The antics never end in Washington, D.C.
Republicans were mighty busy Wednesday night, tabling proposed amendments to the health care reconciliation bill that is currently been debated in the Senate. The Democrats have made it known that all amendments will be defeated, as any change to the bill will derail their delicate health care reform agreement with the House.
Since they can't win on health care, the Republicans are taking the opportunity to get some interesting campaign-oriented sound-bites out of the process.
Digby explains:
Yes, they're just trying to improve the bill. You've undoubtedly heard about the important improvement to keep Viagra from sex offenders. Here are just a few more:
Brownback 3653 –“To promote the production of renewable fuel.”
Brownback 3690 -- “To provide for the relocation of the United State Embassy to Jerusalem.”
Vitter 4872 – “To repeal the law that provides automatic pay increases for members of Congress.”
David Dayen at Firedoglake:
Republicans have something of a free shot in the reconciliation bill. Democrats have already signaled that they will whip against any amendments and changes to the bill, in an effort to pass it intact and send it directly to the President, avoiding another vote in the House. So Republicans can write virtually any amendment, forcing Democrats into terrible votes, without much consequence, knowing they will be defeated and providing campaign ad fodder
As the Senate gets closer to voting on a health care reconciliation bill, the Republican strategy to derail the Democrats' plans is getting creative--and dirty. Their strategy is clear: with Democrats determined to pass a clean bill, Republicans will force them to vote down politically juiced-up amendments, and likely turn them into political ads meant to characterize Dems as sympathetic to sex offenders and fraudsters.
The goal is simple. To expedite its passage, Democrats need to keep the changes to the reconciliation bill to a minimum, and so have committed to voting down all amendments, even ones that they like. And Republicans want to turn those votes into negative campaign ads ahead of this November's election.
Once the votes are cast, the ads all but write themselves.
"Senator X voted to preserve sex offenders' right to Viagra."
And so on.
Let the games begin.
- Garry J. Wise, Toronto
UPDATE: New York Times reports that due to parliamentary concerns regarding peripheral issues in the bill, the reconciliation bill will have to go back to the House for yet another vote, after all.
“The parliamentarian struck two minor provisions tonight from the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act,” the spokeswoman, Kate Cyrul, said. “These changes do not impact the reforms to the student loan programs and the important investments in education. We are confident the House will quickly pass the bill with these minor changes.”
- GJW
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1 comment:
It was a lot of fun watching these idiotic Republicans “warning” the Democrats that the passage of health care reform will cost them dearly at the polls in November.
"OH, PLEASE DON'T THROW ME IN THAT BRIAR PATCH, BRER BEAR!!"
It’s going to cost someone dearly, alright, but it won’t be the Dems. Former Bush 43 speechwriter Davin Frum put it perfectly yesterday when he said that it was the Republicans – not Barack Obama – who had met their “Waterloo”. The historical rule of politics, that an incumbent president’s party always loses ground in the midterm elections, will go out the window come November. They will be unable to win without the help of the moderates. At this moment the moderates are abandoning this sinking ship en masse. The extremism of people like Michele Bachmann and John Beohner is starting to scare the hell out of them. Gee, I wonder why!
Then there is the sticky situation of the Tea Party. By this late point it must be obvious to even the casual observer that this is an organization comprised of morons. It was formed as a protest movement against high taxes – immediately after President Obama passed the largest middle class tax cut in American history. There’s no denying it, these are not the brightest people on the planet. Their overt racism notwithstanding, they sure are funny! One self identified Tea Partier called into C-SPAN’s Washington Journal the other day asking the moderator where she could write to her congressman. When host Greta Brawner asked this idiotic woman what her congressman’s name was, she replied (I assume with a straight face) “He’s a Democrat. I don’t know his name.” Ya gotta love ‘em! Ya just gotta!
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Tom Degan
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