Pelosi Still Pushing Public Option
According to this Hill Magazine article, Speaker Pelosi is still insisting on pushing a ton of Blue Dogs into political oblivion:
House Democratic leaders could decide the basic outlines of their healthcare bill by Friday after a sharply divided rank and file spent Thursday evening hashing out the shape of the legislation.
Centrist and liberal Democrats have been warring over whether to include a government-run “public option” to compete with private insurance companies, and other factions are debating whether to pay the cost of the plan with an income surtax on the wealthy.
The fight leaves Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) with a difficult choice.
If she chooses a public option, she could lose the votes of many Blue Dogs and other centrist lawmakers. If she scraps the public option, she could lose the votes of liberals. Even with the sizable majority of Democrats, either decision might cost enough votes to kill the bill, as Republicans appear united against it.
I think Speaker Pelosi would willingly sacrifice a bunch of Blue Dogs if that’s what it takes to pass single-payer health care legislation.
Blue Dogs say that if Pelosi follows through on including a public plan, it won’t have enough votes on the floor. Rep. Allen Boyd (D-Fla.), a prominent Blue Dog, said there probably isn’t enough support for any one approach within the Democratic Caucus to get the needed 218 votes. He said Pelosi should take a sharp turn to the center and see if she can pull together centrist Democrats and centrist Republicans.
“Somebody’s got to find a way to convince Republicans they’re not the party of ‘no,’” Boyd said.
Rep. Boyd needs to ditch the talking points. They’re insulting. Republicans have said no alot because they’re opposed to legislation that will destroy what’s left of the economy. Thus far, that’s the only type of legislation that the Democrats have proposed. The stimulus is a failure. The UAW bailouts were too expensive to be considered successes. The jobs that President Obama promised would be created if we passed the stimulus haven’t materialized.
If Democrats had actually worked with Republicans on the stimulus and on health care, there undoubtedly would’ve been alot more good legislation that would’ve gotten true bipartisan support. Instead, the Democrats have followed President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Rahm Emanuel. Instead, Democrats are about to run off a cliff.
September 26th, 2009 at 9:35 am
Not a doubt in my mind that Pelosi has no qualms about hanging her blue dogs out to die.
This woman doesnt care about California, the future of the country, or the Democratic Party. Shes wealthy, in a safe district, and the only thing she cares about is Nancy Pelosi and her power within the ruling circle.
September 26th, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Minor point, USN, but it is the “Democrat” Party. There’s nothing “democratic” about it. Or the Republican Party, either, as far as that goes.