Democrats may not hit health-care deadline
1. Congressional Democrats on Tuesday cast doubt on their chances of meeting the White House’s March 18 deadline for voting on a stalled healthcare overhaul, but said they are moving as fast as they can.
New Obama rules could prohibit fishing
2. The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.
Massa investigated for groping male staffers
3. Not long after Eric Massa joined Congress in January 2009, several male staff members began to feel uncomfortable with the sexually loaded language their boss routinely used, according to accounts relayed to the House ethics committee.
As the months passed, rumors began to circulate in Congress that the married New York Democrat had sexually propositioned young male staffers and interns in his office, allegations, according to two sources with knowledge of the inquiry, that included Massa groping at least two aides. In the second week of February, Massa’s deputy chief of staff contacted the office of Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer for help in dealing with the accusations.
From mighty industrial might to farmland for Detroit
4. Detroit, the very symbol of American industrial might for most of the 20th century, is drawing up a radical renewal plan that calls for turning large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.
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Poll: American less respected under Obama
1. A majority of Americans say the United States is less respected in the world than it was two years ago and think President Obama and other Democrats fall short of Republicans on the issue of national security, a new poll finds.
The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released Monday finds that by a 10-point margin — 51 percent to 41 percent — Americans think the standing of the U.S. dropped during the first 13 months of Mr. Obama’s presidency.
“This is surprising, given the global acclaim and Nobel peace prize that flowed to the new president after he took office,” said pollsters for the liberal-leaning organizations.
On the national security front, a massive gap has emerged, with 50 percent of likely voters saying Republicans would likely do a better job than Democrats, a 14-point swing since May. Thirty-three percent favored Democrats.
“The erosion since May is especially strong among women, and among independents, who now favor Republicans on this question by a 56 to 20 percent margin,” the pollsters said in their findings.
Wisconsin AG charges ACORN with voter fraud
2. Five Wisconsin residents have been charged with criminal counts of voter fraud in the November 2008 general election, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced today.
Two of those charged, Maria Miles and Kevin Clancy, are workers for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the embattled community group.
“The complaint alleges that Miles and Clancy submitted multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also were part of a scheme in which they and other (special registration deputies) registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN,” Van Hollen states in the release. Dan Rather: Articulate Obama couldn’t sell watermelons
3. Dan Rather: Part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama’s leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. “Listen he just hasn’t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death.” And a version of, “Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate” this is what’s been used against him, “but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.”
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Just last week I commented that something didn’t seem right with the intended resignation of Democrat Congressman Eric Massa. I pointed out that the Congressman voted against the health-care Bill and I was of the opinion that he was being set up. Well, here we are one week later and Congressman Massa is confirming my instincts.
The liberal Congressman from Massachusetts unleashes in this radio interview. He comments on how his Party is destroying the country, how the Unions are bribing and threatening Congressman, and how a naked Rahm Emanuel assaulted him in the showers of the Congressional gym. Listen to it for yourself.
From City Hall:
“I was set up for this from the very, very beginning,” he said, on what Massa insisted would be the last broadcast of the Sunday morning show on WKPQ 105.3 FM in Hornell. “You think that somehow they didn’t come after me to get rid of me because my vote is the deciding vote in the health care bill? Then, ladies and gentlemen, you live today in a world that is so innocent as to not understand what’s going on in Washington, D.C.” According to Massa, the sexual harassment complaint stemmed from an incident during a wedding on New Year’s Eve last year. Sometime soon after midnight, Massa said, a drunken male staffer made a lurid comment to Massa about dancing with one of the bridesmaids at the reception. “A staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid. His points were clear and his words were far more colorful than that,” Massa said. “And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, “Pal, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.’ And then [I] tussled the guy’s hair, and left.” Massa said that another staff member—disturbed by Massa’s statement—reported it to the House Ethics Committee. Massa said the staffer to whom he directed the comment never was involved with the complaint. “That staff member never said to me he felt uncomfortable,” Massa said. “He never came to me, he never said a word to me. In fact, he never went to anybody.” Massa said he learned that a complaint had been filed against him Feb. 8 but that he believed it was only over a minor campaign finance issue. Massa said he only learned of the sexual harassment complaint after he announced he would not run for re-election on Wednesday over what he says is a fatal recurrence of cancer. As for the charge that House Democrats set him up, Massa said he only came to belief after reading two articles on Sunday morning before his broadcast: An Associated Press article in which House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer discussed the ethics investigation, and a Roll Call article about how the recent departure of several Democrats from the House would help pass health care legislation. Massa said he believes he was the swing vote that would decide the fate of the bill—and that Hoyer’s decision to disclose details of the investigation proves Democratic leadership was out to get him. With Massa’s resignation, Democrats now need only 216 votes in the House to pass the bill. Massa also described a profanity-filled conversation he had with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel after he voted against the president’s health care legislation last year. Massa called on Emanuel to resign for his own use of profane language during the phone call. “Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn,” Massa added. “He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.”
“I was set up for this from the very, very beginning,” he said, on what Massa insisted would be the last broadcast of the Sunday morning show on WKPQ 105.3 FM in Hornell. “You think that somehow they didn’t come after me to get rid of me because my vote is the deciding vote in the health care bill? Then, ladies and gentlemen, you live today in a world that is so innocent as to not understand what’s going on in Washington, D.C.”
According to Massa, the sexual harassment complaint stemmed from an incident during a wedding on New Year’s Eve last year. Sometime soon after midnight, Massa said, a drunken male staffer made a lurid comment to Massa about dancing with one of the bridesmaids at the reception.
“A staff member made an intonation to me that maybe I should be chasing after the bridesmaid. His points were clear and his words were far more colorful than that,” Massa said. “And I grabbed the staff member sitting next to me and said, “Pal, what I really ought to be doing is fracking you.’ And then [I] tussled the guy’s hair, and left.”
Massa said that another staff member—disturbed by Massa’s statement—reported it to the House Ethics Committee. Massa said the staffer to whom he directed the comment never was involved with the complaint.
“That staff member never said to me he felt uncomfortable,” Massa said. “He never came to me, he never said a word to me. In fact, he never went to anybody.”
Massa said he learned that a complaint had been filed against him Feb. 8 but that he believed it was only over a minor campaign finance issue. Massa said he only learned of the sexual harassment complaint after he announced he would not run for re-election on Wednesday over what he says is a fatal recurrence of cancer.
As for the charge that House Democrats set him up, Massa said he only came to belief after reading two articles on Sunday morning before his broadcast: An Associated Press article in which House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer discussed the ethics investigation, and a Roll Call article about how the recent departure of several Democrats from the House would help pass health care legislation. Massa said he believes he was the swing vote that would decide the fate of the bill—and that Hoyer’s decision to disclose details of the investigation proves Democratic leadership was out to get him.
With Massa’s resignation, Democrats now need only 216 votes in the House to pass the bill.
Massa also described a profanity-filled conversation he had with White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel after he voted against the president’s health care legislation last year. Massa called on Emanuel to resign for his own use of profane language during the phone call.
“Rahm Emanuel is son of the devil’s spawn,” Massa added. “He is an individual who would sell his mother to get a vote. He would strap his children to the front end of a steam locomotive.”
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Last year Obama said that private and government health-care can coexist. To support his argument, he pointed to the US Post Office and FedEx. Let’s discuss this.
The Post Office announced that it was running a huge deficit and was exploring ways to keep it afloat. Some of the ideas being floated are to cut services to 5 days a week, reducing benefits to its employees, and increases rates. Is this what we can expect to happen with government run health-care; cutting services or in the case of health-care, not covering those things that are now covered by health-care; increasing premiums; and slashing the payments that doctors, nurses, and physicians receive for their work? I’m just asking. After all, Obama himself, used the comparison to support his case for government-run health-care.
Already, Obama has gone back on his word; the very word he gave in his address to Congress when Joe Wilson called him a liar. Obama stated that health-care would be paid for by those who paid their premiums. In the Senate bill being negotiated, there are a series of taxes that are being included. These taxes include an increase in the payroll tax. This is on top of the soon to expire Bush tax cuts that will see the average middle income tax increase by 7%. As a reminder, these were the Bush tax cuts:
In Obama’s budget, the President allowed for the expiring of these cuts while claiming that he “wasn’t increasing taxes on the middle class. In fact, Obama often touts his tax “cuts” he “gave” to the middle class that averaged around $400 per year. Again, the president has been a little loose with the truth. Those filing their 2009 taxes learned that this $400 was nothing more than a tax credit and would be deducted from their their 2009 return. In essence, you would have gotten the $400 back anyways.
The question should be asked, if Obama’s health-care bill will save money and increase services then why is he having to deceive and lie about its cost? Is his health-care program really going to cost us less? Let’s think about this. If Obama is promising me that his health-care plan will cost me less than my employer’s United Health-Care plan (I pay $138 a month), but he’s increasing my taxes by $302 per month how is this making sense? This health-care plan is not about reducing cost, if it was then we would have Tort Reform tied to any plan before the Congress, this is about the socialization of this country and that is why a majority of Americans are opposed to this legislation.
Let’s go back to the drawing board and develop a plan that covers pre-existing conditions, includes Tort Reform, rewards those who live a healthy life through diet and exercise, penalizes people like Obama who smoke, cuts fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare, and is run by the private sector.
Does Harry Reid and his liberal cohorts in Congress get it? 36,000 lost jobs isn’t bad, but wait… 248,000 created in a month by Bush was terrible. I’m mean honestly, do these people have any integrity? I’m so looking forward to the day when we have 3 lost jobs- Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama. Maybe then we can actually create real jobs.
And then we have this in the news:
From the AP:
A new congressional report released Friday says the United States’ long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted byPresident Barack Obama’s grim budget submission last month. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.
A new congressional report released Friday says the United States’ long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted byPresident Barack Obama’s grim budget submission last month.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.
So Obama’s budget creates more debt than all previous Presidents since the founding of our country. Yes, this is the guy who promised to reduce the deficit, go “line by line” to eliminate waste, to veto any bill that had earmarks… I guess what he really meant by change was changing his mind.
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The mainstream media and Democrats are up in arms over the above slide that was used in a recent PowerPoint presentation by the Republican National Committee. I’m a bit confused as why they would be upset about it. Do the mainstream media and Democrats have such memories as to forget the mockery of President Bush and other Republicans? Did they forget this, and this, and this, and this?
From the Guardian:
The Republican party’s national organising committee was furiously backpedalling after an embarrassing document lampooning Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders as ‘evil’ was found in a hotel room. The PowerPoint document, reported by the Washington news website Politico, was delivered by the Republican National Committee’s head of fundraising to a closed meeting of select party officials and major donors held in Boca Grande, Florida, last month. In discussing how to motivate donors to give, a section of the presentation is headlined “The Evil Empire” and carries a picture of Barack Obama made up to look like Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in the Batman movie The Dark Knight. Democratic party congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are also caricatured as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo. Politico said that the 72-page document was sent to it by a Democrat, who found the original in the hotel where the meeting was held. on 18 February. Sources at the event said a presentation involving the document was given by the RNC’s finance director Rob Bickhart and finance chairman Peter Terpeluk, who was ambassador to Luxembourg under the Bush administration.
The Republican party’s national organising committee was furiously backpedalling after an embarrassing document lampooning Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders as ‘evil’ was found in a hotel room.
The PowerPoint document, reported by the Washington news website Politico, was delivered by the Republican National Committee’s head of fundraising to a closed meeting of select party officials and major donors held in Boca Grande, Florida, last month.
In discussing how to motivate donors to give, a section of the presentation is headlined “The Evil Empire” and carries a picture of Barack Obama made up to look like Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in the Batman movie The Dark Knight. Democratic party congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are also caricatured as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo.
Politico said that the 72-page document was sent to it by a Democrat, who found the original in the hotel where the meeting was held. on 18 February. Sources at the event said a presentation involving the document was given by the RNC’s finance director Rob Bickhart and finance chairman Peter Terpeluk, who was ambassador to Luxembourg under the Bush administration.
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From the Politico:
Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) will not seek reelection after only one term in office. According to several House aides – on both sides of the aisle – the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that Massa, who is married with two children, sexually harassed a male staffer. Massa, whose departure endangers Democrats’ hold on a competitive seat, told POLITICO Wednesday afternoon that no one has brought allegations of misconduct to him. Asked about the sexual harassment allegations, Massa said: “When someone makes a decision to leave Congress, everybody says everything. I have health issues. I’ll talk about it [later].” Massa recently suffered from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and he has said that his experience with cancer drove his interest in running for office so he could help reform the health care system. A 20-year Navy veteran, Massa was elected to office last November. He serves on the Agriculture, Armed Services and Homeland Security committees. Massa is scheduled to hold a conference call at 3:30 this afternoon to announce his decision, which came as a complete surprise to several of his freshman Democratic colleagues in the New York delegation. Massa has played a gadfly-like role in the House, calling for a single-payer health care system at a conference of liberal activists last year despite representing a Republican-leaning district. He was one of 39 House Democrats to vote against health care legislation; he said it didn’t do enough to control costs. As a freshman representing New York’s most Republican House district, Massa was one of the most endangered Democrats in the delegation. Republicans had been aggressively targeting his seat and landed top recruit Tom Reed, the Republican mayor of Corning, to challenge him. Massa is now the 15th House Democrat to announce retirement plans, with 11 of them leaving districts that Republicans are aggressively contesting. House Republicans face 19 retirements within GOP ranks, but most of their departing members hail from safe seats. Massa’s departure also adds to the woes of New York Democrats, who have been on the defensive this week amid a scandal surrounding Gov. David Paterson, who announced he wasn’t running for election, and the tribulations involving embattled Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who stepped down as chairman from the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday. Massa’s departure could scramble the Republican field since the filing deadline is not until July. Potential candidates include: Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks, state Assemblyman Brian Kolb and state Senator Kathy Young. Massa defeated former GOP Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl (R-N.Y.) in 2008, narrowly winning by a two-point margin.
Rep. Eric Massa (D-N.Y.) will not seek reelection after only one term in office.
According to several House aides – on both sides of the aisle – the House ethics committee has been informed of allegations that Massa, who is married with two children, sexually harassed a male staffer.
Massa, whose departure endangers Democrats’ hold on a competitive seat, told POLITICO Wednesday afternoon that no one has brought allegations of misconduct to him.
Asked about the sexual harassment allegations, Massa said: “When someone makes a decision to leave Congress, everybody says everything. I have health issues. I’ll talk about it [later].”
Massa recently suffered from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and he has said that his experience with cancer drove his interest in running for office so he could help reform the health care system.
A 20-year Navy veteran, Massa was elected to office last November. He serves on the Agriculture, Armed Services and Homeland Security committees.
Massa is scheduled to hold a conference call at 3:30 this afternoon to announce his decision, which came as a complete surprise to several of his freshman Democratic colleagues in the New York delegation.
Massa has played a gadfly-like role in the House, calling for a single-payer health care system at a conference of liberal activists last year despite representing a Republican-leaning district. He was one of 39 House Democrats to vote against health care legislation; he said it didn’t do enough to control costs.
As a freshman representing New York’s most Republican House district, Massa was one of the most endangered Democrats in the delegation. Republicans had been aggressively targeting his seat and landed top recruit Tom Reed, the Republican mayor of Corning, to challenge him.
Massa is now the 15th House Democrat to announce retirement plans, with 11 of them leaving districts that Republicans are aggressively contesting. House Republicans face 19 retirements within GOP ranks, but most of their departing members hail from safe seats.
Massa’s departure also adds to the woes of New York Democrats, who have been on the defensive this week amid a scandal surrounding Gov. David Paterson, who announced he wasn’t running for election, and the tribulations involving embattled Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), who stepped down as chairman from the House Ways and Means Committee Wednesday.
Massa’s departure could scramble the Republican field since the filing deadline is not until July. Potential candidates include: Monroe County Executive Maggie Brooks, state Assemblyman Brian Kolb and state Senator Kathy Young.
Massa defeated former GOP Rep. John “Randy” Kuhl (R-N.Y.) in 2008, narrowly winning by a two-point margin.
Nancy, still running the most ethical Congress in history?
From the Wall Street Journal:
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.
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.
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1. To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.
To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.
2. Supermodel Naomi Campbell may be in trouble with the law in New York City again. CBS 2 has learned that the British catwalker is wanted for questioning by the NYPD after allegedly slapping and punching her driver on Manhattan’s east side on Tuesday.
3. Charlie Rangel emerged from a closed-door meeting in Nancy Pelosi’s office Tuesday night to declare that he’s still the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and hasn’t agreed to give up his gavel – even as some media outlets were reporting that he’d done just that.
But asked whether he’d still be the chairman tomorrow and in the coming days, Rangel said: “I can’t make all those promises at my age.”
And when Pelosi was asked whether Rangel was resigning, she said “no comment.” Still running that most ethical Congress ever, Nancy?
4. Ford Motor Co. outsold General Motors Co. in February for the first time in more than a decade. Ford sold 334 more cars than GM in the U.S. It was the first time since August 1998 that Ford outsold GM. Ford’s said Tuesday its sales jumped 43 percent thanks to strong demand for its cars. The automaker grabbed some sales from Toyota, which is struggling with a massive safety recall.
5. A Russian billionaire has lost a £36 million deposit he paid to buy the most expensive house in the world on the French riviera, plus another £1million interest. Mikhail Prokhorov – the world’s 24th richest man – offered £360 million for the sprawling Villa Leopolda in 2008. After making a ten per cent down-payment, he then backed out of the sale after the global credit crunch hit.
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If segregation exists there is only one person I can think of who could captivate an audience and bring down a house with his opinion based speeches on the subject; Clay Aiken. After finding discrimination and segregation where none exists within the Wake County School Board, I’d like to direct Clay Aiken’s new found activism toward Hawaii where Democrats, led by Senator Akaka voted to divide the state into two parts based on ethnicity.
Perhaps Clay Aiken can use his voice and microphone to rant bring attention to an actual case of legislative imposed segregation.
The U.S. House last week passed legislation that would in effect divide Hawaii into two states, one for ethnic Hawaiians and the other for everyone else. In an opinion piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow — members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights — said the bill “might turn out to be this Congress’ single most calamitous decision.” The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act would allow most of the nation’s approximately 400,000 ethnic Hawaiians to organize themselves as one large Indian tribe. The tribe would have the “inherent powers and privileges of self government,” including the ability to levy taxes and exercise eminent domain. “Hawaii will, in effect, be two states, not one,” the authors wrote. The legislation is popularly known as “the Akaka bill,” after Hawaii’s Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka. Ten years ago, he sought to exploit a 1974 Supreme Court decision that racial discrimination on the basis of membership in “quasi-sovereign tribal entities” is constitutional. That decision allowed hiring preferences to be given to Indians within the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Akaka hoped that transforming ethnic Hawaiians from a race into a tribe would protect special benefits for those Hawaiians.
The U.S. House last week passed legislation that would in effect divide Hawaii into two states, one for ethnic Hawaiians and the other for everyone else.
In an opinion piece in Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Gail Heriot and Peter Kirsanow — members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights — said the bill “might turn out to be this Congress’ single most calamitous decision.”
The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act would allow most of the nation’s approximately 400,000 ethnic Hawaiians to organize themselves as one large Indian tribe. The tribe would have the “inherent powers and privileges of self government,” including the ability to levy taxes and exercise eminent domain.
“Hawaii will, in effect, be two states, not one,” the authors wrote.
The legislation is popularly known as “the Akaka bill,” after Hawaii’s Democratic Sen. Daniel Akaka. Ten years ago, he sought to exploit a 1974 Supreme Court decision that racial discrimination on the basis of membership in “quasi-sovereign tribal entities” is constitutional. That decision allowed hiring preferences to be given to Indians within the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Akaka hoped that transforming ethnic Hawaiians from a race into a tribe would protect special benefits for those Hawaiians.
