Keeping an Eye on Rhode Island Politics
Massachusetts Republican Senator Scott Brown talked with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow and said that President Obama should “start over” on Health Care Reform. Brown warned Democrats they would pay a high price in 2010 if they jam ObamaCare through using “Reconciliation.”
Brown said, “I’m challenging the President to do better.”
During the White House Summit on health care on Thursday, Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, and President Obama disagreed as to whether the Democratic health care bill would cause premiums to rise. Fox News’ Jim Angle found Senator Alexander was right.
Less than one hour into the President Obama’s health care summit the Senate’s most powerful Democrat reminded Republicans they can jam through a takeover of the health care system no matter what’s said during the next few hours of the meeting.
In his opening statement Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat said, “reconciliation isn’t something that’s never been done before.”
By saying this, Leader Reid has shown the irreconcilable difference between the Democrats and the American people who have already rejected their plans.
Americans have said loud and clear they do not want this bill. They don’t believe trillion dollar government takeovers will lower costs, they know it will explode our debt and reduce their freedom. They don’t want government bureaucrats making decisions for them in the most personal part of their lives.
But the Democrats continue to show they aren’t listening. They have been be planning to pass their health care takeover using a complicated Senate maneuver, called reconciliation. This procedure was originally created to resolve budget matters, not to push through a new complex entitlement program.
The summit was held under the pretense that the President would seriously listen to Republican ideas that enjoy popular support (solutions like buying insurance across state lines, tort reform, and tax equity for those who don’t get health coverage from their employer). But by refusing to take reconciliation off the table, President Obama and Democrats are turning a deaf ear to Americans.
A CNN poll released Wednesday found 73 percent of Americans want Washington to start over and begin working on an entirely new bill or stop work all together on health care reform…
Read More: Senator Jim DeMint’s Blog
During his State of the Union Address tonight, President Obama committed a significant breach of protocol by openly criticizing the members of the United States Supreme Court in his presence for their recent decision agreeing that free speech rights apply to American corporations (as well as unions, for our liberal friends).
After Obama insulted the court members, Associate Justice Samuel Alito can be seen shaking his head and mouthing what appeared to be the words “not true,” as the Democrats around the Supreme Court members stood and applauded around them.
Tasteless.
Sen. John McCain’s take on President Obama’s State of the Union speech:
“What we’re hearing tonight is the ‘BIOB’ — let’s call it that from now on — ‘Blame It On Bush.’ Whatever has gone wrong, let’s blame it on Bush.”
Source: Breitbart.tv
This was a bad start for an even worse rally at Northeastern University in Boston. The president probably would have been better off phoning it in.
Unbelievable. Not.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) apologized today for referring to President Barack Obama as “light skinned” and “with no Negro dialect” in private conversations during the 2008 presidential campaign.
“I deeply regret using such a poor choice of words,” said Reid in a statement. “I sincerely apologize for offending any and all Americans, especially African Americans for my improper comments.”
President Obama said in a statement that he and Reid had spoken about the matter on Saturday afternoon. “I accepted Harry’s apology without question because I’ve known him for years, I’ve seen the passionate leadership he’s shown on issues of social justice and I know what’s in his heart,” said Obama. “As far as I am concerned, the book is closed.”…
Read More: The Washington Post
Here is a pretty good web ad from “Keep America Safe,” which hammers President Obama for his slow response during the first 100 Hours following the attempted Terrorist Attack aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253.
The ad shows Obama playing golf at key points during the 100 hours, and that he waited 97 hours afterward to make any public statement about it. He then went back to playing golf.
(Told You So.)
Some married couples would pay thousands of dollars more for the same health insurance coverage as unmarried people living together, under the health insurance overhaul plan pending in Congress.
The built-in “marriage penalty” in both House and Senate healthcare bills has received scant attention. But for scores of low-income and middle-income couples, it could mean a hike of $2,000 or more in annual insurance premiums the moment they say “I do.”
The disparity comes about in part because subsidies for purchasing health insurance under the plan from congressional Democrats are pegged to federal poverty guidelines. That has the effect of limiting subsidies for married couples with a combined income, compared to if the individuals are single…
Read More: The Wall Street Journal
This might ring a little hollow coming from a liberal like Jack Cafferty on CNN, who said “President Obama hasn’t even made a token effort” to keep his repeated campaign promises of openness about health care reform transparency. Gee, ya think?
…In a high-speed culture in which politics is conducted in the short-hand of sound-bites, the 2010 election can be easily summarized by the last names of the two presidents immutably identified with their respective governing philosophies, making the first national election of the 21st century’s second decade a virtual War of the Presidents. It will beget one simple question. Are you Reagan or Obama?…
For Obama to remake America from the bottom up into a statist utopia as long envisioned by American and European “progressives.” To fundamentally change — forever — the role of government in everyday American life. To remove as much individual liberty and freedom as they can get away with and replace it with government control, on the old theory that only economic and political elites can correctly order the affairs of the average man and woman. Making of America a quasi-socialist state on the model favored by leftists of one stripe or another for all or parts of three centuries. If the Obama progressives could manage it, the idea would be to drop the “quasi” altogether…
Read More: The American Spectator
Loading ...
Michael Steele: Obama Goes Nuclear
With no hope of reaching the 60-vote threshold necessary for a Senate victory and the American public growing increasingly against the Obama’s government-run takeover of health care bill, the President has decided that reconciliation is the only way he can get ObamaCare across the finish line and onto his desk.
Forget that 57% of Americans want him to start over on this bill. Forget that he doesn’t even have the 60 necessary “yes” votes from his own Party to pass this bill. The President is willing to do anything possible to force this bill through Congress – because instead of worrying about what the American people want, he’s more concerned with his imposing his own agenda.
What President Obama fails to recognize is that while reconciliation has been used before, in the last 19 reconciliation bills enacted into law, 12 of them were bipartisan and passed with the support of 60 of more Senators – something the President can’t say about his health care bill.
Mr. President, instead of risking a nuclear meltdown down of the health care system by ramming a 2,074 page bill through the Senate, the House, and down the throats of the American public – do everyone a favor and rip up your massive bill and start over.
Sign the Petition: Start Over on Health Care Reform
Source: Republican National Committee