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Senate Set to Cast First Vote on Obamacare. GOP Assisting the Democrats

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  October 20th, 2009 at 03:36 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

This is rather inside the baseball, but it is also very important.

The Senate is about to vote for cloture on S. 1776. This legislation is the first vote in the Obamacare battle on the floor of the Senate.

Basically, the bill would bribe the doctors’ lobby into supporting Obamacare to the tune of three-quarters of a trillion dollars. Importantly, the Democrats are claiming Obamacare will reduce the deficit because they are putting most of the deficit ballooning in this piece of legislation. This will add trillions of dollars to the deficit.

Unfortunately, some Republican Senators who say they will vote against S. 1776 do support calling for cloture, i.e. cutting off debate.

But the media is reporting the Democrats do not have the votes on their side for cloture. Any Republican who supports cloture is, in effect, assisting the Democrats in passing Obamacare.

CALL YOUR SENATOR RIGHT NOW. TELL HIM TO OPPOSE CLOTURE ON S. 1776.

IF WE LOSE THIS BATTLE, OBAMACARE WILL MORE LIKELY THAN NOT BECOME A REALITY

Bob Corker explains why opposition of S. 1776 is in the country’s best interests.

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COMMENTS

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  • http://online.logcabin.org/about/ suzieQ
  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    As soon as they have enough GOP votes to get cloture.

  • Marcus_Traianus

    Do we know which R’s are leaning towards cloture?

    If yes, they should be the targets.

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    It does little good to have a guy from Georgia calling and raising hell with a Senator in Arizona.

    So target each GOP Senator so they can pressure their leadership to hold the line.

    This will be a failure of GOP leadership if it makes it past cloture with any GOP votes.

  • http://twitter.com/CFHeather cowgirl_from_hell

    The way the Dems are going about this DISGUSTS me. Is 1776 the clandestine bill that Reid and his minions have been working on, or is this the other (later) one introduced that would take the Medicare costs out of the other bill. The whole thing is so convoluted that I have been having a hard time keeping this one straight…

  • jen2001

    Was told by the office this vote was taken off the schedule for today, and she hadn’t made up her mind on how she is going to vote (DEM). Burr (REP) told me no vote for sure.

  • http://www.erickerickson.org Erick Erickson

    http://tinyurl.com/ykra56j

  • Third Street

    Just spoke with the Landrieu and Vitter offices. Asked their respective mouthpieces whether the senators planned to vote on cloture for S. 1776.

    Landrieu’s office: “She’s looking into it but she’s very supportive of the bill.” No surprise there.

    Vitter’s office: “Yes, he is.” As Vitter is usually a reliable conservative vote I found this surprising and distressing. I’m hoping that the girl on the phone was confused.

    At any rate, I made my wishes known to both offices and in response received a blithe “okay, I’ll pass that message along.” Right.

  • http://www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com ColdWarrior

    So I faxed them this:

    Please LEAD and vote against cloture on the Senate unconstitutional healthcare bill.

    Thank you.

    XXXXXX
    Republican Party Precinct Committeeman
    Tempe, AZ 85283

    P.S. Questions? Call me. XXX XXX-XXXX

    <<<

    I also called their local offices and told them the same thing.

    Thank you.
    ColdWarrior
    www.theprecinctproject.wordpress.com

  • Ausonius

    who has turned out to be one of the greatest disappointments ever for Ohio conservatives.

    The aide registered my protest and thanked me: no comment on Voinovich’s position.

    A bad sign, but it could be they were busy. I was on hold for quite a while.

  • bk

    that at least some of them will for it as an amendment to the final health care bill but will filibuster it as a standalone bill.

    But we know they don’t have the stones to do that.

  • Marcus_Traianus

    Paging Mitch, do you have any influence with Republican Senators anymore?

    I bet the folks in his office are tired of hearing from me.

    By the way, “a guy from Georgia” may have been a nice, folksy, unpretentious description a few years ago. You underestimate the power of your position.

  • AceInTX

    were so important we just HAD to compromise all our principles in 2008?

    The way it works now….we need 50 Republican Senators to filibuster anything because we can’t count on 10 or more to hold the line

  • AceInTX

    CALL ANYWAY…and Jam the Fax Machine

  • anotherindyfilmguy

    Let them do it.
    let them do everything they want.
    Let them devalue the dollar to nothing.
    Let them break the best economy the world has ever seen in the name of 1960′s/1970′s radicalism.
    Let them learn what it is it to be poor when their money means nothing.
    Let them know what it is to be defenseless when they can’t pay thier bodyguards because the dollar is gone.
    Let them do it and learn what real consequences are outside of their ivory tower/liberland gated communities really mean when they turn the economy into something that will make a third world country look away.
    Dare them to do it and walk out. Leave your proxy vote of “no”.
    The rest of us will be fine and pull together to get through hard times…

  • http://hillbillypolitics.com Steph C

    There are other days when I realize do so would be just as selfish as what is happening in Congress now.

    The “other” days far outnumber the days when I when I “feel like that.”

    Those who are doing the deeds aren’t the only ones who will suffer so we must keep fighting.

  • The_Gadfly

    No, he doesn’t. His power comes from the people who call the pols as a result of his posting on RedState. The power he holds beyond that is only enough to usually get through and get an official statement. Effecting the way pols vote is still the work of the grassroots.

  • The_Gadfly

    The endgame strategy is to get a bill out of the Senate, and one out of the House. I don’t think they really care what’s in either bill, that’s all posturing to try to gauge how strong the bases are. Once in conference committee they rewrite the whole shebang to suit Pelosi, Reid, and The Big 0. Rangel has already said he will certify whatever comes out of committee to use the Byrd processes to avoid filibuster in the Senate, at which point Reid only needs to get 51 Dems to vote for the bill. The House is pretty much a done deal because of how much power is given to Pelosi to drive legislation forward.

    So to some extent it doesn’t matter what the issue is, we always want votes against clotures.

    In this particular case the relevant points are:

    * the Dems are attempting to publicly bribe the AMA into supporting a bad bill
    * the Dems are hiding the cost of the healthcare plan by making these expenditures off book and thereby excluding them from the CBO calculations
    * the reason they need to do both of the above is that THE premier example of government run healthcare (which they are using to flog taking over the private sector) has been so mismanaged doctors in some states can’t afford to treat patients under its provisions.

  • The_Gadfly

    He wants the bag guys to drop a nuke on the capital while they are in session so we can start fresh. He’s very Shakespearean about it: a plague on both their houses.

  • martyinaz

    Identify the turncoats and vote them OUT! Write to them today. Tell them “Just because you have an (R) behind your name doesn’t mean you’ll get my vote if you are a turncoat”.