Posted on 10/16/2009 8:23:13 AM PDT by 2nd amendment mama
The House of Representatives yesterday set into motion the nuclear option for H.R. 3200 that would make it possible for the Senate to pass government-run health care with only 51 votes.
House Ways & Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) held the mandatory hearing yesterday to pass the formal notification in the form of a letter to the Budget Committee saying H.R. 3200 -- the main House Obamacare bill which was the subject of all the town hall rage in August -- has met all requirements to pass as a “budget reconciliation” measure.
Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the top Republican on the House Ways & Means Committee, spoke with HUMAN EVENTS yesterday about events at the hearing and maneuvers by House Democrats to give their Senate comrades the opportunity to shut down debate on the bill in the Senate with 51 votes instead of the required 60.
“Under the rules, they had to have a hearing in committee in order to be able to position themselves to move through a process called reconciliation,” Camp said. “They had to send the bill to the Budget Committee to do that.”
The notification is in the form of a letter certifying that the Ways & Means Committee has met the requirements set forth in the budget bill.
“Attached to the letter would be the bill,” Camp said. “So this sends the bill to the Budget Committee to vote it out. They’re setting up the nuclear option, not having any Republican votes for this bill. They’re setting up that process.”
“That is an amendable document,” Camp continued. “It’s an amendable process. There’s an opportunity to have amendments and have debate. They shut that completely down.”
The notification letter passed out of the Ways & Means Committee on a straight party line vote. No debate was allowed, and no amendments. Rangel told Camp that he would not have preferred to do it this way, but leadership -- i.e., Speaker Pelosi -- forced his hand.
“We had let them know we were offering amendments and we had heard no problem with that until we got there today,” Camp said. “Chairman Rangel said leadership made him do it, but he did it, not the leadership.”
This was the final opportunity for debate and amendments to the bill on a committee level. The Budget Committee will simply vote to pass the bill out with an up or down vote that would certify that the bill has met the reconciliation requirements.
“It’s supposed to only be bills that impact the deficit,” Camp added. “And what they’ve done is said this bill will save a billion dollars. That’s what we were ordered under the budget resolution to do. They’ll fulfill that marker, but they’ll use that obviously to spend a lot more.”
The bill being certified for “reconciliation” is the Ways & Means version of H.R. 3200 that was passed out of committee before the August break, and before it was read aloud at town hall meetings across the country and blasted by voters across the country.
It contains all of the horrors previously exposed: federal funding of abortion, coverage for illegal aliens, comparative effectiveness, healthcare rationing, deep cuts to Medicare. Everything the American people overwhelmingly reject.
“Since the time we voted on this bill until today, we’ve had new issues develop, we’ve had new scores from the Congressional Budget Office which is the non-partisan expert agency that reviews our legislation,” Camp said. “We felt it was important to talk about the issues. We’ve had some new developments, new information.”
“Let’s have 72 hours to read the bill and have the bill available,” Camp continued. “That didn’t get any certain discussion today. Let’s make sure members of Congress are part of any health care bill that passes. That didn’t get any debate today. Let’s make sure that we do not have non-citizens here illegally getting government funded healthcare. Let’s make sure we don’t use tax dollars to fund and pay for abortion. We didn’t get to vote on that today.”
Reconciliation is a parliamentary process that was created for use solely on the reduction of spending bills in order to reduce the deficit. Spending bills must originate in the House, and when passing the budget, the full House can include language in the budget bill to a specific committee instructing them to reduce spending by a specific amount in order to reduce the deficit.
Having learned from the 1993 Hillarycare debacle when the American people utterly rejected the notion of the government takeover of health care, House Democrats placed reconciliation language into the 2010 budget to facilitate passage of the government takeover of health care with Obamacare through budget reconciliation. In the case of H.R. 3200, the reconciliation instruction was to reduce the cost of the health care bill by $1 billion -- a bill that by some estimates will cost taxpayers a minimum of $1.6 trillion.
“This is after August when the American people clearly weighed in and said, ‘Hey, hold up. We want to be part of this. We want to have some more openness,’” Camp said. “I think they feel the less people know the better; that they, the majority, are better off because they don’t have to explain. People don’t know what it is they’re really doing. We won’t find out until it’s actually done.”
Since it has now cleared the Ways and Means Committee (fulfilling the $1 billion reconciliation requirement), H.R. 3200 will go to the Budget Committee where they will do the same thing that was done today in Ways & Means. They will agree on a straight party line vote that the bill has met the reconciliation requirements.
The bill then goes to Pelosi and the Rules Committee where Pelosi will do the same thing Sen. Harry Reid is doing with the two Senate bills right now: Pelosi will merge the three House versions of H.R. 3200 together into whatever she wants it to be, then she will schedule it for a floor vote.
H.R. 3200 could see a floor vote in the next two weeks, likely no later than the first week of November if Democrats believe they have the votes for passage. If the bill does pass a full House vote, and that’s a big “if” given the deep divides over the issues among Democrats, the bill would then be sent over to the Senate.
There are still bumps in the road for passage in the Senate with 51 votes, placing the undue burden for passage of H.R. 3200 through the Senate by reconciliation on rulings from the Senate parliamentarian.
Stay tuned.
Msny people cant see past the end of their noses. You have to wonder if they have a fully functional brain.
What I think is, most people for this plan, dont know enough about it. They are busy with their day to day lives, work, raising kids, having problems...they just manage to hear the blurbs on the car radio. I know this, because I used to be one of them. Only..something, last july made me take notice, and I cant even recall what that was.
A little net searching brought me not only information on healthcare reform, but a whole slew of information of things going on in washington, that I knew nothing about.
Its unfortunate..but, many people vote this way, too. They know nothing about the person they are voting for.
These people had better wake up.
Thru all of this, I sometimes feel, if it wouldnt be so devistating for the rest of us..they should pass their stinking reform. The people who support it..deserve it.
A GOP majority? Not likely for a while again. There's too many people RINO hunting and talking about third parties. And don't think the Democrats won't encourage more of that.
My problem is who will stop it. King Obama and his corrupt communists machine will tell us to go to He!!. I'm afraid that the American people are still ignorant as to what America has become and it will get worst.
There is now hardly a chance for the dem not to win in NJ. Corzine is ahead.
I agree - I was thinking about this yesterday. The day they vote would it not be cool if there were MORE people outside the capitol, screaming NO YOU WON’T!
I.O.U.’s!! Do as California did before they do it to us. Put any taxes due in escrow and send them an IOU
I was unaware of the timing for these elections, but...I think you are correct about this. Elections MATTER!
Obamacare is just a step in the Zero Solution, and if we continue to resist, the step where he has to eliminate 20 or 30 million Americans will come.
You can get the entire american population out there chanting with signs and they will still do whatever the hell they want. They feel they were voted in and they can do as they please. Pelosi even stated this, since they wont the election.
What will stop it is if lightning strikes the capitol while they are all in it. Anybody know any good rain dances?
Please tell me your sister is now having buyer’s remorse.
What impresses them is people taking to the streets and breaking things.
Why do you think that they are careful not to do anything to set the muslims, blacks, or communists off? Because they know that would take to the streets in a heartbeat and there would be riots.
The politicians in Washington D.C. hold us in lower contempt than the Officials of the Crown held the colonists before the Revolutionary War.
The current politicians have no conscience, no principals, low morals, and bad character. One cannot negotiate or reason with individuals such as these. Draw your own conclusions.
Is anyone else wondering why the Democrats voted to let Old Charlie keep his job last week?
This was set up months ago, and if they had taken Rangel down from being committee head they wouldnt have gotten away with it.
My in-laws also voted for, and still support, barry. They claim to be born-again Christians. My mother-in-law once publicly berrated me for watching the movie Bruce Almighty. Said it was sacreligious and trash; she wouldn’t watch it.
Umm......she’s certainly lost the moral high-ground by continuing to support the most pro-homosexual, pro-abortion, anti-American, infanticide supporting POTUS EVER. And next time she tries to rake me over the coals
about the “splinter in my eye,” I’m just going to have
to point out that big ol’ log in her eye.
Good point. I think this will be our only defense if this travesty is passed. Take it to court and find it unconstitutional - which it clearly is.
Next stop a dictatorship?
Maybe our next stop should be the nuclear option on the Senate and Congress!
Best bet: buy ammo.
I think this one will, if passed in the indicated manner, start the shooting portion of the plan.
tells me they’ve concluded they can’t get cloture. Joe Lieberman must have told them to go pound salt. Blanche Lincoln must be scared witless. And Sheetz Byrd may not even be alive at this point (would you be shocked to learn he passed away weeks ago and the Dims were sitting on the news?)
Of course, never let a little thing like that stand in the way of taking over 1/6 of the economy.
Hey, Graham and McCain....how’s that Gang of 14 thing working out for you??
“You can get the entire american population out there chanting with signs and they will still do whatever the hell they want. They feel they were voted in and they can do as they please. Pelosi even stated this, since they wont the election.”
Of course they feel this way. Had we won last November we would feel the same way.
For 8 years the left screamed that GWB was a dictator, that free elections in America were gone forever. The left claims their protests of the war in Iraq were ignored by the Bush administartion, the left was sure the Patriot Act would be used to round up liberals and squash political dissent and oposition. Despite all the squealing and gnashinig of teeth from the left none of that ever happened. So now it’s our turn to squeal and gnash our teeth.
America survived FDR, LBJ and Jimmy Carter. We’ll survive BHO as well.
>>> There has got to be a way to stop this crap. We should all stop filing our income tax. Seems like money talks in this world.
I think the next step is the state legislatures.
I do believe that some states have already passed anti-Obamacare legislation, pretty much claiming states rights over federal authority to implement any form of health care reform nationwide.
What needs to happen is a wave of these state laws that declare exemption from Obamacare for residents of their particular state. This will of course force the issue to the Supreme Court which should find the federal law unconstitutional.
“The next stop is the rounding up and putting their political enemies in camps to be liquidated at their leisure.”
—
Not going to happen as long as I draw breath.
There are many many many more like me.
I will not be a good little Dhemmi! I promise.
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