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White House to Renege on Senate Deal?

By: Brian Faughnan (Diary)  |  February 11th, 2009 at 10:40 AM  | 

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The Wall Street Journal says that Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter may have been snookered. Now that the Senate has passed a slimmed-down porked up version of the Obama-Reid-Pelosi debt spending plan, the White House is pushing to add back many of the items that it cut out to get their support:

The White House is seeking to restore funding cut by the Senate for schools, health insurance and computerizing health records as the economic-stimulus plan headed into a final round of negotiations in Congress, with top lawmakers struggling to bring the price of the two-year package down to $800 billion.

That would be well below the $838.2 billion plan approved Tuesday by the Senate on a 61-37 vote, but would reflect pressure from influential moderates in the Senate to hold down costs. As lawmakers meet to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the legislation, the White House’s effort to reshape it is leading to skirmishes among House and Senate Democrats, as well as with the moderate Republicans and Democrats who pushed to cut the size of the original Senate package.

There’s even some whispering that House Democrats may be so addicted to spending that they’ll insist on adding the money back at the risk of scuttling the package. We’ll know soon enough, since Democrats are going back on their word to bring openness and transparency to government.

And there’s one other thing to keep in mind: Congress has still not passed the omnibus appropriations bill needed to fund the government for 2009. Drafting was complete weeks ago, and as of February 2, the total pricetag was reported to be around $410 billion. Expect a near dollar-to-dollar correlation between what was ‘cut out’ of this debt spending plan and what is added to that omnibus.

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COMMENTS

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  • texas214

    I’m assuming that if all the “crap” get put back in the bill it would still need cloture in the Senate prior to a final vote on a final bill.

    • E Pluribus Unum

      This is why cloture is that proverbial ‘hill to die on’.

      Voting in the Senate on a conference bill is up or down – 51 to win. There is no debate on which to file cloture.

  • angryred

    What’s next???

  • izoneguy

    When are they going to get it? They need to play with flaming hardballs and they need to start drawing some blood. I want some heads to roll on the other side.

    • Achance

      Assuming they could keep the wavering members of the caucus in line, the only tool is the filibuster. That runs the risk, I think invites the certainty, of the Republicans just being labelled as being obstreperous and blocking ‘desperately needed relief to people in crisis” or inflammatory words like that. Remember, you’re dealing with an electorate that the Ds and media convinced that the economy had gone to Hell in a handbasket at the heigth of the booming Bush years. Your also dealing with an electorate that had a 52% majority stupid enough to vote for BHO.

      It’s best, I think, to just let them own it.

      • texas214

        the Dems would be untrustworthy to make a deal with. Thats how you make them pay if they don’t abide by their agreement.

        • Achance

          We have some deadly dull old white guys that even most activist Republicans don’t much like. Whatever else he is, BHO is very charismatic as long as he has a telepropter and has the bully pulpit and a fawning media. We don’t win that one.

          • texas214

            Americans know when one side is being honest or dishonest. If they promised one thing to get a vote and then renege, we have to have faith in the American public regarding honesty. There may be two sides to an issue, but there is only one side to honesty.
            NOTE: the bill now appears to be $790 bil.; unbelieveably the Dem’s appear to even understand this fact.

          • Achance
  • Hancock

    They knew EXACTLY what they were doing when they cast their vote for this piece of garbage. When they voted for cloture, they removed the last remaining obstacle for the bill to become law AND at the same time, opened the floodgates for tons of extra spending and who knows what else in national/socialist diktats to be added to the measure. I kid you not, we could wind up with a 1.5 trillion dollar bill out of the conference committee.

    If that happens, there is nothing that the traitorous three can do but publicly pose as outraged, and talk about betrayal by the Democrats. They will vote against the bill, but since you cannot filibuster a conference report in the Senate, and it only needs fifty votes instead of 60 to pass, there is nothing they or anyone else can do if 50 liberals want to establish European socialism and restructure our government and economy permanently. The scope of the bill is so big that virtually any change will be allowed as germane in conference, meaning that there could be a total bill rewrite there and what comes out could be far, far worse than what we have seen. Then we will listen to these three moan about how they were betrayed and they will protest and vote against final passage. When up for reelection, they will make sure they tell their voters (99% of whom have no idea how the sausage factory works in DC) that they voted against the final bill when the pork was added back in, and insist that they should not be blamed. (by the way this is how the Blue Dogs have had it both ways in the House for years). No mention will be made of their more critical vote in favor of ending the filibuster and letting the monstrosity proceed in the first place.

    If there is any betrayal yere, it is on the part of Specter, Snowe, and Colllins.These people are not exactly freshmen Senators. Specter has been a senator since I was a freshman in high school, and I just entered my 18th year of working professionally in congressional politics, so dont tell me that he doesnt know the rules of the Senate and how conference committees work. So do Collins and Snowe. They knew once they let the bill go past the last firewall, the Senate filibuster, they were giving up all power permanently on this bill, and the Democrats would be free to renege on any deals made and write an even more leftist version of their dream bill. This was a conscious decision on their part.

    No, if there is anyone who has done any snookering, it is Specter, Collins, and Snowe doing it to the voters in Pennsylvania and Maine by running with an R next to their name.

    We needed these three to be Horatius Cocles at the bridge against the socialismulus package.

    Instead, they turned out to be the sentries at the gates of Troy who thought that wooden horse was a nice gift indeed.

  • Hancock

    No, the conference report comes straight back to both chambers, cannot be amended or filibustered, and only requires a majority vote of 50 in the Senate plus Biden to break a tie.

    Game over.

    While there is still the appearance of fighting on the battlefield now, it is illusory. The battle ended with the betrayal of Specter, Snowe, and Collins.

    There is now no chance to win through procedure or votes, only the faint hope that the Democrats get too greedy like a band of pirates arguing over dividing the loot and have a falling out among themselves to the point where the bill somehow blows up, but the chances for that are really, really small.

    Unlike real pirates who worked to capture a treasure ship and find they have a fixed amount of loot on board, these Democratic pirates can simply vote to increase the amount of loot to be divided amongst themselves to whatever amount they want.

    Sorry to be so negative, but the facts are the facts. Specter, Snowe and Collins killed us on this issue, and quite possibly, history will record their actions as the key tipping point towards socializing America and making the Democrats a permanent majority.

    • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

      So I’m sure this will come down as the glorious triumph of OUR LEADER Barack over the revanchist Republicans. The roles of Specter, Snowe and Collins will be airbrushed out – unless they actually jump ship and join the Revolution.

  • Hancock

    with the reply to this button, but for some reason it didnt post my response in the right place . . .

  • larueladue

    Did any seriously expect anything else from Pelosi and Reid?

  • http://www.thepoliticalclass.com The Political Class

    http://www.thepoliticalclass.com/2009/02/stimulus-cave-in-watch-here-comes-the-compromise-feinstein-reserves-right-to-vote-no.html

    Some ?moderates? offered up a deal to vote yes in exchange for cutting $100 Billion off of the Porkulus bill. Is this a joke? Don?t they understand that once this Frankenstein of a Porkulus bill is passed that Obama and his crew will just be back again for more. At first it will be another $10 here and another $20 billion there in new legislation and within a year they?ll have their $100 billion back as if it was part of the original Porkulus.

    www.thepoliticalclass.com

  • izoneguy

    Here is a video in their honor.

    • 6eorge Jetson

      No, their promises just expire.

  • barry915barry

    on a $790Billion dollar package. Shoot me now. Please.

  • indym

    Had there been a filibuster, then you would have given Obama all the ammunition he needed to go to the country and say the republicans are trying to stop his plan. If the markets contiuned to decline or unemployment continued to skyrocket, republicans would be blamed. The party already faces an uphill battle in 2010. I am also not convinced that republicans can win in 2009 statewide races. By allowing the legislation to go to the floor for a vote, you at least forced the dems and Obama to take ownership of their legislation. Voting for the plan will not hurt Collins, Snowe or Specter in their home states. Collins won with 72% of the vote just last year and Snowe is just as unbeatable. Specter is liked among blue collar democrats in Pennsylvania and he has senority in the Senate. His vote for this plan will bring home a lot of federal dollars for his state. I would also add that a number of republican governors including you know who support either portions or all of this plan.

    This plan is a kick in the gut for principled conservatives, but given where the party is right now, it passage enables the party to move on to other issues. I will also be honest about something else. I think repbublicans need to be smarter about the legislative process. The republican senators are scared of losing support from conservatives so they will pretty much vote against anything Obama wants to do. There are some very important votes coming up regarding health care, military, judges, and transportation. If all we do is vote no, then be prepared to be steamrolled. We will lose, lose and lose. As I mentioned earlier, 2010 does not look pretty at the point.

  • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

    The Democrats have the majorities. If they don’t want to negotiate, then all you can do is vote no and let the opposition own it. If you vote for it, you can’t complain later. We did this to the Democrats who voted for the Iraq war before they turned against it – we can’t allow the Democrats to do the same to us – we’re the minority already.

    Besides, we didn’t just vote “no” on the stimulus, we offer alternatives that go ignored – and the MSM just ignored them too.

    The fight is going to be as much as getting the truth out about the process as it is in the votes themselves.

    And please get your facts right about Gov. Palin.

    • http://andrightlyso.com/ civil_truth

      Dang that reply button.

  • davo119

    Unbelievable stupidity is the term that springs to mind. At least Spector can claim old age infirmity. What’s the excuse for Collins and Snow?