This morning, a very senior contact within the House GOP informed me that Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Harry Reid (D-NV) met at length last night to put together the House/Senate conference report on the “stimulus” package. Only Democratic conference committee members were informed of the meeting and permitted to attend.
The purpose behind the meeting was apparently to produce a conference report on the over $800 billion borrow-and-spend bill that was entirely free of Republican input, and that could be presented no later than this afternoon in preparation for House and Senate floor action tomorrow.
Ironically, the Democrat-heavy House yesterday voted unanimously in favor of a GOP-sponsored resolution stating that the bill should be made subject to a 48 hour review period by the public before it was finally passed by Congress — something that seems very unlikely to happen, given Democrats’ actions over the last twelve hours.
In a post here on RedState, Congressman Tom Price (R-GA), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, confirmed reports of the Democrats’ midnight meeting. “Negotiations have already begun under the dark of night,” wrote Price this morning. “In closed room somewhere in the Capitol Building last night, Congressional Democrats and Obama administration officials met with no Republicans present.”
Price continued:
Rules for the conference committee dictate that there must be an open hearing for negotiations, but that hearing is controlled entirely by the majority party. It is the prerogative of congressional Democrats as to whether the hearing will be an honest and open forum or instead a dog and pony show while real negotiations take place in a smoke-filled backroom.
With a trillion dollars of taxpayer money currently at stake, it is critical to provide the American people a full and complete understanding of how it is going to be spent.
House Democrats haven’t been shy about voicing their intent to use the conference to re-insert a large portion of the spending taken out of the Senate’s compromise bill, which was passed due to support from three Republicans who, apparently and inexplicably, thought Reps. Pelosi and Hoyer (D-MD) would be content to allow pet pork programs to remain on the cutting room floor when presented with the opportunity to reinsert them in conference.
The “stimulus” package passed the House with zero GOP votes (and 11 Democrats voting against), and the Senate with three GOP votes, as Sens. Specter (R-PA), Collins (R-ME), and Snowe (R-ME) gave the nearly $1T package the votes it needed to reach the conference in the first place.
Now that the cuts made in their compromise package are being put back into the bill during midnight meetings that the minority is being entirely excluded from, the best thing the GOP as a whole can do is to vote unanimously against this bill in both houses — and the best thing beyond that for Specter, Snowe, and Collins to do would be to apologize to their fellow Republicans and to the American people for being so naive as to negotiate the resuscitation of this bill when it was on life support in their chamber, only to have every cut they negotiated out of it put right back in by a Democrat majority that never had any more intention of living up to its “compromise” agreements than it did of living up to its own rhetoric about “bipartisanship.”
"Apologize"? - How about "Resign" instead?
civil_truth Wednesday, February 11th at 10:54AM EST (link)The Japanese had it right about falling on your sword when your royally scr*w up.
And Rightly So!
Can they be impeached, or censured? (nt)
RJD Wednesday, February 11th at 10:57AM EST (link)nt
They could be expelled from the caucus, but
Achance Wednesday, February 11th at 11:08AM EST (link)I think it would be better to hold their feet to the fire over card check. This one is only money. Card check is setting up a Socialist Labor Party with compelled contributions that in alliance with the Democrats has every intention of establishing the United Socialist States of America.
I don’t know if the leadership has the guts, but it is time for a “come to Jesus” talk in which you ask for their chit on card check and if they won’t give it, you throw them out of the caucus and out of their committee positions.
In Vino Veritas
Agree that card check/RTW repeal is key to a one-party state
civil_truth Wednesday, February 11th at 11:35AM EST (link)If the Republicans fold on that, then the handwriting is on the wall: “Babylon is falling”.
Any chance that Democrats from RTW states would stand up against the bills, or will it require a united front on Senate Republicans (weak reed vs. weak Reid).
And Rightly So!
They could have their committee assignments taken away.
NightTwister Wednesday, February 11th at 11:12AM EST (link)Unfortunately, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is missing an important part of his anatomy that would allow him to actually do that.
Get Connected in Colorado.
Icons?
Jason Wednesday, February 11th at 1:21PM EST (link)How do you get all those icons at the bottom of your signature?
Jason A. Trommetter
jasontromm@gmail.com
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
I captured & reduced the images, then uploaded them to my blog.
NightTwister Wednesday, February 11th at 6:11PM EST (link)I just reference them in my “signature” with the URL to the different sites.
Get Connected in Colorado.
Of course they have no intention of allowing any GOP input
Hancock Wednesday, February 11th at 11:13AM EST (link)And anyone with more than about 3 weeks working on the Hill, either as Member of Staff, could have told you so. Thanks to the Traitorous Three, they dont need Republican input or votes on this package anymore, other than an attempt to get the political cover of the ‘bipartisan’ stimulus package.
Actually, I hope the Democrats go absolutely crazy in conference on this bill, add hundreds of billions more to it, and then bring it back and ram it through with Democrat majorities. It’s not that I want to saddle our country with that future debt and socialism, but the more egregious the Democrats act on this, hopefully the Senate Republicans will learn their lesson and never other key legislation get past the filibuster firewall on phony promises for the next two years.
I for one dont want to see the Senate GOP repeat this mistake on health care, defense, guns, Social Security reform over the next two years, as in each case their will be some moderates who will want to ‘compromise’ only to have the same sellout happen.
I would rather the Democrats give it to them real hard, real brutal, right now, than to have some Senator 6 months from now lament that they voted for the assault weapons ban ‘compromise’ that barred magazines with a greater capacity than 10 rounds, only to find out the bill came back from conference banning all rifles excepting black powder muskets.
Cutthroat machine politics
EagleWatcher Wednesday, February 11th at 11:19AM EST (link)For all the pundits on the Right who have caught Tingling Leg Syndrome (TLS) over the Obama Administration, let this be a wake up call.
The Obama Regime is not our friend.
Adopt a Congressman
Soldiers’ Angels SarahPAC
Top Conservatives on Twitter
Sounds like a Midnight Deal to me.
Rod_Patrick Wednesday, February 11th at 11:26AM EST (link)Hey, Speaker, what’s the catch?
Why do we, the People, even consider allowing this?
USNJIMRET Wednesday, February 11th at 11:58AM EST (link)The ‘leaders’ of the Congress and Executive branch’s are both on record as declaring “open and transparent” government.
This whole process is everything that ISN’T open or transparent.
I don’t care, in this regard, if the stimulus bill will or won’t work.
The fact that three people are deciding this thing is an absolute outrage!
I don’t believe that even the most left minded person in the country really wants Obama, Reid and Pelosi making all the decisions, in secret, behind closed doors, without any input from anyone else.
Yet that’s EXACTLY what is happening.
And what are we the people going to do about it?
Write letters?
Send emails?
Call them out?
Answer pollsters with negative responses?
Revolt?
Declare that “Oh, the next thing is where we’ll rise up and hold someones feet to the fire”?
It may already be to late for anything but the 5th item, IMO.
Comrade Pelosi
Jason Wednesday, February 11th at 1:20PM EST (link)Nancy Pelosi is a left wing socialist who never intended to govern in a bi-partisan manner. She comes from the fantasy land of San Fran Cisco so words have different meanings out there. She has one purpose — to push here ultra-liberal agenda. You don’t want to get in her way. You’ll be trampled just as if you were between a pregnant woman and the bathroom door.
Jason A. Trommetter
jasontromm@gmail.com
“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
This needs to be
pac_NY Wednesday, February 11th at 1:59PM EST (link)the very last straw of this new administration. The Democrats’ brazen “will do as we please” tyrannical MO can only become worse as each day goes by.
How much outrage does it take? Is there not even one Republican leader who will call for an immediate and urgent press conference to inform all the American people that this is exactly the way the Democrats intend to “change” everyone’s lives - buy partisan brute force and behind closed doors? This needs to be done. Now!
He toucheth the mountain - and it smokes
Tea Party?
DefendUSA Wednesday, February 11th at 3:26PM EST (link)Let’s. It’s time. WTF are we even waiting for??
Because, now they have supposedly negotiated 790 billion in a single day and we are taking it lying down? Tea Party!!
3 more years of the Pied Piper’s pretentious Presidency. Thank God for small favors.
If these three haven't learned about our illustrious opponents by now...
itrytobenice Wednesday, February 11th at 9:26PM EST (link)they’re never going to.
I agree with Art. They either have to agree to vote with the majority of Rs or give up committee seats and assignments. And their new offices will be in the cloak room.
The problem with America is stupidity. I’m not saying there should be capital punishment for stupidity, but why don’t we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?