Posted on 09/23/2009 8:15:42 PM PDT by BP2
WASHINGTON - Senate Finance Committee Democrats have just rejected a GOP amendment that would have required a health overhaul bill to be available online for 72 hours before the committee votes.
Republicans argued that transparency is an Obama administration goal. They also noted that their constituents are demanding that they read bills before voting.
Democrats said it was a delay tactic that could have postponed a vote for weeks.
The Democrats say that unlike other committees, the Finance Committee works off conceptual language that describes policies — instead of legislative language that ultimately becomes law, and which the GOP amendment would have required. Democrats accepted an alternate amendment to make conceptual language available online before a vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
Transparency was voted down by a vote of 12-11 in the Senate Finance Committee. They are trying to sneak it by and pass ObamaCare out of the Senate in middle of the night with no review by the American people!
Do the Democrats think we are not watching them?!
Please contact your Senator immediately - this cannot stand!
Some Blue Dogs need to be scalded
| The story has already been removed by the Star Tribute. Cached story available here from the Star Tribute: Democrats reject GOP amendment to require health bill to be available online before vote Also discussed here by Michelle Malkin: Dems lied, transparency died: Senate Finance Committee nixes Obamacare online disclosure |
have just rejected a GOP amendment that would have required a health overhaul bill to be available online for 72 hours before the committee votesNice thing about health care reform is [self-editing comments which would give me a time-out, at least].
Let's be accurate...this would just pass it out of the Finance COMMITTEE, not out of the Senate. Presumably (?) they would have to mark up actual, legislative language before the whole Senate will vote on it. (Not that they will read it before voting.)
Sounds like Thomas Friedman was right - the left would prefer a China-style autocracy to our republic.
Where is it supposed to go when it leaves the Finance Committee. The Senate has to vote on legalese, not on “conceptual language.”
Oh, we’ve got to burn the phone lines up, jam the fax machines, and spew letters and telegrams like confetti on this one—to our congressional pukes, the leadership of both parties, the White House, and most, I say MOST OF ALL— the Phoney-Baloney Networks. Let them know in no uncertain terms that the kitchen lights have been turned on, and it’s time for the cockroaches to scurry into their dark, dank, stinking crevices to hide!!!!
Tell them:
“We know who you are, and what you’re doing, and we’re all talking about you!!!!”
That’s what I said. Once a bill passes through a committee, it goes to the full Senate for debate and a vote, and by the time they ever get around to debating it, they will have the full legalese (whatever the Obama administration and the unions allow them to have in the bill.)
Question: How often do Senate committees post online the full text (or the full “conceptual” language) of any bills they’re considering? While still at the committee level, that is.
SO if the output of the Finance Committee is legalese, we had better SEE it.
Such is the resolve of this tyrannical government to destroy the individual rights of its citizens and make them subservient to the state.
We need to frog march these idiots OUT of the House and Senate!!!!
Passing a Shell of A Bill: Congress’ Secret Plan to Ram Through Health Care Reform
Definitely—by the time it gets to the Senate floor, they better have the whole enchilada online and searchable, well BEFORE Dingy Harry calls for any kind of vote.
I still think that’s a ways off. I think Finance will come up with some vague mishmash of platitudes, vote thumbs up to send SOMETHING along those lines to the full Senate, then all the aides and lobbyists will mark up some legalese to fit the skeletal structure the Finance Committee sketched out, and THEN that will get brought up for debate before the full Senate.
The question is, will the Dems go for reconciliation and try to get the travesty passed with a simple majority?
It’s like Glenn Beck said about a month ago, we have to cut the red wire every day - or everything will go to hell.
Then don’t they really need two committee votes? One for the “conceptual” version and a second one for the “legalese”?
This is essentially a blank bill. To be filled AFTER IT BECOMES LAW!!!
It might as well say “everyone gets healthcare” the end.
There is no way this is Constitutional.
No, only one from my understanding. And the Finance Committee has always just done the “conceptual” version.
The Hill’s story makes that fairly clear:
Unlike most congressional committees, the Finance panel does not take up technical legislative language when it writes a bill. Instead, the committee — which has jurisdiction over healthcare, taxes and a host of other issues — votes on so-called conceptual language, which is later converted into the official bill text.
Republicans don’t dispute that this is true. But that want to make an exception and insist that the Finance Committee not act until it has the complete legislative text and a full budget estimate. It’s merely in the spirit of President Barack Obama’s promises of transparent government, offered Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).
“We’ve never, ever, ever, ever done that in this committee,” Baucus protested.
Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said that this bill is special. “I don’t consider this inordinate,” Grassley said, though it’s hard to imagine him embracing the idea during the years he chaired the committee.
On GretaWire someone posted that a Finance Committee staffer privately admitted that they don’t want to release the bill because they want it passed.
This needs to be SHOUTED!!!
So there’s no control, beyond the full Senate, on the legalese version. That’s nice.
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