| Here is the problem: The Senate has passed its HCR bill. |
| Congress can amend the law — it does so all the time — but can it amend something that isn’t law? |
| Which is where Democrats are tripping up. |
| So House Democrats will have two fig leaves: 1) they didn’t vote directly for the Senate bill, and 2) they voted to simultaneously amend — to “fix” — the Senate bill. |
| The problem is the sequence. Can the House vote to amend something that isn’t the law, as the Senate bill will not be law before the president’s signature? The Rules Committee meeting turned into mass confusion when Democratic Rep. Henry Waxman said, “We’re not going to ‘deem’ the bill passed. We’re going to pass the Senate bill…I would be against the idea of ‘deeming’ something — we either pass it or we don’t.” |
| To Republican ears, that sounded as if Waxman was speaking out in support of a direct vote on the Senate plan. |
This is from a couple of weeks ago, but it’s probably more resonant today. TalkPac put together this animated video in the manner of the old Dicky Goodman recordings, only using Barack Obama’s greatest pop(ulist) hits instead of songs. It’s not exactly a palate-cleanser, but more of gallows humor on Healthageddon weekend: |
The hard part is Medicare and Medicaid. In an aging population, how do you keep them from blowing up the budget? There is only one answer: rationing. |
Why do you think the stimulus package pours $1.1 billion into medical “comparative effectiveness research”? It is the perfect setup for rationing. Once you establish what is “best practice” for expensive operations, medical tests and aggressive therapies, you’ve laid the premise for funding some and denying others. |
| It is estimated that a third to a half of one’s lifetime health costs are consumed in the last six months of life. Accordingly, Britain’s National Health Service can deny treatments it deems not cost-effective —Read more at www.chron.com |
No truer words have ever been spoken by the Democrats in Congress when it comes to making sure that Barack Obama’s agenda is more important than the will of the American People. US Constitution and We the People be damned. Democrat US Representative from Florida Alcee Hastings stated the following: |
“There Are No Rules Here … We Make Them Up As We Go Along” |
We are supposed to live in a Representative Democracy. Might some one tell us who the Democrats are representing these days? How can ever poll taken be against Obamacare, yet President Obama, Pelosi and Reid keep feeding us the line that they are doing this for the American people? Why, because they make that stuff up to as they go along. Read more at scaredmonkeys.com |
Key House Democrat: “There Are No Rules Here … We Make Them Up As We Go Along” |
From CBS News: The White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle has been feverishly sending out unsolicited email messages to federal employees in an effort to build support for President Barack Obama’s health reform package over the last several weeks[...] |
The Department of State employees, who receive hundreds of official government emails every day, have complained about the annoying and partisan emails but are nervous to go public for fear of retribution. The emails are addressed to the federal employees by name and use the official .gov address. |
| The unsolicited emails also request that the federal employees take action in order to ensure that Obama’s health reform package is passed and the federal budget isn’t at risk for bankruptcy. One federal employee was so concerned about DeParle’s language in one email that he questioned whether his department’s budget would be cut or eliminated without passage of Obama’s bill.Read more at anotherblackconservative.blogspot.com |
The Right Scoop catches Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) explaining some of the deficiencies of the CBO analysis of the House reconciliation package on Fox & Friends this morning. Not only does the CBO play along with the double-counting of Medicare cuts — which argues that the money will go both to shoring up Medicare while also funding the expansion of Medicaid — it fails to include the “doctor fix” that Democrats plan to pursue after ObamaCare passes: |
The double counting is pretty bad too, but the worst part is the fact that they delayed the benefits, but not the taxes, for 4 years to make it seem like it will save money. Are Americans really going to fall for such a blatant gimmick? 6 years of benefits for 10 years of taxes? |
| Just what we need - 15,000 more IRS agents tasked with making sure that as per Obama’s decree everyone buys a private product - insurance - to the government’s liking. From HotAir: |
| The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Saturday shows that 23% of the nation’s voters Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Forty-four percent (44%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -21. That matches the lowest Approval Index rating yet recorded for this President (see trends).
Read more at www.rasmussenreports.com |
| The House will likely adopt a “self-executing” rule that “deems” passage of the amendatory bill as enactment of the Senate bill, without an actual vote on the latter. |
This enables the House to enact the Senate bill while appearing only to approve changes to it. The underlying Senate bill would then go to the president for signature, and the amendatory bill would go to the Senate for consideration under reconciliation procedures (meaning no filibuster). |
Rep. Louise Slaughter (D., N.Y.), chair of the House Rules Committee and prime mover behind this approach, has released a letter from Yale Law School’s Jack Balkin asserting that a “rule which consolidates a vote on a bill and accompanying amendments, or, as in this case, a reconciliation measure and an amended bill, is within the House’s powers under Article I, Section 5, Clause 2.” |
| But that does not actually address the point at issue. No one doubts that the House can consolidate two bills in a single measure; the question is whether,Read more at online.wsj.com |
I guess Virginia AG Ken Cuccinelli didn’t listen to Obama’s latest lecture on health care. |
The Washington Post: A spokesman for Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R) said this afternoon that Virginia will file suit against the federal government if the Democratic health care reform bill is approved by the U.S. Congress. |
Cuccinelli has long said he was examining the legal issues and suggested he would likely file suit. Brian Gottstein, a spokesman for the office, said this afternoon that a lawsuit is now a definite. Gottstein would provide no details of the legal rationale for such a suit, indicating the process is “still being worked out.” |
Virginia last week became the first state in the country to pass a state bill declaring it illegal for the government to require individuals to purchase health insurance, a key part of bills under consideration on Capitol Hill. Read more at www.lonelyconservative.com |
House Democrats have released the text of their reconciliation
bill, which you can view here.
There’s a lot to go through, but it’s immediately worth noting
that one of the ways in which they will finance the increased
spending in the latest version of their bill is to hike the
Medicare payroll tax again — making that the fourth time the tax
has been hiked even before Obamacare becomes law.
|
| Back in November, Senate Democrats unveiled a plan that increased
the Medicare payroll tax by 0.5 percent for individuals earning
over $200,000 and couples earning over $250,000 (thus a marriage
penalty). The following month, to raise additional revenue for
the costlier version of the Senate health care bill that ended up
passing, the tax was raised to 0.9 percent. But in the White
House proposal released last month, President Obama decided to
keep this tax, and then impose an additional 2.9 percent tax on
income “from interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and
rents…”Read more at spectator.org |
| From 1776 to 1783 Thomas Paine published sixteen pamphlets known as The American Crisis. These pamphlets were crafted to inspire the colonists during the turbulent times of the American Revolution |
| The first was released on December 23, 1776. What makes this pamphlet so vital in our country’s history is that Thomas Paine crafted the right words for the right time during the early days of our struggle for independence |
| Those words inspired General Washington into action. The pamphlet, was read aloud to the Continental army on December 23, 1776, two days before the Battle of Trenton |
| The first paragraph from it was a call for courage and perseverance |
It was December 1776 and all appeared lost after the Continental Army met with defeat after defeat against a better trained and more organized enemy. The British felt the rebellion was crushed and George Washington was nothing more than an annoyance. Below is an excerpt from the New World Encyclopedia |
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Rules Committee Meeting Descends into Chaos
