“This is a remarkable moment in the life of our nation. After years of runaway federal spending, deficits, debt, borrowing, bailouts and takeovers, against the opposition of a clear majority of the American people, the Democrats in Congress and in this administration are prepared to ram through a $1 trillion government takeover of health care.
“It’s just hard to believe. Ignoring the will of the American people, twisting the rules of the House and the Senate into a pretzel, we are headed for a showdown this weekend. But I got to tell you, I like our chances.
“The reason House Democrats don’t have the votes is because the American people know this is a government takeover of health care. Mandating that every American purchase health insurance whether they want it or need it or not, passing hundreds of billions of dollars in job-killing tax increases, providing public funding for abortions, and setting into motion government-run insurance that will cost millions to lose the insurance they have is a government takeover of health care.
“Let’s have the debate. A minority in Congress plus the American people equals a majority. America, we can win this fight.”
It looks like the House will vote on Obamacare on Sunday. That’s when the House Democrat leadership believes it will have twisted enough arms and paid off enough of their colleagues to have the votes. Will they have a straight up and down vote or will they resort the the Slaughter Rule?
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today released a preliminary estimate of the financial impact of the bill that it admits it pretty much meaningless. Apparently a revised estimate will be released Friday or Saturday. The preliminary estimate projects a 10 year savings that is equal to about 2 weeks of 2010 deficits. Of course, this is all based on the deception of combining ten years of tax increases and Medicare cuts with six years of Obamacare “benefits.”
Democrats have also said that they are just getting started. Nancy Pelosi: “Kick open that door, and there will be other legislation to follow. We’ll take the country in a new direction.” So any projection of the current bill whether we know what’s in it or not is meaningless since it is just the first step toward European-style socialism.
President Obama has postponed his trip to Indonesia until June presumably so that he can pressure Democrats to support Obamacare with the argument that a “No” vote would ruin his presidency. As Rush Limbaugh has pointed out, this is the behavior of Third World dictators who “destroy their countries to save face or make them look better.”
What will happen after the vote? It all depends. If the vote is on the Slaughter Rule and the President signs the Senate bill, it’s constitutionality will be challenged immediately and some states may refuse to recognize it as law. If Senate Democrats try to adopt the House’s “fixes”, Senate Republicans will offer amendments and the process will continue for a while.
The cleanest outcome would be a “No” vote on Sunday. We could sing “Ding Dong, the Witch is Dead” and start the debate on real health care reform.
Senator Coburn warns House Democrats considering switching their vote from “No” to “Yes” that he and his colleagues will find any corrupt deal that they have made before the November election. He also promised to hold any nomination to a federal position that any of these Democrats may get if they lose in November. Video via Hot Air:
I want to send a couple of messages to my colleagues in the House.
If you voted “No” and you vote “Yes” and you lose your election and you think any nomination to a federal position isn’t going to be held in the Senate, I have got news for you: It is going to be held.
Number two is if you get a deal, a parochial deal for you or your district, I have already instructed my staff and the staff of seven other senators that we will look at every appropriations bill, at every level, at every instance and we will outline it by district and we will associated that with the buying of your vote.
So if you think you can cut a deal now and it not come out until after the election, I want to tell you that isn’t going to happen. And be prepared to defend selling your vote in the House.
Now even liberals are expressing outrage at House Democrat’s attempt to pass health care without voting on it, i.e. the Slaughter Rule. Here are the transcript and video of Cafferty’s comments on Nancy Pelosi. Note how Wolf Blitzer twice tries to make it sound like this is nothing unusual. To his credit, Cafferty disagrees.
CAFFERTY: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi may try to pass the controversial health care reform bill without making members vote on it. Simply unbelievable. Pelosi says she might use a procedural tactic where the House will vote on the package of fixes to the Senate bill, and then that vote would signify that lawmakers “deem the health care bill to be passed.”
Politically speaking this is beyond sleazy. Republicans are jumping all over this, rightfully so. They are painting it as a way for Democrats to avoid taking responsibility which is exactly what it is.
WOLF BLITZER: We are getting a little civics lesson, aren’t we Jack?
CAFFERTY: We are learning a lot more about lack of political guts.
BLITZER: Yeah, but you and I know that’s been around for a while, right?
CAFFERTY: Not quite in the obnoxious form or noxious form. This reeks.
Obamacare won’t lower insurance premiums or lower health care costs. It will cut Medicare and raise taxes. Opponents have known this for a long time, but few have seen Democrats openly admit to it. Nevertheless Obama and Pelosi insist that Obamacare has to be passed.
3. Democrats are still toying with not voting on the bill, but rather “deeming” it passed, i.e. the Slaughter Rule. They believe the American people are too stupid to understand that a vote on “let’s pretend” that the bill is passed is the same as voting for the bill. They will find out in the November election at the latest how badly they underestimated the American people.
4. There is not reason for the Senate to “fix” the bill that 59 current Senators have voted for to make House Democrats happy. House Democrats rightly don’t trust Democrats in the Senate. Michael Barone tells an old story about former House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s feelings toward the Senate: “after an aide referred to the House Republicans as ‘the enemy,’ O’Neill corrected him. ‘The House Republicans are not the enemy, they’re the opposition. The Senate is the enemy.’”
5. President Obama has now twice postponed an overseas trip to Indonesia and Australia in order to be in DC for some final arm twisting and for signing a bill. So now the argument is that Democrats need to pass the bill to save Obama from looking like a fool. That’s why Rush Limbaugh has called Obama a Third World president: “[Rush] explains that third world presidents typically destroy their countries to save face or make them look better, and that is what Obama is doing with this health care bill.”
7. Even the mainstream media is publishing some facts about Obamacare. The Associated Press did a fact check on Obama’s claim that premiums will go down and concluded the following:
Buyers, beware: President Barack Obama says his health care overhaul will lower premiums by double digits, but check the fine print.
Premiums are likely to keep going up even if the health care bill passes, experts say.
8. State Attorney Generals are preparing to challenge Obamacare if it is passed as unconstitutional. Any bill coming out of the current process may well have been enacted in violation of the Constitution and will spark lawsuits and civil disobedience across the country.
It does not look good for Obamacare. The big danger right now is that House Democrats ready to vote “No” are under enormous pressure from their leadership to switch their votes. In addition to promises and outright bribes they will be told that they will have the failure of the Obama presidency on their conscience if they vote “No”. House Democrats opposing Obamacare need to continue to hear from their constituents and from other concerned Americans.
Keep calling and emailing Congress. Right now it looks like any significant vote won’t occur before Saturday, so there is still a few days to go until the future of American government will be decided. Go here for some tips on who to call.
Bret Baier is interviewing President Obama on Fox News tonight. Here is an excerpt (via Hot Air) in which he states that he doesn’t care about unconstitutional parliamentary tricks like the Slaughter Rule:
The Slaughter Rule, whereby House Democrats may “deem” the Senate health care bill passed without actually voting on it, is causing a lot of outrage across the country. There is also a lot of legal opinion on whether such a rule would be constitutional or subject to other legal challenges.
The Constitution seems clear. Article I, Section 7 states: “Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a Law, be presented to the President of the United States…” A bill has to pass both branches of Congress before it can become law. The Senate parliamentarian has ruled that the Senate cannot act on a bill making corrections to the original bill until the President has signed the original bill into law. The President cannot sign the Senate bill into law unless the House has also voted on it. It seems clear that the Slaughter Rule is not a legal way forward.
Politico quotes a law professor who has refreshingly simple advice on for Democrats:
“If I were advising somebody,” on whether deem and pass would run into constitutional trouble, “I would say to them, ‘Don’t do it,’” said Alan Morrison, a professor at the George Washington University Law School who has litigated similar issues before the Supreme Court on behalf of the watchdog organization Public Citizen. “What does ‘deem’ mean? In class I always say it means ‘let’s pretend.’ ‘Deems’ means it’s not true.”
Democrats will not get away with supporting the Slaughter Rule and claiming that they didn’t vote for the Senate bill.
What’s more, Obamacare passed via the Slaughter Rule will undermine the rule of law, may cause states to declare that the law will be unenforceable within their borders and will unleash anger against the federal government that will make the tea party protest of the past year look like pro-government rallies. Red State has a post that discusses the possibly frightening consequences should Democrats go down this path.
President Obama announced in Ohio yesterday that premiums for employers will drop 3,000 percent if Congress enacts Obamacare. So for every $1,000 an employer currently pays, they will receive back $30,000. The audience applauds this obviously absurd statement. I guess the teleprompter malfunctioned.
Just imaging what the media would be doing if George Bush would have said something like this. We would never hear the end about what an idiot he is.
