I have included below, a wonderful explanation from Marc Thiessen on how reconciliation could be a red herring by Pelosi and Reid. A very informative article:
Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) has warned that he and other pro-life Democrats are ready to kill health-care legislation unless the pro-abortion provisions enacted by the Senate are removed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi must win their votes to pass her bill. To do so she will have to promise two things: first, to fix the provisions they oppose in a reconciliation bill; and second to get an iron-clad commitment from Senate Democrats they will vote to sustain whatever deal she makes.
The problem for Stupak and his allies is that such a guarantee is not enough to ensure their position prevails -- because Senate Republicans are gearing up to use something called the “Byrd rule” to blow up any deal Pelosi cuts to pass health care in the House. And in the end, that would be just fine with Pelosi. She wins either way. Here is how:
In order to get a reconciliation bill with the fixes they demand to the Senate floor, Stupak and his pro-life colleagues must first vote to pass the original Senate health care bill -- including the abortion language they oppose. Only after this bill is passed in the House can the chamber then take up a reconciliation bill and send it to the Senate for its approval.
That’s where the “Byrd rule” comes in. Designed to protect the rights of the minority, the Byrd rule allows any Senator to raise a point of order demanding that “extraneous” (non-budgetary) provisions be removed. According to former Senate parliamentarian Bob Dove, “If a ‘Byrd Rule’ point of order against a provision is sustained, the provision is stricken from the bill….Appealing the rule of the chair requires 3/5 vote of duly elected and sworn Senators (60 votes).” (This process is known colloquially in the Senate as a “Byrd bath” and the dropped provisions are known as “Byrd droppings.”)
Republicans intend to raise points of order against the reconciliation package. They believe it is virtually certain that the Senate parliamentarian would find any abortion deal Pelosi makes with pro-life House Democrats to be “extraneous” (there is no reasonable way to argue the provision is primarily budgetary). So any abortion deal with Stupak and his allies would be struck from the bill.
That might only be the beginning of the bill’s unraveling. To pass health care, Pelosi will have to cut all sorts of deals in a reconciliation bill to bring along conservative “blue dog” Democrats. Using the Byrd rule, Republicans will proceed to pick apart every element of these deals Pelosi makes, piece by piece. It is unclear which provisions would survive scrutiny under the Byrd rule. But each time a point of order is sustained, it requires 60 votes to overturn that ruling -- which means Senate Republicans have the votes necessary block key elements of the reconciliation package.
If this happens, the amended reconciliation bill would go back to the House , where Stupak and others would then likely oppose it. Reconciliation would be dead.
That would be fine -- except for one small problem: Stupak and his allies will have already voted to pass the original Senate bill, which Pelosi could send to the president at any time for his signature. And that would suit President Obama and Speaker Pelosi just fine. Indeed, it might be their preferred outcome. Once the Senate bill is approved, the president and Democratic Congressional leaders have little incentive to pass a reconciliation bill. Think about it: Does Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid really care if Senate Republicans stop the House from amending the Senate’s already approved health care bill? He probably hopes they succeed. And if the reconciliation deal is killed in the Senate, Pelosi who would be able to tell Stupak that his complaint is not with her, but with the Senate Republicans. She would send the Senate bill to the president and he would sign it into law.
The bottom line: Stupak and the blue dog Democrats in the House have no leverage if they go along with Pelosi in a reconciliation strategy. The only way they can ensure that the abortion language and other provisions they oppose are eliminated is to reject reconciliation entirely -- and demand that the House and Senate start over with clean legislation.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Great Summary of Obama's 1st year
I was considering writing up a summary of Pres. Obama's first year when I came across Dr. Bill Bennett's summary he provided on National Review. He said it much better than I could have so I included it below:
Year One of a President at War with Reality [Bill Bennett]
Just about a year ago, many people here and abroad had very high hopes for our new president and for us. He was going to take on our economic woes, improve our international reputation (as he defined it), and fight a smarter and better war on terrorism. How has the year unfolded?
Using Gallup numbers, President Obama began his administration with a 69 percent approval rating. Today he’s at 49 percent — a 20-point drop. Last January unemployment was at 7.2 percent; today it’s at 10 percent. President Obama came to office criticizing the public debt, and continues to speak of the debt he inherited, but let’s get it right: According to the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl, "President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Bush and Obama share responsibility), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of this year through 2016." In addition, there is now talk of a second stimulus, and a nearly trillion-dollar health-care plan is in the works.
On the international front, Iran is more threatening and dangerous than ever. President Obama campaigned on a new kind of policy toward Iran, but the only thing new is that the Iranian government has become more aggressive, more brutal, and more contemptuous toward our desire to curb its nuclear ambitions. North Korea has test-fired banned missiles and broken off accords. Russia is as aggressive as ever. We have spurned the Dalai Lama. We have upset Eastern European allies from Poland to the Czech Republic. Israel is more nervous than ever — both about its existence and about the pressure the U.S. is putting on it. Sudan has been appeased further than it was by either of the last two administrations but is no less of a threat to Darfur, where things are getting worse. And in Latin America, the president has received praise from Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. Meanwhile, he’s twice gone to Copenhagen and come back empty-handed: once to bring the Olympics to Chicago, once to formulate a climate policy. In neither visit did he get what he set out for.
On Afghanistan, he has finally come out with a policy and committed to sending more troops. His administration’s spokesmen are unclear on what the exit or ramp-down procedures and timelines are, but for now, we can praise the ramp-up. But on the terrorism and war issue more generally, we have seen a backslide. Despite ringing statements that we will close Guantanamo, stop enhanced interrogation, and move detained terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into our civil-justice system with a public trial, thus bestowing constitutional rights on those terrorists, an interesting statistic came out last week: More terrorist acts and attempts took place in the United States in 2009 than in any year since 2001. According to the Rand Corporation, there have been 33 terrorism-related events on these shores since 9/11, and 13 of them occurred in 2009.
Meanwhile, President Obama seems to want to take the focus off this threat by changing the language of what we are in — which is a war. He tries to narrow and crib the definition as much as possible: a) by not talking about any of it very much and b) when talking about it, by restricting the discussion to al-Qaeda. He has a genus problem, but really only mentions the species; you never hear him talk about Islam or Islamic terrorism, and he hardly ever uses the word “war."
Barack Obama is president. He asked to be. The complaining, the blaming, and the distracting are not presidential. We need a president who sees the world as it is and rises to the challenges.
Year One of a President at War with Reality [Bill Bennett]
Just about a year ago, many people here and abroad had very high hopes for our new president and for us. He was going to take on our economic woes, improve our international reputation (as he defined it), and fight a smarter and better war on terrorism. How has the year unfolded?
Using Gallup numbers, President Obama began his administration with a 69 percent approval rating. Today he’s at 49 percent — a 20-point drop. Last January unemployment was at 7.2 percent; today it’s at 10 percent. President Obama came to office criticizing the public debt, and continues to speak of the debt he inherited, but let’s get it right: According to the Heritage Foundation’s Brian Riedl, "President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Bush and Obama share responsibility), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of this year through 2016." In addition, there is now talk of a second stimulus, and a nearly trillion-dollar health-care plan is in the works.
On the international front, Iran is more threatening and dangerous than ever. President Obama campaigned on a new kind of policy toward Iran, but the only thing new is that the Iranian government has become more aggressive, more brutal, and more contemptuous toward our desire to curb its nuclear ambitions. North Korea has test-fired banned missiles and broken off accords. Russia is as aggressive as ever. We have spurned the Dalai Lama. We have upset Eastern European allies from Poland to the Czech Republic. Israel is more nervous than ever — both about its existence and about the pressure the U.S. is putting on it. Sudan has been appeased further than it was by either of the last two administrations but is no less of a threat to Darfur, where things are getting worse. And in Latin America, the president has received praise from Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro. Meanwhile, he’s twice gone to Copenhagen and come back empty-handed: once to bring the Olympics to Chicago, once to formulate a climate policy. In neither visit did he get what he set out for.
On Afghanistan, he has finally come out with a policy and committed to sending more troops. His administration’s spokesmen are unclear on what the exit or ramp-down procedures and timelines are, but for now, we can praise the ramp-up. But on the terrorism and war issue more generally, we have seen a backslide. Despite ringing statements that we will close Guantanamo, stop enhanced interrogation, and move detained terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into our civil-justice system with a public trial, thus bestowing constitutional rights on those terrorists, an interesting statistic came out last week: More terrorist acts and attempts took place in the United States in 2009 than in any year since 2001. According to the Rand Corporation, there have been 33 terrorism-related events on these shores since 9/11, and 13 of them occurred in 2009.
Meanwhile, President Obama seems to want to take the focus off this threat by changing the language of what we are in — which is a war. He tries to narrow and crib the definition as much as possible: a) by not talking about any of it very much and b) when talking about it, by restricting the discussion to al-Qaeda. He has a genus problem, but really only mentions the species; you never hear him talk about Islam or Islamic terrorism, and he hardly ever uses the word “war."
Barack Obama is president. He asked to be. The complaining, the blaming, and the distracting are not presidential. We need a president who sees the world as it is and rises to the challenges.
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