Gun Control in other bills

[PocketProtector]

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/firs...op-opposition/

Obama, Democrats Eye Tactic to Shield Health Care Plan From GOP Opposition
Republicans, who have been complaining furiously about the prospect of health care reform passing under fast-track rules, are not planning to go down without a fight.



Saturday, April 25, 2009




President Obama and his Democratic allies in Congress are poised to trample Republican opposition to his health care bill with a controversial legislative tactic known as reconciliation.

The fast-track process would protect Obama's ambitious plan to overhaul the U.S. health care system from a potential GOP filibuster and limit the Republicans' ability to get concessions. It also would give Democrats far more control over the specifics of the health care legislation.

Under typical Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to advance a bill, but reconciliation would enable Democrats to enact the health care plan with just a simple majority and only 20 hours of debate.

Democrats hold 56 seats in the Senate, and two independents typically vote with the party. Republicans have 41 seats, and there is one vacancy.

Republicans have complained furiously about the prospect of health care reform passing under fast-track rules. But they're not planning to go down without a fight.

A GOP Senate committee aide told FOXNews.com that Republican lawmakers are considering offering amendments to the legislation that would be unpalatable to Democrats.

Senate Republicans made a similar move with the D.C. Voting Rights Bill, which would have given the city its first seat in the House, by adding a controversial amendment that would repeal most of the District's local gun-control regulations. That bill now is waiting for a vote in the House.

For the health care bill, Republicans would try to add amendments that require employers to provide a certain number of dollars for every employee and limit the ability of uninsured Americans to choose health care providers, "specific changes that Democrats have said will not be included in any comprehensive health care plan," the aide said.

"I would assume this is the only option left," the aide told FOXNews.com.

But Democrats aren't stopping at health care. Obama's plan to cut private banks and other lending institutions out of the market for student loans would also move on a filibuster-free path.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday that most House and Senate negotiators have resolved most of their differences over a congressional budget blueprint designed to advance Obama's agenda through Congress. The measure will set the rules on how Congress considers Obama's agenda for the rest of the year.

Lawmakers are rushing to agree on the budget framework in time to give Obama a victory within his first 100 days in office.

The negotiations have centered on the annual congressional budget resolution, which sets the parameters for the legislation that follows. Congressional votes next week would provide a symbolic victory for Obama's sweeping agenda to enact a universal health care system, invest in education and clean energy and cut the exploding budget deficit to manageable levels.

Obama marks his 100th day in office on Wednesday.

Hoping for a better chance at passing Obama's health care bill, Democrats have agreed to allow the president's signature $400 tax cut for most workers to expire after next year.

Obama's "Making Work Pay" tax cut of $400 for most workers and $800 for couples would expire at the end of 2010 as currently scheduled. The temporary tax cut was part of the economic stimulus plan enacted in February, and Obama is proposing to make it permanent.

The fast-track process could have a downside for Obama, since it's sure to anger Republicans whose support could help with business, insurers and other key interest groups.

Democrats, including Obama, have said repeatedly that they want the health care debate to be bipartisan and that the filibuster-proof terms would be used only if the GOP obstructs. But Republicans say the move has already poisoned the debate.

"Reconciliation is basically a nuclear weapon to use against the negotiators so what happens is nobody negotiates seriously because they can always go to reconciliation ... tilting the playing field unfairly," said Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, top Republican on the Budget Committee.

Sen. Max Baucus of Montana, one of the leading Democrats trying to write a health care bill, said Friday that going the fast-track route would only complicate matters, because Republican support is needed to pass legislation that would be broadly accepted.

"When you jam something down somebody's throat, it's not sustainable," Baucus told reporters. "And I want something that will last

[Morel42]

Ok, please feel free to let me know if I missed something in my reading..

Reconciliation generally involves legislation that changes the budget deficit (or conceivably, the surplus). The "Byrd Rule" outlines what reconciliation can and cannot be used for. The Byrd Rule defines a provision to be extraneous in six cases:

* (1) if it does not produce a change in outlays or revenues;
* (2) if it produces an outlay increase or revenue decrease when the instructed committee is not in compliance with its instructions;
* (3) if it is outside the jurisdiction of the committee that submitted the title or provision for inclusion in the reconciliation measure;
* (4) if it produces a change in outlays or revenues which is merely incidental to the non-budgetary components of the provision;
* (5) if it would increase the deficit for a fiscal year beyond those covered by the reconciliation measure, though the provisions in question may receive an exception if they in total in a Title of the measure net to a reduction in the deficit; and
* (6) if it recommends changes in Social Security.

If a provision violates the Byrd Rule, then any Senator may raise a procedural objection and unless 60 Senators vote to waive the objection, then the offending provision will be stripped from the bill.

So basically if it's not a Budget then Reconciliation can't be used unless they can get a 3/5th's majority to vote against any senators objection of an amendment in a bill. (I think.. )

ARG I hate congress. In order to understand anything they do, you have to research the definition of a rule, then find out where it came from, what limitations it has, what CHANGES to those limitations have occured, if any other bill affected the first one, and then look up court rulings over weither or not the rule is allowed or if the blah balh blah.

Ugh.. my head hurts.. I spent 20 minutes reading on this one subject, and I still can't tell how much of a danger it is, if it's all just politics, or MSM trying to get people to watch..

[original gunner]

Somewhat similar look @ majority congress passing law without consensus. If the stimulus is successful, GOP house membership could decline another 20-30% in the mid term elections.


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/29/us...s/29obama.html

House Passes Stimulus Plan With No G.O.P. Votes

By JACKIE CALMES
Published: January 28, 2009
WASHINGTON — Without a single Republican vote, President Obama won House approval on Wednesday for an $819 billion economic recovery plan as Congressional Democrats sought to temper their own differences over the enormous package of tax cuts and spending.

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As a piece of legislation, the two-year package is among the biggest in history, reflecting a broad view in Congress that urgent fiscal help is needed for an economy in crisis, at a time when the Federal Reserve has already cut interest rates almost to zero.

But the size and substance of the stimulus package remain in dispute, as House Republicans argued that it tilted heavily toward new spending instead of tax cuts.

All but 11 Democrats voted for the plan, and 177 Republicans voted against it. The 244-to-188 vote came a day after Mr. Obama traveled to Capitol Hill to seek Republican backing, if not for the package then on other issues to come.

Mr. Obama, in a statement hailing the House passage of the plan, did not take note of the partisan divide but signaled that he expected changes to be made in the Senate that might attract support.

“I hope that we can continue to strengthen this plan before it gets to my desk,” he said. “But what we can’t do is drag our feet or allow the same partisan differences to get in our way. We must move swiftly and boldly to put Americans back to work, and that is exactly what this plan begins to do.”

Mr. Obama followed the House vote with a cocktail party at the White House for the Congressional leaders of both parties, from the House and the Senate. The House Republicans, including the minority leader, Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, were fresh from their votes against the recovery package.

The failure to win Republican support in the House seemed to echo the early months of the last Democratic administration, when President Bill Clinton in 1993 had to rely solely on Democrats to win passage of a deficit-reduction bill that was a signature element of his presidency.

Mr. Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, had met Tuesday night at the White House with 11 moderate House Republicans, none of whom ended up supporting the bill. “The most important number here for this recovery plan is how many jobs it produces, not how many votes it gets,” Mr. Emanuel said.

As Senate Democrats prepare to bring their version of the package to the floor on Monday, House Democrats and the administration indicated they would ultimately accept a provision in the emerging Senate package that would adjust the alternative minimum tax to hold down many middle-class Americans’ income taxes for 2009. The provision was not in the House legislation.

Its cost would drive the overall package’s tally to nearly $900 billion. That would exceed the roughly $850 billion limit that Mr. Obama has set for Congress, House Democratic leadership aides said, and leave no room for other proposals that senators of both parties are poised to seek during Senate debate next week.

While the House and Senate measures are similar, they are most likely to differ in ways that could snarl negotiations between Democrats from the two chambers, and delay getting a measure to the president. In particular, House and Senate Democrats are split over how to divide $87 billion in relief to the states for Medicaid, with senators favoring a formula more beneficial to less-populous states.

Democrats’ own differences aside, they also are under pressure from the White House to be open to proposals from Senate Republicans who might support the final legislation if their interests are accommodated, and which might draw a few Republican supporters on a final vote next month in the House.

The provision on the alternative minimum tax, for example, was a priority for Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, who added it Tuesday in the Finance Committee’s work on the legislation.

Democrats’ goal is to have the stimulus package, which is roughly two-thirds new spending and one-third tax cuts, to Mr. Obama’s desk for his signature by Feb. 13, before Congress breaks for Presidents’ Day.

“He said he wanted action, bold and swift, and that is exactly what we’re doing today,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said as debate began.

Democrats voluntarily dropped from the package several provisions that Republicans had singled out for derision in recent days, including money to restore the Jefferson Memorial and for family planning programs. But the day’s debate contrasted with the president’s conciliatory gestures.

Representative Virginia Foxx, Republican of North Carolina, said that former President George Bush’s signature tax cuts in 2001 had created years of growth but that the nation’s problems started when Democrats regained majorities in Congress in the 2006 elections.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the majority leader, said that “the economics that got us into this mess” were the Republicans’ policies for the six years that Republicans controlled both the White House and Congress, through 2006.

The House voted down several Republican proposals, including a substitute package made up entirely of tax cuts for individuals and businesses. Republicans did not say how much their package would cost, although Mr. Boehner said it would be far less than the Democratic plan. That tax-cut-only approach was defeated on a mostly party-line vote of 266 to 170; two Democrats joined all but nine moderate Republicans in voting for the Republican plan.

By another near-party-line vote, 270 to 159, the House rejected a Republican plan to delete a number of spending programs, including several representing top campaign promises of Mr. Obama, and to add instead $36 billion for highway construction, more than doubling the $30 billion in the bill, and $24 billion for Army Corps of Engineers projects.

After the final vote, Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the second-ranking House Republican, called the Democratic package “a spending bill beyond anyone’s imagination.”

Some Democrats seemed surprised that no Republicans voted for the measure.

“Not one person felt his or her district needed to have any of this assistance?” Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, asked of the Republicans. “That can’t be.”

Brad Woodhouse, president of the union-supported, pro-Democratic group Americans United for Change, e-mailed a statement condemning the Republicans’ opposition under the subject line “Political Suicide.”