The Democrat leadership continues to wheel and deal behind closed doors, in defiance of promises made during the campaign for openness and transparency. They "own" both Houses of Congress. Slam dunk, right ??
Well, they have been working on the health care bill for nearly a year and all they have to show for it is "slam." They have been slammed by the American people with a little help from members of the GOP. They desperately wanted this behind them by the middle of LAST JULY; that is how far off schedule they are.
But, we have heard nothing much about this bill for a couple of weeks. The fact that they have had the doors closed for weeks and still have nothing is the most telling of circumstances. Obviously, there are problems that have not been resolved with the buying of votes.
And now, Eric Cantor (R-Va) is telling us that there is some hope that this monstrosity can be stopped. Cantor is the House Republican Whip. With the title "Whip," comes the job of counting heads for his side of the aisle. He is a bean counter. It is his job to know who is voting for what. Unless Cantor is blowing smoke, and why would he, his appraisal of the situation in the House gives us a little hope.
According to The Hill, we have this report: Cantor explained that he had spent an hour Wednesday huddling behind closed doors with members of his own conference, strategizing on how to defeat the president's landmark domestic initiative.
"We’re looking at 37 Democrats who are in districts that are particularly upset and vulnerable to the provisions of this healthcare bill," Cantor said, highlighting the key theme to be pursued: "Are they going to be with the people or are they going to be with Pelosi?"
According to aides that participated in Wednesday morning's GOP conference meeting, Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) told his rank-and-file, "The bottom line is, I believe we can beat this bill. The American people are with us.”
It is a fact, apparently (do "fact" and "apparently" work well together?) that Congressional Democrat leadership cannot avoid at least one more major vote in each House. For that, they will need 60 votes in the Senate and 218 in the House. In the last floor vote, they got exactly 60 in the Senate and won by a 5 vote margin in the House. Pro-life House Democrats voted for the bill on that vote, to move it along but pledged to vote against it if it came back from the Senate with changes to the anti-abortion language they had approved. Midknight Review believes that language has been changed. The problem, if this is true, is that leadership does not have the House votes to support the change.
In the Senate, if - and it is an unlikely "if" - Scott Brown were to win the seat vacated by Ted Kennedy, the Senate would be one vote short of passage. There is talk of some trickery on the part of the Dems if Brown wins that election, scheduled for Jan 19th. They have talked of tricks before but not followed through. The Dems have proven they are willing to pay the ultimate electoral price for their decision on this matter - but, in the end, will this resolve carry through to include voting tricks in the Senate? Time will tell. Cantor may be right.
Text by jds
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