The CBO says Harry Reid's bill comes in well under the $900 billion over 10 years mark at $849 billion, will reduce the deficit down the road, and covers 94% of Americans.
That's good news.
Now will the Senate even be allowed to debate the bill with every single Republican automatically voting no on anything the Dems do?
[UPDATE 5:37 PM] And this is where we've come to: the fact that a Democrat is considering actually allowing the party's premier domestic agenda bill to be debated -- not the final vote of the bill mind you, but whether or not the bill will even be allowed to be discussed -- the fact that Ben Nelson is considering whether or not it should even be allowed to be discussed in the Senate chamber is in and of itself news.
I swear, every Senator in the United States should have to spend 30 days with an average American family before being allowed to take office.
Senators should have to do it twice each term, folks in the House have to do 15 days every election.
ReplyDeleteHa, I see my gmail account still has the "& Nate" attached. Anyway, from kos frontpage:
ReplyDeleteIn an e-mailed statement, Kirsten Gillibrand adds
"While this bill is not perfect, the anti-choice measure that was included in the House bill is not contained in the Senate bill. The House's Stupak amendment would have resulted in grave risk to women and girls, particularly to low-income women. Denying a full range of reproductive services is not only discriminatory, but also dangerous, and puts the lives of women and girls at risk.
So, there is no initial language that goes as far as the Stupak amendment and I would put money on the table that getting 60 votes to include is undoable. If it is not in the Senate bill, the WH, Pelosi, and Reid are NOT going to include it during the conference process (as Obama made clear with his statements about the status quo). So, Stupak's blustering about killing the bill aside, I think it would be 10:1 safe that we get a final bill without Stupak language.
You know, I really have to say I badly underestimated Gillibrand as a Senator. She was certainly an upstate NY Blue Dog as a Rep, but as a Senator she has come shining through in Hillary's place.
ReplyDelete"will reduce the deficit down the road"
ReplyDeleteThat's funny.