Gibbs: ObamaCare the Law of the Land by Next Sunday

Doing his rounds on the Sunday talk shows, WH spokesman, Robert Gibbs, stated:

Gibbs added that those on next week’s Sunday talk shows “will be talking about healthcare not as a presidential proposal but I think as the law of the land.”

It’s interesting to note that Gibbs did not mention the reconciliation package. In fact, there has been a definite cooling of the rhetoric about the prospect of reconciliation in the Senate.

Note to those members of the House, you are being duped. The Senate will not take up the reconciliation package at all. After the House is stupid enough to fall for their bait and pass the ObamaCare bill, the Senate will deem reconciliation an impossibility due to the Byrd Rule.

In addition, Gibbs stated:

President Barack Obama will look to campaign on the new healthcare law in midterm elections, Gibbs said.

“We believe healthcare reform is going to pass, and once it passes we’re happy to have the 2010 elections be about the achievement of healthcare reform,” Gibbs said.

The GOP would love to run on the platform of the Democrats ramming ObamaCare down our throats, and the Slaughter Rule will make it the ultimate death blow.

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Tags: government health care, Obama Care, reconciliation, Robert Gibbs, white house spokesman
Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 5:31 pm in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 89390348 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sahiller/2010/03/14/gibbs-obamacare-the-law-of-the-land-by-next-sunday/Gibbs%3A+ObamaCare+the+Law+of+the+Land+by+Next+Sunday2010-03-15+00%3A31%3A45SusanAnne+++Hiller

‘Schoolhouse Barack’

Remember Schoolhouse Rock, that civic-minded Saturday morning cartoon short from the 1970s? It’s time to update it for the Obama Era.

”I’m Just a Law”

LAW (singing): I’m just a law, yes I’m only a law,
And I don’t know why they passed me at all.
Cause — no — one — knows what is in me
No one’s read a darn word,
I was typed up last night
By a 20-year-old nerd,
But Pelosi twisted elbows all day.
How I hoped and prayed they would stall
But today, all in all, I’m a law.

BOY: Hello, Law, why so glum?

(more…)

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Tags: government health care, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, ObamaCare, Pelosicare
Posted Mar 14th 2010 at 3:01 pm in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Political Humor, Politics | 8274684 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/jherricane/2010/03/14/schoolhouse-barack/%27Schoolhouse+Barack%272010-03-14+22%3A01%3A50John+K.+Herr

Senate Parliamentarian Rules Obama Must Sign Senate Bill BEFORE Reconciliation

Via Roll Call

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.

House Democratic leaders have been searching for a way to ensure that any move they make to approve the Senate-passed $871 billion health care reform bill is followed by Senate action on a reconciliation package of adjustments to the original bill. One idea is to have the House and Senate act on reconciliation prior to House action on the Senate’s original health care bill.

Information Republicans say they have received from the Senate Parliamentarian’s Office eliminates that option. House Democratic leaders last week began looking at crafting a legislative rule that would allow the House to approve the Senate health care bill, but not forward it to Obama for his signature until the Senate clears the reconciliation package.

This just confirms what I’ve been saying all along: the House vote is the final vote.

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Tags: Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, ObamaCare, reconciliation, senate health care
Posted Mar 11th 2010 at 6:39 pm in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 87902188 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sahiller/2010/03/11/senate-parliamentarian-rules-obama-must-sign-senate-bill-before-reconciliation/Senate+Parliamentarian+Rules+Obama+Must+Sign+Senate+Bill+BEFORE+Reconciliation2010-03-12+02%3A39%3A01SusanAnne+++Hiller

Gibbs: If Senate Bill Passes House It Will Go to the President’s Desk

The other day I exposed the fact that Harry Reid switched the language in the House-passed H.R. 3590 Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 and inserted the Senate version of the healthcare bill via a manager’s amendment in order to meet the requirement that all legislation raising taxes must originate in the House.

The Senate passed the revised bill with the healthcare language in it, and now the House must revote on the deceptively gutted changed bill because, according to the Constitution, the identical bill must pass both the House and Senate in order to be signed into law.  And, once the Senate Health Care bill pass the House, President Obama will sign it right away.

The threat of reconciliation in the Senate is hollow. There isn’t going to be any reconciliation.

On January 31, 2010, before the House was set to take up the Senate bill, WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” stated:

“If the House would take up the Senate bill then that bill would go to the president’s desk,” Gibbs said.

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Tags: abortion funding, cornhusker kickback, louisiana purchase, ObamaCare, reconciliation
Posted Mar 10th 2010 at 3:11 pm in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 86934240 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sahiller/2010/03/10/gibbs-if-senate-bill-passes-house-it-will-go-to-the-presidents-desk/Gibbs%3A+If+Senate+Bill+Passes+House+It+Will+Go+to+the+President%27s+Desk2010-03-10+23%3A11%3A00SusanAnne+++Hiller

The Reconciliation Process: Reconciling or Tearing the Nation Apart

Washington is abuzz these days with talk of “reconciliation” a word in our usual lexicon that suggests bringing people together. In this case, however, it is a larceny of language. It is divisive and not conciliatory and it is, understandably, creating anguish and outrage among those who understand the subterfuge at play here. Political mischief is about to run amok as this corruption of Senate rules becomes the strategic center piece President Obama and the Democratic majority in Congress will utilize to ram their health care bill into law.

To be sure, the reconciliation process has been used a number of times during the past thirty years, usually without much angst or controversy. It has, essentially, been used in the past to remove legislative stumbling blocks to initiatives with fairly strong bi-partisan support. American tradition as well as old-fashioned common sense has generally dictated that consequential legislation enjoy broad bipartisan consensus and, in fact, the most ambitious reconciliation bills of the past have been, more often than not, popular on both sides of the aisle. In these cases, reconciliation was used for procedural reasons, not to force through a bill that couldn’t get 60 votes. It has, however, never been used to advance legislation that a substantial majority of Americans have said they do not want. Nor should it be.

It was one of the wisest and most respected of Democrats, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who warned his colleagues, “Never pass major legislation that affects most Americans without real bipartisan support. It opens the door to all kinds of political trouble.” It appears that the Administration and the congressional Democrats are, indeed, going to open the door to all kinds of political trouble. To paraphrase Professor Harold Hill who once bellowed in the musical comedy Music Man, “There’s trouble right (there) in River City”…the river now being the Potomac and the city being our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.

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Tags: Barack Obama, democratic majority, government health care, health care reform, ObamaCare
Posted Mar 8th 2010 at 10:22 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Obama, Politics | 8528680 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/oftheeising/2010/03/08/the-reconciliation-process-reconciling-or-tearing-the-nation-apart/The+Reconciliation+Process%3A+Reconciling+or+Tearing+the+Nation+Apart2010-03-08+18%3A22%3A48Of+Thee+I+Sing+1776

Reconciliation Is a Deceptive Distraction from the True Intentions

Building on a previous post exposing that Harry Reid took the existing House-passed bill, H.R. 3590, entitled the Service Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009 and replaced the existing bill language, via an amendment, with the Senate’s version of the healthcare bill–creating a new H.R. 3590–the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Engrossed Amendment as Agreed to by Senate).

I stand by my assertion that Reid took H.R. 3590–knowing that all bills that raise revenue must originate in the House per the Constitution–as evidenced by the actual bill text dated December 24, 2009 seen here in a screen shot and his trick:

This further confirms that the March 18th House healthcare vote is the final vote for passage; however, there are still many pundits who just don’t comprehend this fact.

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Tags: government health care, Harry Reid, health care reform, HR 3590, Nancy Pelosi
Posted Mar 8th 2010 at 7:59 am in Congress, Healthcare, News, Politics | 8565084 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/sahiller/2010/03/08/reconciliation-is-a-deceptive-distraction-from-the-true-intentions/Reconciliation+Is+a+Deceptive+Distraction+from+the+True+Intentions2010-03-08+15%3A59%3A26SusanAnne+++Hiller

ObamaCare Strategy Sabotages Bipartisan Summit

President Barack Obama’s highly anticipated Blair House Summit was sold as a bipartisan negotiation on ObamaCare between House and Senate leaders of both parties.  The White House claims that this day long meeting is an opportunity for the American people to witness a negotiation between Republicans and Democrats.  If you tune into this event, you will not see any negotiation.  You will witness a desparate President trying sell a warmed over version of ObamaCare.  Even for a President well known for his exceptional ability to communicate, the Administration’s attempts to sell a plan that is offensive to a substantial majority of Americans has proven to be an epic failure.

The fact of the matters is that in anticipation of this so called negotiation, the Democrats are crafting a reconciliation strategy.  Reconciliation is a fast track partisan strategy for the Democrats to change the rules of the game so they can avoid a filibuster in the Senate.  I call this new strategy to pass Obamacare the Health Care Nuclear Option because it will blow up what remains of bipartisanship in the Capitol and put the United States on a pathway to European style government run health care.

Furthermore, the American people explicitly reject ObamaCare and don’t want it.  So much for consent of the governed.  This Summit is going to be a day long press conference for President Obama and the ObamaCare Cheerleading Squad to try one last time to sell the President’s health care plan that includes unpopular mandates, higher taxes and cuts to health care providers. (more…)

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Tags: Health Care Nuclear Option, ObamaCare, president barack obama, reconciliation, Summit
Posted Feb 25th 2010 at 5:33 am in Congress, Culture, Featured Story, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 79558175 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/bdarling/2010/02/25/obamacare-strategy-sabotages-bipartisan-summit/ObamaCare+Strategy+Sabotages+Bipartisan+Summit2010-02-25+13%3A33%3A54Brian+Darling

ObamaCare Returns: Time to Send a Clear Message to Washington

Disgusted by President Obama’s liberal agenda, voters in Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts went to the polls and replaced Democrats with Republicans to send a message to Washington. That message is: Stop.

Stop the rampant spending that threatens to send our country spiraling toward insolvency. Stop the rapid expansion of government that continues to encroach on our essential freedoms. And most of all stop trying to shove a radical health care “reform” bill designed to fundamentally restructure the U.S. economy down our throats.

The American people have spoken. The White House hasn’t heard their message.

Now Harry Reid is promising to pass a health care bill through the Senate in sixty days. President Obama is continuing to arrogantly push this radical legislation in the hope of creating a new entitlement program that will continue to nurture America’s dependency on Big Government. When America’s leadership has become so disconnected from Americans’ interests, the American people must stand up boldly in defense of their livelihoods and their liberties.

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Tags: Barack Obama, ObamaCare, Pelosicare, reconciliation, Reid health care bill
Posted Feb 22nd 2010 at 10:08 am in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Politics, Tea Party | 78622280 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/msteele/2010/02/22/obamacare-returns-time-to-send-a-clear-message-to-washington/ObamaCare+Returns%3A+Time+to+Send+a+Clear+Message+to+Washington2010-02-22+18%3A08%3A34Michael+S.+Steele

Massachusetts Is the Game Changer

Beyond a pleasing sight for the heart, what would Ted Kennedy’s seat going Republican really mean?

A lot.

First, there would be the psychological effect.

On Democratic donors — it would discourage them from opening their checkbooks. On Republican donors — the impact would be electric in kindling their interest and generosity. On Democratic incumbents seeking re-election — it would make the beaches and golf courses that await them in their Florida retirement homes (and the lucrative lobbying jobs in Washington) infinitely more attractive. On Republicans considering running for the House and the Senate — it will help them see the truth: That their time is at hand! (It might even help our esteemed Party Chairman Michael Steele, realize that we can capture both houses this year!)

But in the Senate itself, it would really signal the end of Obama’s legislative dominance. He’ll probably be able to pass health care either by Democratic dithering in certifying Brown’s election or by ramming through the bill while he’s en route to Washington on the shuttle.

But, beyond that, the prospects of getting 60 votes on the remaining items in Obama’s legislative agenda: cap and trade, union card check, and immigration reform would slip away with the Massachusetts result.

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Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, cap-and-trade, Card Check, democrat retirements
Posted Jan 17th 2010 at 5:40 pm in Congress, Featured Story, Obama, Politics | 60970168 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dmorris/2010/01/17/massachusetts-is-the-game-changer/Massachusetts+Is+the+Game+Changer2010-01-18+01%3A40%3A34Dick+Morris

Obama votes “present” in health care debate.

Say what you will about the health reform bill introduced by Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), and the Left is having a field day attacking it, but at least it is a plan. President Obama has spent months talking about what he wants out of a bill, but when the chips are down and the polls are crashing, all we get from him is a two and half page outline.  Why would he offer such weak leadership?

One possible answer, for you cynics out there (and I may be one), is that he has zero leadership experience and this is simply his way of voting “present” one more time. But that’s too easy and too amateurish for someone so politically savvy.

The only logical answer is he doesn’t want to be pinned down on any specifics.  Sure, he’s talked about what he’d like in a bill, but he’s pretty much disavowed everything he’s said he supports too. He wants a public option one day, but doesn’t need one the next, then explains how it is vital to “real reform.” It literally can’t be both but that hasn’t stopped him from having it both ways.

So at this point, whenever anyone criticizes Obamacare the White House has the perfect defense, “There is no bill.” You can’t win a shadow boxing match, you can’t pick a lock with mashed potatoes, and you can’t pin any unpopular proposals on the President.

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Tags: George Bush, Kanye West, Max Baucus, Medicare, Obama
Posted Sep 18th 2009 at 7:00 am in Congress, Healthcare, Obama, Politics | 443462 Commentshttp://biggovernment.com/dhunter/2009/09/18/obama-votes-present-in-health-care-debate/Obama+votes+%22present%22+in+health+care+debate.2009-09-18+14%3A00%3A18Derek+Hunter