(h/t Heather)
Well the news is percolating something very positive about the White House, health care and the obstructionist-teabagging republicans.
Given hardening Republican opposition to Congressional health care proposals, Democrats now say they see little chance of the minority’s cooperation in approving any overhaul, and are increasingly focused on drawing support for a final plan from within their own ranks.Top Democrats said Tuesday that their go-it-alone view was being shaped by what they saw as Republicans’ purposely strident tone against health care legislation during this month’s Congressional recess, as well as remarks by leading Republicans that current proposals were flawed beyond repair.The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said of Republican lawmakers, “Only a handful seem interested in the type of comprehensive reform that so many people believe is necessary to ensure the principles and the goals that the president has laid out.”The Democratic shift may not make producing a final bill much easier.
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Democratic senators might feel more empowered, for example, to define the authority of the nonprofit insurance cooperatives that are emerging as an alternative to a public insurance plan.Republicans have used the Congressional break to dig in hard against the overhaul outline drawn by Democrats.
The Senate’s No. 2 Republican, Jon Kyl of Arizona, is the latest to weigh in strongly, saying Tuesday that the public response lawmakers were seeing over the summer break should persuade Democrats to scrap their approach and start over.“I think it is safe to say there are a huge number of big issues that people have,” Mr. Kyl told reporters in a conference call from Arizona. “There is no way that Republicans are going to support a trillion-dollar-plus bill.”The White House has also interpreted critical comments by Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the top Republican negotiator in a crucial Finance Committee effort to reach a bipartisan compromise, as a sign that there is little hope of reaching a deal politically acceptable to both parties.”
We don't trust Rahm and for good reason since he's been the ex-Blue Dog recruiting Congressman, but it seems that they are leaking out this information. If this is true then the Netroots should celebrate because of the pressure we've been putting on the Baucus Dogs and other members of Congress to include the public option or there will be hell to pay. And Republicans have acted in bad faith the entire time as every one of their leadership has attacked anything in the reform that doesn't make the insurance companies richer.
Anderson Cooper of CNN did a report last night that echoes the NY Times piece.
Cooper: After negotiating with republicans, conservative democrats and seemingly themselves over parts of a plan CNN has learned that the administration could be getting closer to a very big change. Namely crafting a health care bill and try to ram it through the Senate even if it passes by only a single vote.
Henry: Well Anderson there is no final decision, but Democrats close to the White House are saying that they are now actively considering the possibility of doing a go it alone strategy. It's a budget maneuver, very obscure known as reconciliation where they would only need a simple majority, 51 votes instead of 60 votes to push through health reform. Republicans would scream that this is a power grab, it's an underhanded move but White House officials privately are already laying out the ground work by saying look, we've been working with republicans for months. If they don't get something done in the next weeks we're going to have to take drastic measures...."If we're going to have to push it through no ones going to remember how messy it is, but they'll remember at the end of the day that we got health care reform done," his ad visors have said, "a win is a win."
The Democratic Party won a mandate in the general election so how can it be a power grab, Ed? If the GOP won, there would be no talk like this by the Ed's of the media. Part of me thinks that it's possible some republicans and Baucus Dogs will then come back to the table and weaken the bill more, but make it appear to be stronger. They will probably go on TV instead and reeve up the teabaggers some more and we'll see fifty caliber cannons strapped to their shoulders and scowls on their faces in the coming days. We'll see how it all shakes out. Why does Ed Henry think reconciliation is an obscure procedure? We've been writing about this for months on our blogs and the media has been reporting on it almost as long. It's like Henry is trying to set up the narrative that the White House just discovered reconciliation in a cigar smoked, dark room and are screwing the American people by using it. They should look to their hero George Bush because he used it for his tax cuts and to open the Arctic Wildlife refuge for domestic oil drilling when he was in office.
And as Media Matters noted:
Republicans used the reconciliation process to pass the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001, the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003, and the Tax Increase Prevention and Reconciliation Act of 2005, among others.
And Ronald Reagan used it to pass his historic tax cuts for the rich.
But when a Republican uses it, that's normal; if Democrats use it, they are being power-hungry dirty f*&king hippies.
I'd also like to thank the teabaggers for acting like complete psychos while Republicans in Congress looked on with glee. They helped the White House accept what we've been saying if it does come down to this. Republicans would never allow true health care reform in any meaningful way and the nuts put an exclamation mark on this big time. Thank you!
