government and damage the prospects of bipartisanship.
Less than a year ago, the longest-serving member of the Senate, West Virginia Democrat Robert Byrd, said, "I was one of the authors of the legislation that created the budget 'reconciliation' process in 1974, and I am certain that putting health-care reform . . . legislation on a freight train through Congress is an outrage that must be resisted." Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, also a Democrat, said last March, "I don't believe reconciliation was ever intended for the purpose of writing this kind of substantive reform legislation." They are both right.
Reconciliation was designed to balance the federal budget. Both parties have used the process, but only when the bills in question stuck close to dealing with the budget. In instances in which other substantive legislation was included, the legislation had significant bipartisan support. For example, Congress used reconciliation to carry welfare reform in 1996, which ultimately passed with 78 votes. And when reconciliation was used to create the Children's Health Insurance Program that I authored with Sen. Edward M. Kennedy in 1997, the program got 85 votes and served as the glue to passing the first balanced budget in 40 years. Both plans were negotiated with, and signed into law by, President Bill Clinton.
But when President George W. Bush and Congress created the prescription drug benefit in 2003, we Republicans in the Senate decided against using reconciliation because it would have made the plan partisan and condemned this important legislation to failure. Instead, the bill garnered significant bipartisan support -- demonstrating why reconciliation was not even attempted. That precedent should carry the day here.
Rejected at first by a majority of senators as an inappropriate way to pass health care, reconciliation was revived after Scott Brown's Senate victory in January. Confronted with the inconvenient truth of an electoral rebuke, the president is pivoting to this tactic that polls show a growing majority of the American people oppose. Some of my colleagues, and others, have wrongly argued that using reconciliation to change only parts of this enormously unpopular bill would not be an abuse of the process. But if the only way to pass this $2.5 trillion bill is through reconciliation, then this continues to be an abuse that stifles dissent and badly undermines our constitutional checks and balances.
The president said in his State of the Union address that "we were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions. So let's show the American people we can do it together." I agree. Poll after poll tells us that is what Americans want. To do that we must start by taking the reconciliation procedure off the table. Let's move forward instead with bipartisan legislation that doesn't abuse the Senate's rules but that does address the challenges our country faces.
The writer is a Republican senator from Utah.
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