A dozen Senate Democrats joined Republicans in voting against a stimulus package that would add about $80 billion to the deficit. President Obama says it will save state and local jobs.
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Senate Democrats are Voting against their President
In a vote Wednesday, the US Senate showed a restrained appetite for more economic stimulus spending.
The vote was a procedural one, but it suggested that a stimulus package backed by President Obama couldn’t pass without being scaled back in cost. It would have added an estimated $80 billion to the federal deficit over the next decade.
Read More By Mark Trumbull, Christian Science Monitor
Tags: Democrats, Obama, Senate, StimulusSitting in an airport, on his way home to Michigan, Rep. Bart Stupak, a pro-life Democrat, is chagrined. “They’re ignoring me,” he says, in a phone interview with National Review Online. “That’s their strategy now. The House Democratic leaders think they have the votes to pass the Senate’s health-care bill without us. At this point, there is no doubt that they’ve been able to peel off one or two of my twelve. And even if they don’t have the votes, it’s been made clear to us that they won’t insert our language on the abortion issue.”
Stupak says Pelosi & Obama are unwilling to back down
According to Stupak, that group of twelve pro-life House Democrats — the “Stupak dozen” — has privately agreed for months to vote ‘no’ on the Senate’s health-care bill if federal funding for abortion is included in the final legislative language. Now, in the debate’s final hours, Stupak says the other eleven are coming under “enormous” political pressure from both the White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “I am a definite ‘no’ vote,” he says. “I didn’t cave. The others are having both of their arms twisted, and we’re all getting pounded by our traditional Democratic supporters, like unions.”
Stupak says he also doesn’t trust the “Slaughter solution,” a legislative maneuver being bandied about on Capitol Hill as a way to pass the Senate bill in the House without actually voting on it. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me,” he says. “I don’t have a warm-and-fuzzy feeling about what I’m hearing.”
Stupak notes that his negotiations with House Democratic leaders in recent days have been revealing. “I really believe that the Democratic leadership is simply unwilling to change its stance,” he says. “Their position says that women, especially those without means available, should have their abortions covered.” The arguments they have made to him in recent deliberations, he adds, “are a pretty sad commentary on the state of the Democratic party.”
Read More: by Robert Costa, National Review
Tags: Bart Stupak, Democrats
As Congress begins picking through President Obama’s vast election year budget, many Democratic incumbents and candidates seem to be finding something they love — to campaign against.
A Democratic Senate candidate in Missouri denounced the budget’s sky-high deficit. A Florida Democrat whose district includes the Kennedy Space Center hit the roof over NASA budget cuts. And an endangered Senate Democrat denounced proposed cuts in farm subsidies.
A headline on the 2010 campaign website of Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), blares her opposition to Obama’s farm budget: “Blanche stands up for Arkansas farm families,” it says.
Heading into an election season in which Republicans are trying to tie Democrats to Obama’s unpopular policies, Obama’s budget gives his fellow Democrats an unlikely campaign tool — a catalogue of ways to establish their distance from controversial aspects of his administration.
It is a time-tested campaign tactic for politicians to declare their independence of party leaders. But the tactic is particularly important for Democrats this year, because their party dominates Washington, and being an insider is a political liability in an anti-incumbent climate.
Read More: By Janet Hook and Christi Parsons, Baltimore Sun
Tags: Barack Obama, Democrats, distanceCalling the Senate health care bill a package that Ponzi schemer "Bernie Madoff would really envy," Republican Sen. Jon Kyl said Sunday that the legislation to be debated in December is long on promises but short on accounting.
The Pressure is on Ben Nelson and other “moderate” Democrats
"When they claim a savings … in the first 10 years, that’s because they start collecting taxes in 2010 they don’t start spending money till 2014," said Kyl, helping to kick off the debate senators voted a day earlier to start on the $848 billion package "Any private or any publicly traded business that claimed it was making a profit because it booked revenue over 10 years but only booked expenses over six years would wind up in jail. That’s what this bill does, that’s just many of the frauds and hat tricks in this bill," Kyl said on "Fox News Sunday."
The 60-39 vote opened the door for to start after Thanksgiving. The measure is designed to extend coverage over six years to an estimated 31 million Americans who lack it and crack down on insurance industry practices that deny benefits for pre-existing conditions or when people lose their jobs.
Read More: By FOXNews
Tags: Democrats, Healthcare, Obamacare, ponzi SchemeThe victories by Republicans in two Governors races last Tuesday appear to have lifted the party’s prospects in 2010 and in 2012 in the minds of voters with 58% of those surveyed by Rasmussen now believe the next President will be Republican
Both Gallup and Rasmussen now show solid leads for the GOP in the generic Congressional ballot for 2010 – 4% in Gallup and 6% in Rasmussen. For Gallup, this is a 6% shift in one month, and a 10% shift in two months away from the Democrats.
As Obama and the Dems trample the Constitution people are waking up
Nate Silver show more Democratic held Senate seats at risk in 2010 than GOP held seats. After losing a net 14 Senate seats in the 2006 and 2008 elections (plus one more due to Arlen Specter’s defection), the GOP has only 40 seats in the Senate, and needs help from independents (Joe Lieberman) or conservative Democrats (Ben Nelson) to sustain a filibuster.
Even a small pickup in Senate seats in 2010 would solidify the GOP’s ability to block some of the statist agenda of the Obama administration.
Read More: By Richard Baehr, American Thinker
Tags: Barack Obama, Constitution, Democrats, Sinking numbersHouse Democrats blocked the public from attending the unveiling ceremony of their health-care bill Thursday morning, allowing only pre-approved visitors whose names appeared on lists to enter the event at the West side of the Capitol.
Boehner: says this is 1,990 pages of bureaucracy, the bill will cost $2.2 Million per word
The audience at the crowded press conference included Hill staffers, union workers, health care providers and students, according to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who thanked them for attending.
Mrs. Pelosi and other Democratic leaders announced the chamber’s long-awaited version of a health care overhaul, which would expand insurance coverage to 36 million uninsured Americans, costing less than $900 billion over 10 years.
Read More: By Kara Rowland, Washington Times
Tags: Democrats, Healthcare reform, In secret, Obamacare, pelosicarePublic support for the Obama administration’s sweeping government health care reforms is declining as opponents continue to pack congressional town-hall meetings with some analysts suggesting the president may have to settle for more modest legislation.
Public-policy analysts say that nearly two weeks of intense and often angry town-hall debate back home during August recess has thrown the White House on the defensive and turned its hopes for a full-blown overhaul of the health care system into a steeper climb.
“Publicity attached to town halls has kept the administration from framing the debate to its advantage. They have their work cut out for the rest of the month,” said Thomas E. Mann, senior analyst in governance studies at the liberal Brookings Institution.
Queen Pelosi will ram healthcare down our throats
But Mr. Mann said he still believes “a modest health reform bill, passed exclusively by Democrats, with [Maine Sen. Olympia J.] Snowe the only possible Republican vote in support, will clear Congress by the end of the year. But there will be many ups and downs before getting there.”
Read More: By Donald Lambro, Washington Times
Tags: American People, Democrats, Nancy Pelosi, Obamacare, Ram through healthcareAmericans who want to express their opinions on health care reform at town halls across the country are encountering a host of roadblocks, ranging from fake schedules to a demand that they show their driver’s licenses or photo identification.
Supporters of President Obama’s plan say they are pushing back against opposition that is disruptive and designed to shut down debate. But opponents say the supporters’ tactics are underhanded and designed to undermine democracy in action.
Obama and CO. are creating obstacles for you to speak out
In Texas, Rep. Gene Green’s office is requiring town hall attendees to present a photo ID that proves they live in his district.
On his Web site, Green says “due to a coordinated effort to disrupt our town hall meetings, we will be restricting further attendance to residents … and verifying residency by requiring photo identification.”
Read More: By FOXNEWS
Tags: Democrats, Healthcare reform debate, Obama, Roadblocks
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