Posted on 10/15/2013 7:34:57 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
House Republicans will vote Tuesday on a more conservative version of the Senate fiscal deal that would include a delay of Obamacare's medical device tax and scrapping of subsidies for members of Congress and top Cabinet officials, lawmakers and aides said.
The bill would modify an emerging Senate plan crafted by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.), but retain that deal's extension of the debt ceiling through Feb. 7.
It would also keep the Senate measure's plan of funding the government through Jan. 15 and immediately end the shutdown.
That's a shift from last weekend, when House Republicans wanted to open negotiations with the White House on ending the shutdown while extending the debt ceiling for six months.
The House GOP bill would prevent members of Congress as well as Cabinet members, the president and the vice president from getting taxpayer subsidies to use on ObamaCare, but it would not prevent staff from getting the subsidies.
The healthcare law requires lawmakers and their staffs to get health insurance through ObamaCare.
House Republicans argue that if Obama and Senate Democrats are going to force the American people to live under ObamaCare, they should not be shielded from the law.
The bill would also eliminate a provision granted to unions in the Senate bill that would delay a tax on reinsurance that labor says would fall heavily on its members.
Under the healthcare reform law, states are required to set up a transitional reinsurance program aimed at stabilizing premiums. As part of that transition, companies providing healthcare will be required to pay $63 per covered person in 2014, as well as lower fees the following two years.
It would also delay the tax on medical devices in the healthcare law. Reid has pushed aggressively to prevent any delay or repeal of that tax in a deal, according to Senate aides, though many senators oppose the tax.
Rick Moran, American Thinker:
“Senators McConnell and Reid are apparently very close to an agreement that would raise the debt ceiling into early February, fund the government through late January, and establish a super-committee of sorts to hash out budget and fiscal issues like tax and entitlement reform.
There are easily 60 votes for the plan in the Senate so the question becomes, will House Republicans derail the compromise and send the country into near uncharted waters of a default?
There will be enormous pressure on Speaker Boehner to bring the Senate bill to the floor even if more than half the GOP caucus opposes it. If that happens, it seems pretty clear that Boehner will need almost all the Democrats in the House to vote with him to pass the bill.
Are the Democrats of a mind to be charitable?
Rep. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a member of Republican leadership, didn’t seem comfortable with the Senate package. Asked if there was anything he likes, Lankford said “not that I’ve seen so far.” Moments later, Lankford was huddling with Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on the House floor.
“That’s a long time, that’s a lot of dollars,” Lankford said of the debt ceiling hike. “I’m going to have to see, is that a date certain? Is that give them the time to be able to reload all the extraordinary measures, so it’s really a debt ceiling increase to May or June?”
The buzz in the Republican cloakroom and on the floor was that the House was being asked to vote for a clean debt limit and continuing resolution - in short, the concessions won by McConnell were not victories at all. One House Republican said they would be lucky to find 20 GOP lawmakers willing to vote for this proposal.
Time is running short: The U.S. government’s borrowing authority runs out Thursday.
Boehner, Cantor and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will test the waters Tuesday morning in a House Republican Conference meeting. Aides say Boehner will spend most of the time gauging the reaction of his lawmakers...........”
NRO: “Even as the White House quickly rejected it based on leaked details, House conservatives are calling a proposal unveiled by Speaker John Boehner at this morning’s conference meeting a “working document” and saying they expect several additions to enhance the leadership’s bid.
“That was a framework from which to build from,” says Representative Tom Graves of Georgia, one of the leading architects of the push to defund Obamacare in the House.
“We gave a bunch of different options” in the meeting, says Representative Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina, referring to conservatives, “the bill probably will end up being tweaked a little bit before it gets to rules.”
Members described a vigorous, “family discussion” in the meeting, which went one hour beyond its scheduled time. Representative Joe Barton, who has previously complained about proposals to end a special Obamacare subsidy for Congress, demanded “anyone who wasn’t elected” leave the room, referring to staff.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/361271/house-bill-flux-jonathan-strong
Bingo.
That’s it, exactly.
Some will argue that they accept the status quo because they don’t believe in anything much different than the Left does.
I think most of the Repubs - not all but most - have beliefs that differ from the Dems.
But they do not have the desire to fight.
It’s too hard. It’s too risky.
If at the Alamo, they would have crossed Col. Travis’s line and run away from the fight.
Not because they wanted Texas to be ruled by the Mexican dictator, but because they did not care enough about the issue to fight for it.
Fighting is not what they went to DC for. They went to DC because they wanted to be in DC, and now that they are there, they just hope to hang on to their seats in Congress, come **** or high water.
They want to avoid the LSM crosshairs and the Dems Chicago mob machine.
Thanks for the additional info in this post and your previous one.
Have to leave now and go with other news sources until I can get back here...
I hope that Obama keeps rejecting Boehner's cave proposals. That strengthens Ted Cruz's argument that the Republicans need to stand firm for at least an individual mandate delay and tough it out through the supposed 'default'.
Complete lie.
A question is “a complete lie”? How does that work?
It’s not a question, though the question mark’s intention is to mislead. It’s an editorial, posing as a question.
America won’t default, it isn’t uncharted waters and the use of derailing assumes that the agreement is on the right track in the first place. All lies.
When the republicans put in their bill that the congress and their staffs should not get subsidies, they’re admitting obama has the power to grant the subsidies. It’s alreadly in the law. It shouldn’t be in a new one.
Anyone who shouldn’t have been elected should leave the congress.
It was fluid, alright.
Now they’re saying, well, we fought, we tried, but we lost.
So all we could do is cave (my translation).
Same thing as saying, we lost the 2012 election (meaning the presidency and the Senate), therefore, obamacare is the “law of the land”.
I think of all the withering criticims they deserve, this one strikes most at the heart of their problem -
They STILL have no clue who they are dealing with.
They think it’s just politics.
It isn’t.
It’s AMERICAN DESTRUCTION.
They’re useless when it comes down to THAT.
100% agree.
I am sick with disgust, not sick with despair.
Our resolve has been hardened.
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.