Obamacare in the House: Do the Blue Dogs have any bite?
“Centrist” Democrats in the House say they oppose the government health care takeover plans of their leaders and their president.
They’re barking loudly, demanding major amendments to protect small businesses and taxpayers.
But do the Blue Dogs have any bite? Or will they be bought off like many of them were on cap-and-trade and Porkulus One?
The Hill reports:
Centrist Democrats are threatening to oppose their party’s healthcare legislation unless House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accepts changes that make the bill more to their liking.
Seven Blue Dogs on the House Energy and Commerce Committee have banded together to draft amendments that they’ll co-sponsor in the committee markup, which starts Thursday. Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), the Blue Dogs’ point man on healthcare, says if those changes aren’t accepted, they’ll vote down the bill.
“We cannot support the current bill,” Ross said. “Last time I checked, it took seven Democrats to stop a bill in Energy and Commerce.”
Ross knows of three additional Democrats on the committee who won’t support the bill in its current form, creating a base of 10 Democratic opponents. The committee has 59 members: 23 Republicans and 36 Democrats.
Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) said he’s aware of the centrists’ concerns and is prepared to make changes even before the committee starts voting.
“Can a bunch of members bring a bill down? Sure,” Waxman said. “What we need to do is work together to pass a bill.”
Translation: Twist arms, cut deals, and buy off.
Looks like some of the Blue Dogs are growing tired of getting kicked around, not being listened to, and having massive legislation crammed down their throats. Sounds like your average Tea Party activist!
Blue Dogs think the bill fails to do enough to reduce healthcare costs, jeopardizes jobs with a fee on employers that don’t provide health insurance, and would base a government-run healthcare plan on a Medicare payment system that already penalizes their rural districts.
One Blue Dog, Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D-N.D.), told a home-state paper that he will vote against the plan in the Ways and Means Committee markup unless that Medicare payment system is changed.
Blue Dogs had aired their complaints last week in a letter to Pelosi that caused her to delay the rollout of the bill until Tuesday. But when the bill was introduced, they felt Pelosi and the committee chairmen who wrote the legislation hadn’t taken their concerns into account.
That led to a tense session between Pelosi and Blue Dogs at the group’s regular Tuesday meeting hours after the rollout.
“The meeting did not go well. She just kept saying it was a good bill,” said one Blue Dog.
“There is a growing perception among many of us that our leadership meets with us but doesn’t listen to us,” said another Blue Dog.
Your calls to members of Congress and your hometown protests can and have made a difference. Look:
Pelosi cut deal after deal with individual lawmakers to squeak the bill out of committee and to the floor. Then lawmakers flew home and had to battle criticism from voters at the same time Republicans were saying Democrats passed an “energy tax.”
“They went home and got beat up about energy,” said a senior aide to a Blue Dog lawmaker. “Now you’re going to jam healthcare down their throat and send them home for a month?”
Buck up the Blue Dogs with a phone call – Capitol switchboard is 202-224-3121:
Reps. John Barrow (D-Ga.)
Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.)
Baron Hill (D-Ind.)
Jim Matheson (D-Utah)
Charlie Melancon (D-La.)
Mike Ross (D-Ark.)
Zack Space (D-Ohio)
Here’s a rundown of the crammed legislative schedule over the next week:
*Votes planned Thursday by the Education and Labor and Ways and Means committees;
*Energy and Commerce also considering the health care bill on Thursday;
*On the Senate site, Obama wants legislation from the Senate Finance Committee by the end of the week.
Via AP: “Finance Committee members are considering a new proposal from Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that would raise $100 billion over 10 years by imposing new fees on health insurance companies.”
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Ed and 7thson beat me to door number 3 – there’s just not enough “Blue Dogs” around to stop it.
The only remaining questions are – Will the GOP get off its hindquarters in time to take advantage of a once-in-a-generation opportunity in 2010? If we give them one more chance, will they actually do more than just nibble at the edges of reversal of the Socialization of America?
Let’s hope THIS has legs. The president of the National Chamber of Commerce calling Barbara Boxer a racist. This is gold.
Correction:
Let’s hope THIS has legs. The president of the BLACK National Chamber of Commerce calling Barbara Boxer a racist. This is gold.
Pasadena Phil said:
I just watched this — Boxer makes a Cactus look like Einstein. The President of the NCC tore her a new one.
That explains the apparently living and breathing base. What excites the dead and imaginary progressive base about voting?
We also need and must demand voter ID!
To do so will take some really decisive and strong leadship, now lacking, such as Michael Steele who really hasn’t provided the image his last name implies.
If the GOP does take advantage of Dem lunacy, I’ll be truly shocked and awed! Pleased, but shocked and awed.
The path to success is to unite conservatives of all stripes under one roof. That is what the Tea Party movement is about. Liberate the Blue Dogs and conservative Republicans from their leadership. Let’s give them an alternative path. Pour on the heat so they can find us. I don’t think they get it yet.
Based on her comments, I think that is EXCATLY what Sarah Palin is about to attempt to do.
I do not think it is a move to a Third Party, but exactly what you describe as a template. We shall see.
Exactly. There are too many of us for either party to ignore. They have united in their strategy to divide and control us and because too many of us allow artificial feelings about party loyalty to cloud our judgment, they are almost succeeding.
What Sarah offers is a quick path to reassembling the Reagan coalition. The Dems are a coalition of too many small diverse interests to be the logical home for conservatives. The GOP’s opportunity is to STAND FOR SOMETHING AGAIN. To defy conservatives yet again will invite the death blow to a party that is passively licking it’s lips over winning by default in 2010. Sarah undermines that by creating a conservative path to election AND re-election outside of party affiliation. She offers candidates the path to doing the right thing and getting re-elected.
Go Sarah!
She laid the boiler plate conservative criteria and said she would campaign for any Republican, Democrat, or Independent who embraced those principles.
What that implies is if you have a Conservative Democrat and a “White Wine” Republican running for the same office, guess who gets Palin’s support?
Works for me.
A 3rd party would be a killer unless you created that center party that would pull Democrats and Republicans alike. I still think the biggest obstacle to clear is the abortion issue.
Most people are adament about being on one side or the other. They can be for low taxes, less government, fiscal responsibility, care less about guns or capital punishment, and maybe even issues like affirmative action but if they are pro abortion, they can NOT align themselves with a party that is anti abortion.
It is a devisive issue and I think a lot of people align themselves that way right now. If you are pro abortion you vote Democrat because Republicans say they will end abortion. If you are anti abortion you are Republican because Democrats want to expand it. If it is an issue you don’t have big feelings for, you may make your choice based on more government or less government beliefs.
How could a 3rd party get people together from both sides of that abortion divide?
T-bone: re-read my comment #90. Who is talking 3rd party? If the GOP doesn’t abandon its strategy of standing for nothing as the Assistant Democratic Party, then we are talking Sarah running as the second party candidate.
Less than 23% of voters are registered Republicans. Which direction do you think that number is going. Do you know how many voters are conservative?
It all starts with us as voters. If we can’t focus on who we are and what we want, we will be led right back to the cliff again and holding our noses. Build it first THEN they will come. We are building it ourselves. Are you coming or not?
T-Bone,
I think Pasadena Phil and I are in full agreement with you. A third party is a bad idea for all the reasons you stated.
I strategy is electing people with like philosophies without regard to party. Then promote the conservative agenda on a truly bipartisan basis.
It means driving a wedge in both parties and weakening their ability to pressure representatives to put party over principle.
You got it. Let them come to us. We outnumber them. This attitude that we need the GOP is what is killing us. They need us. Make them work. We are showing steel, they offer smoke (Steele). Not good enough. We win elections, they lose elections. Who needs who here?
There is no way a nationalized health care plan doesn’t come out of the House this year.
Can we replace Steele with Palin?
Utah residents: If you can’t get through to Capitol Hill, here is Matheson’s local number. (801) 486-1236
So far Matheson seems opposed strongly to the bill. I was told there was a laundry list of reasons why he won’t vote for it. However, it doesn’t hurt to let him know how we feel.
Don’t let them rush this thing through!
T-bone: I have to think about that. Might not be a bad idea. She’s a fantastic campaigner and fund raiser. If she gets the platform right, she would be in good shape to run for prez later. Worth considering IMHO.
did I make it? OoOo
When is enough, enough?
lock ‘n load folks this may get ugly.
Well, whenever I think the libs have gone a bridge too far, up comes another dang bridge! They cross it. Then another dang bridge comes up. They cross that one, too! I’ve given up guessing which bridge is one too far.
T-Bone:
I’ve noticed that some of the PUMA voters are pro Palin and they are pro abortion. To many of them, abortion is just one issue among many.
Being pro life, I’d be happy to let the matter settle with the states and keep the feds out of it, with the conscience clause excepted.
Gee, I thought that was the new American Way!!??
Phlegm ‘n Craps suppress debate – this is a news article, not an editorial
It is interesting that people can be pro abortion but at the same time not really worry about it if it is outlawed which may happen if they vote in anti abortion candidates who nominate SCOTUS judges.
On the other hand, people can be anti abortion and vote for candidates who continue to allow it.
Then there are the people who are anti abortion but sit and watch it happen every day knowing they can’t do much to stop it.
If a candidate was pro abortion but against big government, etc where would they be in the spectrum? Isn’t that the Blue Dogs? I agree with a previous poster that said they are not Blue Dogs. They are liberals in conservative districts that need to obfuscate in order to win. They tell people want they want to hear and then do their liberal stuff anyway. Pelosi gives them as much cover as she can including money for re-election if they play the game with her.
Bill Clinton had that down to a science. Tell the hard hats what they want, tell the suits what they want, tell the rich one thing and the poor another. It will not catch up to you and you will be elected. ie: Obama.
T-bone: it all boils down to the House and that we can get rid of them in two years. That is where “the peoples’” power lives.
There is no point over-intellectualizing the problem. We have a one-party system and the reason the elites keep finding themselves bogged down is that the “two-year crowd” wants to get re-elected.
If Congressmen want to get re-elected, they need to satisfy their conservative constituencies. Easier to do if they are one of us. We can’t tell the difference when they are running.
The key for now is to make sure Congress adjourns without any of these toxic socialists bills passing. Everyone will come back having heard from the voters and campaigning for re-election. There will be no way for the cap and tax, nor the nationalized health care bills to pass if they don’t pass this month.
When the amnesty bill was squelched just just before the November 2006 elections, it was assumed that there would be no way to kill it after the elections. What the pols found was that voters were even more energized after the elections and the attempt by Bush/McCain/Kennedy/LaRaza ended up costing the GOP EVERYTHING.
***
HI PASADENA PHIL and FLYOVERMAN. Great minds think alike–your comments on a third party not winning are dead on target. Even Teddy Roosevelt couldn’t buck the two national parties with his Bullmoose Party. Deja Vu all over again–the dimocrats and RINO’s furnish the BULLS**IT. And MOOSE rings a bell–Sarah knows how to fix them up real tasty.
***
The right strategy is to FIGHT ALL RINO, CONSENSUS, and REACH ACROSS THE AISLE (McCain style) stuff. Throw it in their faces with straight PARTY OF NO votes and use the conservative talk radio, conservative commentators to SHINE THE LIGHT on what is happening to our country.
***
The TEA PARTIES need to get in the faces of the “democrat” / liberal / socialist / marxist / statist / communist Senators, “Representatives” (not!), and President Obama (PBUH) every time it is possible. Sign carrying conservative protesters at their campaign stops, town halls, on the sidewalks as they go to / come from the airports on their trips, etc.
***
Taking back Congress in 2010 will probably be possible when the bad results of their policies are clearer to those with their heads in the sand–or up their rear ends! Remember the 1952 Presidential Election slogan–HAD ENOUGH YET?– that gave Dwight Eisenhower the POTUS prize.
***
And SARAH PALIN looks like the only real conservative with a chance to make it happen. SARAH’CUDA for POTUS–JOHN BOLTON for VP. An America First ticket–take back the GOP in the primaries.
***
Remember the I LIKE IKE buttons? How about I LIKE SARAH’CUDA buttons? I would like to wear one–maybe this could work again.
John Bibb
***
Where are Webb and Warner considered to be on the spectrum?
Conservatives should not abandon their unfairly villified candidates. That’s what they did to Bush, and look what happened. I think it’s pretty clear anyone conservatives put up is going to be treated like that. Keep Palin if she wants to be kept.
I know testing for voting sounds like a good idea, but it’s an abuse magnet. What kind of questions do you think those in power would ask on such a test? If they can’t change the questions, they’ll just purposely fail to educate those who would be opposed to them.
“Civil service doesn’t vote” is exactly the same problem, possibly worse, especially in this economy. With the added issue that the people most drawn to civil service would be the ones least reluctant to give up their vote. The Hatch Act already tends to violate the first amendment rights of those in the civil service.
Rocketman,
I saw a most interesting stat. Even after all of the pummeling by the Left and their stooges in the MSM and blogosphere, Sarah Palin still retains a 72% approval rate.
She can be the focal point for the model you have described. Not sure if 2012 is too soon for her, but she can build the across the aisle consensus you describe.
It will be interesting with both partie’s leadership and the MSM constanly attacking her and calling us dolts, but that will only manifest their fear.
Palin is the ONLY conservative who can campaign for candidates, raise money for them and herself, and impose herself on the national convention in 2012. That is how winners do it. She needs to get conservatives indebted and grateful. She will not be denied if that happens. The Dems would never accept her but a desperate GOP would have to. They didn’t want Reagan either but they were forced to take him. If the GOP rejected her, she could then be a powerful force as an independent.
I never said I am against a third-party run. In a one-party system, the right candidate could create a second party. Lincoln for instance. Ted Roosevelt is a bad example because he was such a erratic wild card. He ended up running as a spoiler against his own friend. It was too spur of the moment to be successful. Sarah could be forming a very solid re-united conservative base with a clear platform to challenge the “stand for everything” Dems and “stand for nothing” Reps. That would be a good setup for Sarah running against a one-party system. If she is not open to that, she will lose support fast.
If you check your politcal history (unfortuantely I am old enough to remember} that strategy is precisely how Richard Nixon got the 1968 nomination.
He worked hard all over the country helping candidates in the 1966 election cycle and in 1968. When the time came, those he helped, stepped up.
So, while we are all collectively twitching over ObamaCare, Cap&Trade, Birth Certificates, etc., the greatest tragedy is happening in the dark of night…tonight, about 1am EST…
Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Legislation.
Farewell 1st Ammendment and religous freedoms…we were busy worrying about our money (not that prosperity is not important, but our right to free speech and the freedom to read The Holy Bible is a HUGE cornerstone to why we are the land of the free and home of the brave…but nobody wanted to talk about it).
If you want more of something you subsidize it, and if you want less of it you tax it.
Obviously, the charade of ‘you can keep your current provider’ is out the window.
Does this mean that Obama’s insane claim that a government program can be ‘well run’ is a total lie like everything else that he says?
And MM’s medical savings plan is out the window as well.
Don’t worry MM, I have no doubt that the democrats in charge of your health care will never consider your activities as a blogger when they schedule your medical visits and treatments.
jangar, couldn’t be more right, some of the language in that bill is unconstitutional…takes away one on one free speech not to mention religious free speech.
I don’t see anyway out from under these crooked bastards, both dems and rino’s without a forceful revolution or non-violent military coup. Wondering how many if any major military minds are setting plans and orchestrating a non-violent coup at the present time. Without retaking congress in 2010 I don’t see any other way than one of the two mentioned above.
These libs have gone over the line in many ways so far, and as #1 dickweed says “you ain’t seen nothing yet”.
I know this is off topic, but Drudge reports a “Huge blob of Arctic goo floats past Alaska’s coast…”
I guess Al Gore decided to go for a swim.
Scary.
I haven’t seen anything good come out of Congress since 2006. Anything really foul that did not pass was because enough of us out here burned up their switchboard/in-box/voice mail. But I’m afraid that tactic is now getting ignored in order to please the tyrant-in-chief.
And this from Douglas Elmendorf, the head of the Congressional Budget Office.
What a surprise. Obama’s gigantic health care industry grab isn’t going to save anyone any money.
Give the optimism of gov’t spending projections, I would take that as confirmation that Obama’s radical health care socialization move is going to cost 2 or 3 times what they are saying now.
That’s right. Every time you turn around, there’ something going on that is outrageous. Yet, we’ll never see it on the evening news.
George Will’s article from yesterday sheds some light on another nefarous action by Obama that significantly changes the business landscape. He’s rewarding the Teamsters for their vote, at the expense of FedEx and businesses that use it. The good news is… FedEx’s CEO Fred Smith isn’t going to just sit there and take it. Read to the end.. it’s worth knowing about.
Sorry about be OT. But this is yet another slap in the face to America by Obama.
But if we call it a “tax”, I’m afraid it would end up like the Monty Python Argument sketch.
“It’s not a tax.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.”
ad infinitum.
If the Blue Dogs can bite, the GOP House ought to cozy up to them and vote Nancy out of office and let the Blue Dogs take over…