According to Jonathan Cohn, the House Budget Committee will convene this afternoon to hold a hearing and write reconciliation instructions so the HCR bill doesn’t need a 60-vote majority when it goes back to the Senate. Also, the House Rules Committee has to finalize amendments, and the House probably won’t act on the bill until it is sure the Senate will pass the amendments, and that won’t happen until Harry Reid presents the reconciliation package to his caucus.
When the House acts, there’s no certainty there will be enough votes in the Hous. Smart people are saying there will be, but that it will be close.
The House Budget Committee has posted a bill online that Ezra Klein says is the bill that will become the reconciliation bill.
The original reconciliation instructions require Democrats to use a bill written before 10/15/09, and this bill fits, well, the bill. What’ll happen next is that the legislation will head to the Rules Committee, who’ll erase what’s currently on the page and replace it with the real reconciliation package. It’s a bit like how painters will reuse a canvas they’ve already painted on, though they’re doing it to save money and the House and Senate do it because their rulebooks are confusing.
OK.
The White House is pushing for the health care effort to finish this week.
My gut feeling was it became a done deal when the Catholic hospitals came out in favor. That’s like arguing with Sister Bertrille.
Off Topic:
Will there be any writing about the Protests in Thailand here? It seems to fit in with the coverage of Tibet in the past.
Maha,
Thanks for that illustration from “Schoolhouse Rock.” Brings back memories of back in the day when we believed what they taught us in Social Studies and that the phrase “We the People” had some kind of meaning in real life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tyeJ55o3El0
I read somewhere that the tea party people today have toned down their signs somewhat. Their rhetoric on the other hand…And I thought Shelly Bachmman had the market on crazy cornered. Wouldn’t have surprised me if a semi pulled up and they started handing out guns.
BTW – what’s with the “smaller than expected crowd?” I guess Dick Armey didn’t rent enough busses
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) urged a smaller-than-expected crowd of Tea Party protesters on Tuesday to launch a Velvet Revolution-style uprising against the federal government, saying the parallels are striking between America’s current government and Eastern European communist rule.
Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 “would be fine with me.”
“Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can’t get in, they can’t get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people,” he said.
What gets me is that they can say these sort of things with a straight face.
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/34470.html