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Liberal and Conservative Democrats Feud Over BillBy Perry Bacon Jr., Paul Kane and Ben Pershing Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, July 25, 2009 House Democrats feuded openly over health care Friday before shaking hands on a deal that guaranteed only that they would keep negotiating, wrapping up a week in which consensus on a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health-care system seemed to diminish by the day. White House aides announced a week ago that President Obama was ready to "take the baton" for his biggest domestic campaign initiative, and indeed Obama campaigned for his proposals nearly nonstop this week,...

Ed touched on it earlier this afternoon but things seem to have deteriorated further since then. Polite disagreement over the appropriate policy ends? Not so much: The seven Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee stormed out of a Friday meeting with their committee chairman, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), saying Waxman had been negotiating in bad faith over a number of provisions Blue Dogs demanded be changed in the stalled healthcare bill. “I’ve been lied to,” Blue Dog Coalition Co-Chairman Charlie Melancon (D-La.) said on Friday. “We have not had legitimate negotiations… If the two sides cannot reach an agreement,...

Hours after calling their chairman a liar, Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee stood by that chairman’s side and announced together that the once-collapsed healthcare negotiations are back on track. “The chairman and I would like to retract some of the things that we said earlier today,” Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), the chairman of the Blue Dog healthcare task force said while standing beside Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) after the two emerged from an emergency meeting of the Democrats on the committee. “Our group of seven has always believed that we want to be a constructive part of...

House healthcare negotiations dissolved in acrimony on Friday, with Blue Dog Democrats saying they were “lied” to by their Democratic leaders. The seven Blue Dogs on the Energy and Commerce Committee stormed out of a Friday meeting with their committee chairman, Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), saying Waxman had been negotiating in bad faith over a number of provisions Blue Dogs demanded be changed in the stalled healthcare bill. “I’ve been lied to,” Blue Dog Coalition Co-Chairman Charlie Melancon (D-La.) said on Friday. “We have not had legitimate negotiations. “Mr. Waxman has decided to sever discussions with the Blue Dogs who are...

I think most of us expected for Republicans to battle it out ideological in the aftermath of their stunning defeat in 2008. I'd be hard pressed to imagine that anyone would have thought that there would be a political civil war not six months into the new administration. Though, to be fair, Dick Morris predicted just such a problem when he analyzed the make up of the Democratic party.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of a group of fiscally conservative Democrats says negotiations with House leaders on health care have collapsed.

The Congressional Black Caucus has joined other liberal Democrats and left wing groups by launching their own attacks against fellow Democrats who have expressed concern over the cost of Obama's national health care proposal. From the Politico The Congressional Black Caucus is blasting away at Blue Dog Democrats and other fiscal conservatives in their own party for making "spurious" claims about the high cost of the House health reform plan, POLITICO has learned. The issue isn't about race, aides tell me. It's about the CBC, which represents some of the most progressive members in the House, wanting to have a...

House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) says there is "no alternative" to having healthcare legislation bypass his committee if Blue Dog Democrats don't agree to legislation. Waxman said if the seven Blue Dogs on his panel do not relent, they could join with the committee's Republicans to "eviscerate" healthcare reform. "I won't allow them to hand over control of our committee to Republicans," Waxman told reporters. "I dont see what other alternative we have, because we're not going to let them empower Republicans on the committee."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will bypass the committee working on the chamber's health-care reform bill and put the legislation to a full floor vote by next week, Rep. Tom Price said Friday. "My sense as of last night is her plan is now to bring the bill to the floor," said Mr. Price, a Georgia Republican and orthopedic doctor. He spoke on The Washington Times "America's Morning News" radio show. "We've witnessed some remarkable conversations and discussions between the speaker and others that leads me to believe she's going to pull a power play." Mrs. Pelosi, California Democrat, participated in...

Let's call tomorrow July 24th, 2009 act two of the Obama presidency. That's because today it became official that health care reform won't pass in its current form. With the end of liberal heath care reform, let's call this the official end of the liberal Obama presidency. Now, the president has one of two paths to go moving forward. He can either insist on moving forward with his liberal agenda and turn his presidency into a joke, or he can reinvent himself.

Conservative-leaning Blue Dog Democrats are enjoying a power surge like no other in their 15 years, forcing President Barack Obama and their own party leaders to deal with their demands for cost cuts and tax restraints in overhauling health care. The evidence is everywhere these days: Polls show the public shares their concerns about the cost of Obama’s plan to insure all Americans who seek health coverage. Obama himself has spent valuable presidential time in private talks with these Democrats and in near-daily appeals for the public to prod Congress into action. And the group’s political fund raising is peaking....

ABC News' Jake Tapper and Z. Byron Wolf report: How is health care reform progressing on Capitol Hill? Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., today insisted everything is smooth sailing with the House bill that would require every American to have health insurance or pay a fine; create a government run health plan to compete with private insurers to drive costs down; and impose an up to 5.4% new tax on top wage-earners. “I have no question that we have the votes on the floor of the House to pass this legislation,” Pelosi told reporters. But a leading conservative...

WASHINGTON – Democrats command the votes needed to pass a sweeping health care bill through the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday, an unexpected statement that quickly drew a biting response from conservative members of the party's rank-and-file demanding changes in President Barack Obama's trademark legislation. The House's top Democrat also signaled strongly that lawmakers will soon incorporate a provision to curtail growth in Medicare costs into the legislation, although she said it would be done in a way that "respects the prerogatives" of Congress. The White House and conservative lawmakers want to empower an independent commission to order changes...

Thursday is the day things tend to come to a boil on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress have been in town for three or four days; they're planning their exits on Friday to meet other commitments; they've had a chance to talk and meet with one another and sample the moods of their colleagues. This month, Thursdays have been very bad days for the Obama administration's attempt to pass health care bills concocted by House and Senate committee chairmen. On the first Thursday after Congress got back in session, July 9, 40 members of the Democratic Blue Dogs caucus sent...

It's time for them to fish or cut bait," Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, said of members of the Senate Finance Committee, which has struggled to come up with a bipartisan bill to fulfill Obama's goal of expanding coverage to millions who lack it and containing rising costs.

THURSDAY is the day things tend to come to a boil on Capitol Hill. Members of Congress have been in town for three or four days; they're planning their exits on Friday to meet other commitments; they've had a chance to talk and meet with one another and sample the moods of their colleagues. This month, Thursdays have been very bad days for the Obama administration's attempt to pass health-care bills concocted by House and Senate committee chairmen. On the first Thursday after Congress got back in session, July 9, 40 members of the Democratic Blue Dogs caucus sent House...

Some of the President's biggest fibs tonight were when he said "I didn't raise the deficit, I lowered it" and "your heath care won't change" (Although he was honest when he implied that under Obamacare, Grandma is going to be screwed out of her medical needs). Perhaps the most incredible part of the health care Press conference was when the President was asked about the Blue Dog Democrats. His first response was to beat up the Republicans. When pressed, he answered "I didn't Blame the Republicans". The truth is that there are enough Democrats in the House and Senate to...

New questions about the fate of the health care bill were raised Wednesday as some fiscally conservative Democratic House members said Congress is not close to reaching an agreement. The assertion came shortly after a bipartisan group of abortion opponents in the House of Representatives announced their intention to oppose any bill that fails to exclude the procedure from the scope of government-defined benefits. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, however, said the House Democratic leadership has the votes to pass a health care bill. The bill's fate in the Senate, meanwhile, continued to be hashed out by negotiators behind closed doors....

A recent Gallup poll found that twice as many Americans have become more conservative than liberal. Yet, at the same time, twice as many Americans now identify themselves as Democrats as opposed to Republicans. How did this seeming paradox come about? What, if anything, can the Republican Party do to restore itself? Or are these so-called "Blue Dog" Democrats the new placeholder for the conservative spot on the block? First, let's look at the origins of conservatism. British parliamentarian Edmund Burke, defender of the colonists' cause to preserve their rights against oppressive taxation, was conservatism's founding father. He spoke in...

President Obama and fiscally conservative Blue Dog Democrats in the House reached what one of the Democrats, Rep. Mike Ross, called a "small breakthrough" on one of 10 contentious issues that threatens to torpedo a major health care reform bill. The Blue Dogs hold a large number of seats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which canceled a vote Tuesday on health care reform legislation. Obama and seven members of the coalition agreed in principle to create what he called an independent Medicare Advisory Council, Ross said. The Arkansas Democrat thinks the council could help defray health costs and...