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Dems Can’t Figure Out if the House or Senate Goes First

By: Dan Perrin (Diary)  |  February 22nd, 2010 at 07:57 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The ObamaCare roll out has run right into, well, itself. From the true-believer-ObamaCare-cheerleader-a-go-go, Jonathan Cohn:

“Apparently unresolved, still, is the question of which House votes first. And that’s no small thing.

“But the bigger question, really, is the broader one: Will Democrats, particularly in the House, get past their fear and vote for the bill? Really that’s what the summit is all about–convincing nervous Democrats that the Republicans really aren’t interested in compromise and that health care reform, despite the poll numbers, is still a good idea.”

The above is a classic example of irrational thought defined. They have no legislative language. (This is another way of saying they do not know what is going to be in the bill, or what it will say once they decide what to put in it.) They know House Dems are freaking out because ObamaCare is hated by the public, the seniors and the independent voters. They do not have a clear reconciliation strategy, despite their chest beating and big bet making while holding a pair of twos. They do not even know if they will start in the House or the Senate.

This will end badly for the White House and the Dems.

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COMMENTS

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  • redneck_hippie

    instead of an actual bill, and the rest of this horrid process is making it plain to the whole world that these jerks not in control of the situation. Because they decided to my way or the highway this, the difficulties multiply. They lost this thing politically months ago, thanks to We the People. Then they lost this thing legislatively when Brown won. They lost it morally when they purchased it through the senate. How many more ways are they going to lose this thing?

  • http://www.inthisdimension.com inthisdimension

    .. and tax bills MUST originate in the House, right?

    Seems to me that the Democrats don’t understand how our government works.

    What a surprise.

    • writeblock

      …by Jonathan Cohn. If it’s a budget item, it must originate in the House. So the House goes first. The question I have is whether the House can pass amendments to bill it hasn’t even passed yet or whether it must pass the Senate bill first.

      • d_lamar

        Since when have the dems been concerned about following the constitution? For that matter, neither party seems to give any consideration whatsoever to the Constitution. Such as 2nd, 9th, & 10th amendments.

    • bk

      The House passes some minor bill with no controversy. The Senate gets it and replaces the entire language via amendment. Voila! Now we have a Senate bill that on paper originated in the House.

      That’s how they did it with the ReidCare bill. It was – on paper – an amendment to a House bill. Maybe the GOP has done the same in the past, but it was quite obviously a sham in this case.

  • tngal

    You put your left foot in,
    You put your right foot out,
    You do the Hokey Pokey
    And you turn yourself around,

    Wait, I know this dance…

  • snowshooze

    I wrote my sellout Senator, Mark Begich AK and informed him in no uncertain terms that I would not accept the House bill, the Senate bill or the Obama bill, and that if reconciliation was attempted, I would join the revolt with every drop of conviction in me, and I could never trust Washington with a nickle…promising to keep it in trust a few years to start their programs… ( By then it will be pissed away…)
    NO HCR under this administration, period.

  • renny

    I suspect, in the end, there will not be any more votes anywhere.
    Rahm and Axelrod and Little O do not know how to craft and shepherd legislation through a laundromat let alone the US Congress, and they obviously also don’t know how to wet their fingers and take a reading of which way the wind is blowing.
    The Dems. ditched Carter in the end (it took three years longer, but we are now on 24/7 news cycles that have truncated everything), and when push comes to their own skins, they’ll abandon the great black hope, also. Is that racist?

  • teresakoch

    God help us!

  • NeoKong

    Obama has shoved all his chips onto the table and pushed his chair back and stood up.
    He’s all in.
    The Dems are likely going to lose their House majority in November and they will need something to show for it.
    They don’t care if the public hates it.
    They don’t care if they lose the Congress.
    They don’t care if they lose the White House in 2012.
    They don’t care if it is illegal or unconstitutional.
    Is there somebody willing to take it to the Supreme Court…..?
    This is how true govt. hacks operate. They will do whatever they want and then and then dare you to stop them.

    Let’s say for example that the Democrats pass this bill through reconciliation and it was completely illegal and against all the rules of the Senate. What happens now….?
    What happens now…?</b?
    Are Republicans prepared to try and challenge this in court ?
    How would this be repealed…?

    • earlgrey

      What do we do next? We can’t do any more until November. Once we take back Congress there had better be a plan to take back our healthcare and our country!

    • Richard Mullins

      and it’s not going to save by not doing it. My only guess on why they don’t do it is because they are chicken. They have the chance and they seem to blow it. They can do with Reconciliation but they seem to be too chicken to do so. The fact that they have members that won’t do Reconciliation makes it more a case of chicken than any thing else.

    • archer52

      I wondered that myself, but I’m no constitutional lawyer. If Congress breaks its own rules and the limits set upon it by the Constitution, is the law valid? Can agencies inside the government refuse to implement the law? (I know, I’m dreaming, but can they?) Can the states simply ignore the law?

      • gman2008

        Constitutional governance will never be re-acquired and practiced the way out forefathers meant it to be by playing games at the federal level. At best, the federal fight will slow down slide, but it will not win the war.

        Nullification. The State’s hold the final say when it comes to the constitution – not the Supreme Court. When Scalia said succession was not legal – http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0210/Scalia_No_to_secession.html -, he was wrong for two reasons. First read Jefferson vs Lincoln: America Must Choose:

        http://www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/02/20/jefferson-vs-lincoln-america-must-choose/

        I chose Jefferson.

        Secondly, the reason Scalia is so against succession is really his fear that its lesser brother – that of nullification – would commit the SCOTUS, along with the rest of the federal government, into its rightful place. Nullification would remove power from not only the President and the Congress, but from Scalia and his eight companions as well. The time for talking about nullification is over. It’s time to start acting – the movement is growing.

        For a primer read: http://tinyurl.com/yjt5n7t

        Honestly take the time to learn about it by visiting the various sites referenced and pass it on to fellow freedom minded people. If we need to, we should be prepared to fight socialism tooth and nail, starting with nullifying ObamaCare. I am NOT talking about nullifying the mandate for buying insurance, nor challenging the mandate in court, but nullifying the entire bill and ignoring any ruling by the Supreme court which tramples on State’s rights. After reading the above material, it should become clear that this is the way the country was designed by our founders to work. It is time we took that power back.

        Nullifying or challenging the mandate sounds nice in principle. Assume for a moment that we were successful and the Supreme Court ruled in our favor. What method would be left to fund the “reform”? Why taxes of course. You have just moved yourself that much closer, that much faster, towards as single-payer system. Don’t concentrate on the mandate, concentrate of nullification of the entire bill. Concentrate on nullifying everything that comes out of the federal government that does not meet the following:

        “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”.

        Read it carefully. It does not mention “as decided by the Supreme Court”. If the states stand together, there is no way the federal government can enforce the laws or collect taxes. Read the material. Are we a nation of wimps? I tend not to think so. I have had it with these bums in DC and I, for one, am ready to take the fight to them for a change.

        It says near the end of the Declaration of Independence:

        “Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security”

        The thrusting off of the tyranny is not to be taken lightly – evils are sufferable to a point and challenging the centralized powers should not occur for “light and transient causes”. However, we are now in a period where we are suffering a “long train of abuses”. Per the Declaration of Independence, the document that began the founding of this country, it is our DUTY to throw off such government. No Supreme Court justice, Congress member, or President can tell you otherwise, for the wisdom of this document, which was the catalyst for the founding of this country, is far greater than any of the weasels in the federal government.

        What we should be doing now is looking for that person to lead us back to constitutional governance. A leader of great oratorical skills and charisma. We need our Ghandi, our Martin Luther King, Jr., our William Wallace. The time is now. A failure to act equates to the death of our Republic. Sounds pessimistic, but it’s true. Your children and grandchildren – all your descendants – now face living to a standard that is less than yours, with less freedoms than you enjoy.

        • revolutionary

          How do we, as states, reject this thing? How in the world do we nullify this and stop the government from taking our money for this anyway? How do states survive without federal assistance? I am all for it…I am ready to reject it all…lock, stock, and barrell, but I wonder how we get our states to do it? I can’t as an individual refuse to pay it because they take the taxes out before I ever get my check. I may be really naive about all of this and I am truly asking the question because I don’t know the process in which all of this takes place. I plan to read all of your link suggestions to educate myself, but apart from that it is over whelming and somewhat complicated to me.

          I am not usually someone who thinks the worst or buys into fear, but I am very concerned about the future of our nation and I tend to believe that we are at a crossroad. The choices we make now will define how our children and grandchildren handle future problems. It just really infuriates me to feel like the Dumbocrats and the Charlatan in charge have so little respect for our voice! That’s the worst part…ignoring us and forging ahead with legislation that will cripple our conutry.

  • bk
    • clintonformccain

      I voted for the Stupak amendment. That’s the wonderful thing about having 100 different votes on each piece of legislation. Every congress critter gets to claim whatever they need to claim before they all pocket their payoffs, slap each other on the back, and rob the American people again.

      • Menlo

        With the possible exception of Stupak himself, they would vote for the bill either way.

        • JSobieski

          who would not accept the bill without the Stupak Amendment.

          Its the Senate dem “pro-lifers” who folded like cheap tents

          • Menlo

            I don’t believe those were Stupak’s exact words. That’s how it may have been reported, but I don’t think that was a direct quote from anyone in the House. If those words were used, they would not vote for the thing anyway. Otherwise, they would have said something. What’s more, the Nelson-Boxer “compromise” in the Senate bill likely allayed their concerns.

          • bk

            but that most of them would vote for it even if the amendment failed. Then 25% of Dems voted for it. Weird.

            I have seen it tossed around that 10-12% would vote against it without Stupak. Certainly Stupak and Cao flip to nay without it.

          • JSobieski

            “They’re not going to take it out,” Stupak said of Senate Democrats during an appearance on “Fox and Friends” Tuesday morning. “If they do, healthcare will not move forward … At least 10 to 15 to 20 of us will not vote for it.”

            http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2009/11/17/stupak/index.html

          • JSobieski

            The “reconciliation option’ is being pursued because there is already an assessment that the House can’t pass the Senate version, which would be their easiest path to “success”

            http://weeklystandard.com/blogs/stupak-house-dems-said-no-way-passing-senate-bill

          • bk
          • JSobieski

            nt

          • Menlo

            Either they lied (which is nothing new around there), they are okay with the Nelson-Boxer deal, or they would not be voting for it anyway.

            Unless you have a reason as to why no other Democrat has said he or she would join Stupak? That’s what doesn’t make this sound right to me.

          • JSobieski

            because (1) the fact that there is a numerical range means that he is not sure about all of them and (2) he doesn’t want to put additional pressure on any one else.

            Stupak has taken a lot of heat on this, but he has sustained his principle-based objections and is worth of some credit.

          • JSobieski

            http://spectator.org/archives/2010/02/23/obamacare-faces-tough-road-in

            I stand my assessment that the House and not the Senate is the primary obstacle to Obama care at this point, and that the absence of a Stupak amendment is key to keeping Obama care off the books.

            Stupak is the one democrat in the process who has so far not acted contrary to pervious statements about “if the bill includes X I will not vote for it”

  • wtpct

    I’ve heard it said somewhere………You can put lipstick on a pig….but it’s still a pig.

  • http://www.AmericanThinker.com Hammer2008

    http://www.pinkslipsforcongress.com/about.html

    “Please feel free to download a pink slip, print it off, fill it in and mail it to your House or Senate representative that is not following what the people want. Remember, the work for US, we do not work for them.”

    printable pdf here:
    http://www.pinkslipsforcongress.com/files/PinkSlip.pdf

  • aohjeff

    If the Democrats pass Obamacare with the reconciliation method they will be voted out en masse. If they try and fail, the voters will STILL REMEMBER that they tried to circumvent the will of the American public come November. As one of my favorite Obama posters puts it: ” INCOMPETENCE…You can only hide it for so long”. Apparently it applies to the Democratic majority as well as our OJT Chief Executive.

  • toledojim

    This has got to be the biggest debacle I’ve every seen. I thought the Carter years were a camality, what is going one today is even worse. The Democrats are sealing their own fate, I think there is going to be such a backlash over this healthcare bill, the democrats are going to be duck soup in November and fopr years to come.

  • qurys

    and interestingly enough, Mr. Cohn does not mention once that this piece of legislation has been soundly rebuked by the public. His article is all about strategy and policy and politics. It’s as if this bill and its consequences exist in a vacuum. Could this be how he views liberal decisionmaking?

    • Section9

      ….and bring the Radiant Future closer to this Day.

      It doesn’t matter to Progressives what the People think. The People don’t count.

  • GenEarly

    Noooo, the Senate Rino?s will reach out to help the Socialists help the sheeples who are too dumb to take care of themselves. Harsh but True.
    McLame, Voinivitch, Grahmnesty, and the 2 Gals from Maine will be there for obamacare bi-partisanship. Will they ever learn? NO!
    Vote out all the RINO?s in the upcoming primaries. We need people who have at least read The Constitution.
    Can you tell me where it says the Federal Government can force me to buy health insurance? I?m just not going to do it, sit down strike, non-compliance. See what that costs to track down 100,000?s of Americans who just ignore them! Why not THEY ignore us.

    • izoneguy

      I think you are off by a factor of 100…..

      The ultimate stimulus program……

      1 Million new prison guards to lock up the 10 Million Americans who refuse to buy Government Health Insurance…..

      • chabsentia

        The Democrats will fall on their swords for Pelosi because they have convinced themselves that the voters will have forgotten by Novemeber as they have for the last twenty years and they are probably right.They have been the Majority party since January 20 2007 and the Majority of the voters increased them to a super majority and now the voters want to whine about it. People deserve the Government they get.