Late Thursday afternoon, the Senate passed a $1.1 trillion spending measure thats best described as a fix -- fix, as in an act of Republican perfidy and chicanery. The process was rigged by Speaker Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell (doubtless with a wink and a nod from Harry Reid) to push through the gargantuan spending measure while giving House and Senate Republicans cover on ObamaCare funding. The bill was an incomprehensible 1,582 pages. Heres how it worked. House Republicans passed the spending bill with a provision to strip funding from ObamaCare. In the Senate, Harry Reid used rules to see to it that measure wasnt subject to a filibuster, which would required 60 votes to overcome. That meant eight Republicans would have to have joined 52 Democrats to end a filibuster. Not insurmountable for Reid and his Democrats, siphoning off GOP votes, given the plentiful supply of quislings among the Republicans. But why the headache, and politically, why give Senate conservatives a chance again to shine a harsh spotlight on the very unpopular fledgling ObamaCare health care grab? Why expose Democrats up for reelection this year to that sort of rigorous body-cavity search? So Reid (this time doubtless with a wink and a nod from McConnell), maneuvered to strip the ObamaCare defunding provision by a majority vote, which split along party lines, 52-45 in favor. This happened quickly without any fanfare.
Posted on: Sun, 19 Jan 2014 06:30:08 +0000
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