Posted on 03/25/2009 3:58:43 PM PDT by rgr
In the item "Fast-Track Language In House Budget Prompts Moderates' Outcry" By Patrick Yoest and Corey Boles Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)--A U.S. House budget blueprint unveiled Wednesday would reserve a fast-track option for considering health-care legislation, prompting outcry from moderate lawmakers in the Senate.
Language in the House budget resolution instructs the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Ways and Means Committee to carve out $1 billion each in deficit savings by a Sept. 29 deadline through health overhaul legislation. The language employs a tactic that is known as budget reconciliation and would allow the passage of a health overhaul measure with only 51 votes in the Senate, rather than the 60 votes that is ordinarily needed pass a bill.
The tactic is viewed as a fallback option for Democrats that would allow them to bypass bipartisan negotiations on a health-care bill, but it is viewed with suspicion by Republicans and moderate Democrats who say that it would kill any chances of reaching broad consensus on fixing pressing problem in the nation's health-care system.
The Senate version of the budget resolution doesn't include reconciliation instruction for health legislation. The House and Senate will have to compromise on a single budget resolution after each chamber passes its own version of the legislation.
Sens. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., both said they would be strongly opposed to any attempt by Democrats to push through health-care reform.
"If it's included in the process called reconciliation, count me out," Nelson said. "We need to have this debated and considered in the regular order. You're not going to be able to undo what you do, so this needs to be done through the regular process."
Specter said it would be a disastrous approach by the Democrats. He said that he was doubtful such an approach would by agreed to by senators.
House and Senate lawmakers working on health legislation have said that they hope to pass bills by a month-long congressional recess in August. Even if a final version of the budget resolution includes reconciliation instructions for health care, the two chambers could agree on a health-care bill that doesn't use the reconciliation process.
The House budget resolution wouldn't force Congress to adopt any particular policy measures as part of a health overhaul bill, giving committees handling the legislation flexibility on how to craft the bill.
Debate on the reconciliation option could come down to disagreement between the House and the Senate. Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who will be at the center of the debate, has indicated that he will try to keep reconciliation instructions out of a final version of the budget resolution.
"I don't think reconciliation was ever intended for this purpose," Conrad said Wednesday.
Even so, Conrad has some Democratic colleagues in the Senate who want to preserve the reconciliation option. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, told reporters Wednesday that "in the final budget resolution, we have to have budget reconciliation for health reform."
"You don't use it at the beginning," Harkin said. "You say, 'Look, we're going to go through this normal process, but if one or two or four people say they're going to stop it and plug it up, we've got to have this as a way of moving it.'"
The White House hasn't officially weighed in on the reconciliation option. White House Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag expressed ambivalence about using reconciliation instructions for health care, saying "reconciliation is not where we'd like to start, but we are not willing to take it off the table."
House moderates appear more willing to include use the fast-track option, since it wouldn't affect a vote in their chamber. Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., a member of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, said it made sense to keep the option available.
"It's like keeping a fire arm in your home," Cooper said. "You don't expect to be burglarized, you don't expect to use it, you may not even have any bullets in it, but you don't want your gun taken away from you."
But Cooper added that he hoped that Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's pick for Health and Human Services secretary, would try to get 70 to 80 votes in the Senate for a health-care reform bill. He said that was the goal set by Tom Daschle, who was Obama's original choice for the post before he was forced to withdraw over tax problems.
Nationalized Healthcare in the Dark Of Night.
Byrd rule.
Strange comparison.
This crap isn’t the slightest amusing. Bloodless coup taking place every day and nothing is being done to stop it. Just as long as everyone is able to get their i-phone, i-pod, and wii then all seems perfectly normal.
1913 all overy again
What about the other 48%
If Republicans had been trying to ram their agenda through like this, the media would be ranting 24x7 about dictatorship, take-over of the country, etc.
Federal Reserve Act
If you watch the tv media closely, all they do is read from the teleprotor machine.
It’s all controlled; even the voting machines.
Hitler couldn’t do a better job with the technology they have today.
What an idiot.
This object would be called a "club".
Translation: We (democrats) want to be able to vote for stuff like Socialized Health Care to please our base, but we don’t want it to pass, because we will be dragged from our offices kicking and screaming by mobs of pitchfork bearing constitutents.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.