A Fun January
Senate leaders Reid and McConnell have agreed that the first order of business when they get back will be to take up, on January 20th, the debt limit increase needed for next year (they’ll pass a small—$290 billion!—increase Thursday to tide them over for a month). The agreement allows for several amendments, including a Murkowski [...]
The Health Care Debate Continues
The amendments to Harry Reid’s health care bill continue to pile up. Some of the more important:
(1) The McCain amendment to strip the bill of its Medicare cuts.
(2) The Mikulski amendment to mandate mammograms and other screenings without co-pays.
(3) The Dorgan-Snowe amendment to allow drug re-importatation.
(4) The Leahy-Schumer amendment to repeal health insurers’ antitrust [...]
Pelosi Breaks Pledge to Put Final Health Care Bill Online for 72 Hours Before Vote
Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD that the speaker will not allow the final language of the health care to be posted online for 72 hours before bringing the bill to a vote on the House floor, despite her September 24 statement that she was “absolutely” committed to doing so.
House members are still [...]
CBO Makes $600 Million Mistake
Senator Cornyn proposed an amendment this evening that would require any amendment voted on in the Senate Finance Committee to be scored first by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Tax Committee with the estimates made publicly available on the web 24 hours before the vote. The amendment was withdrawn and has little chance [...]
As the Byrd Rule Flies: Why Dems Can’t Use Reconciliation to Pass Radical ObamaCare
…Unless they’re willing to immolate themselves in the process — and probably lose the fight anyway.
Everybody is now slinging around the term “reconciliation process,” but I think most of us don’t really understand what the heck that means — other than a sneaky way to pass ObamaCare without having to break a Republican filibuster. [...]
Kristol: Barack Obama, Our Personal Trainer
Here’s how President Obama concluded an interview in the Oval Office today:
“But, look, I just think that what we’ve been doing over the last six months is getting people back into fighting trim. This is a town where there was just a belief that nothing could get done….I’ll use just the workout metaphor, and that [...]
