On Thursday, President Obama will hold his much publicized health care summit with Congressional Democrats and Republicans. Earlier this week Obama already published his own, worse version of the health care legislation Congressional Democrats have cobbled together.
There isn’t much pretense that there will be any genuine discussion of Republican ideas. The Democrats’ intent is simply to put Republicans on national TV rejecting Obama’s socialist ideas with little opportunity to voice their own approach.
Congressional Democrats have threatened that they will proceed to pass Obamacare via “reconciliation”, a process that is intended for passing budget bills with 51 rather than 60 votes in the Senate. If they proceed with this “nuclear option” the level of tension in Washington will go through the roof and the Tea Party movement will get another boost of energy.
Watch this video to see what Obama, Biden, Clinton, Reid and other Democrats said in 2005 when there was some discussion of changing Senate rules to confirm judicial nominees with 51 votes.
Republicans didn’t go down this route. Will Democrats remember Joe Biden’s warning? “I pray to God when the Democrats take back control we don’t make the kind of naked power grab you are doing.”
Senator Robert Byrd, a strong supported of Obamacare and one of the authors of the reconciliation rule, warned just last year that it would be inappropriate to use reconciliation to pass health care legislation:
As Robert Byrd, (D-W.V.), one of the original authors of the reconciliation rule, explained, “Reconciliation was intended to adjust revenue and spending levels in order to reduce deficits…it was not designed to…restructure the entire health care system.” He warns that using reconciliation for health care would “violate the intent and spirit of the budget process, and do serious injury to the Constitutional role of the Senate.” In fact, in 1985, the Senate adopted the “Byrd rule,” which prohibits the use of reconciliation for any “extraneous issue” that does not directly change revenues or expenditures. Clearly, large portions of the health care bill, ranging from mandates to insurance regulation to establishing “exchanges,” do not meet that requirement.
Obama and his allies in Congress do not seem to care about preserving traditional Senate rules that are intended to moderate the ability of a narrow majority of senators to pass legislation that is strongly opposed by a large minority of senators.
The majority of Americans continues to opposed Obamacare. It is ironic that Obama is seeking to blame Republicans for his failure to convince the American people despite controlling both branches of Congress. He is doing this because he has not convinced enough Democrat legislators to pass Obamacare. Last fall the House passed Obamacare by three votes. Since then Democrats have lost several votes due to retirements and one death. In addition, Obama’s new proposed legislation will likely not be supported by a group of Congressional Democrats due to the loss of restrictions on taxpayer funding for abortion. According to one count, Democrats are 15 votes short of passing Obamacare in the House.
It is difficult to see how Obama can succeed. Congressional Democrats don’t want to face angry Tea Party voters in fall. It would be a mistake though to underestimate the power of the President to bully and bribe just enough Democrats to pass Obamacare by the narrowest margins.
Watch Representative Mike Pence’s comments on Thursday’s “taxpayer-funded media event”:
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