Grassley: I Can’t Back Bill Now Because Dems Might Do Bill Without Me Later
The evidence that GOP Senator Chuck Grassley isn’t serious about negotiating a bipartisan health care compromise is beyond overwhelming at this point, but here’s still more.
As you may have heard, Grassley announced in a statement last night that he can’t support the health care bill that is expected from the Senate Finance Committee today, citing concerns about abortion and illegal immigrants. But I wanted to focus on this amusing nugget from Grassley’s statement:
“On top of all that, there’s no guarantee that a Finance Committee bill, even if it becomes bipartisan, will stay that way after it leaves the committee. An overriding issue for some time has been the fact that members of the Democratic leadership haven’t made a commitment to back a broad bipartisan bill through the entire process.”
Grassley’s position really appears to be that a key reason he can’t back the bill now is that Dems haven’t sworn a blood-oath not to do a bill alone later if no bill emerges that can get “broad” Republican support. This amounts to asking Dems to promise in advance to do nothing at all in the event that a “broad” number of Repubicans don’t agree to get behind some kind of compromise bill.
By this standard, in order to satisfy Grassley’s definition of true bipartisanship, Dems quite literally must cede all their power and leverage in advance, even as Republicans are refusing en masse to back any proposal that can reasonably be called a compromise. That really is Grassley’s position, with no exaggeration.
Update: To be clearer, what this really means is that in order to meet Grassley’s definition of bipartisanship, Dems must effectively hand over to Republicans total veto power over health care reform. It’s that simple.
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Greg, you nailed it. One way or another, Grassley, Enzi, Hatch, Cornyn, even Snowe, all say the same thing–give me a bill I can support. In other words, come on Democrats, write a Republican bill.
Mr.Sargent:
It seems that Snowe just bailed out of this jalopy of a bill.
It’s all yours now.
You have to hand it to these guys. They can stick to a plan of killing all the tomato plants while insisting for months or longer that all they want is to see those tomato plants thrive.
Bi-partisanship cannot be allowed to work. The hope for it was a fundamental strength of Obama’s appeal and so it had to be made to look as if he couldn’t achieve it.
But more than that, if bipartisanship actually did appear and did function, what on earth would Rush Limbaugh or the entire rightwing noise machine ever talk about?
Conflict and ineffectiveness in governance works in the interests of many.
It will be interesting from a liberal perspective to see the Max, I never met an insurance lobbyist I didn’t like, Baucus bill wend its way through mark up. There is already a lot of push back from progressives and it looks like no bi-partisan support. It appears the distance traveled from his white paper of last year hasn’t served him too well.
“Conflict and ineffectiveness in governance works in the interests of many.”
Sad but true Bernie L. Grassley confessed during his visit home in August that he NEVER seriously considered a Bi-partisan solution and that he was simply stalling to make it as tough as possible for the Dems and Obama.
The only thing I find amazing in this whole sorry episode is how long it’s taken the Dems to wise up and just move on…no pun or reference to an organization suggested. Seriously…stop crapping around and get on with it already…the Republicans are irrelevent why would anybody listen to them?
What a worthless party Republicans have become, and what an impotent majority the Dems have proven themselves to be.
It’s good to know this country is toast, because of what amounts to a kindergarden bully sitiation.
Bernie
Don’t know if you caught this yet this morning re. Glen Beck and his required reading list. Numero Uno is “5,000 Year Leap” by none other than Willard Skausen of “The Making of America” fame. Here’s a quote from the Alexander Zaitchik piece:
“In 1981, Skousen published “The 5,000 Year Leap,” the book for which, thanks to Beck, he is now best known. But it wasn’t that Skousen book that made the biggest headline in the 1980s. Toward the end of Reagan’s second term, Skousen became the center of a minor controversy when state legislators in California approved the official use of another of his books, the 1982 history text “The Making of America.” Besides bursting with factual errors, Skousen’s book characterized African-American children as “pickaninnies” and described American slave owners as the “worst victims” of the slavery system. Quoting the historian Fred Albert Shannon, “The Making of America” explained that “[slave] gangs in transit were usually a cheerful lot, though the presence of a number of the more vicious type sometimes made it necessary for them all to go in chains.”
Below is the link to Zaitichik’s article. It’s fascinating reading and explains quite a bit about Beck and the 9/12ers.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2009/09/16/beck_skousen/index2.html
BBQ
Don’t give up yet. The dems will push a bill through and the push back from progressives will force them to get something better than the Baucus, give it up to the insurance industry, bill. We need to keep the pressure on the conserva dems.
Greg,
As far as I’m concerned Grassley eliminated himself from the health care debate this August when he embraced the “pull the plug on Grandma” nonsense. No reason to listen to anything he says anymore, he’s relegated himself to the bottom feeding extreme of the Republican party.
Wasn’t there a russian who said recently that us of a will go the way of ussr in a few years ? The political ugliness of the opposition party in us seems to prove him true.
Quite honestly if I was Chuck Grassley I think I would be saying the same thing right now. Let’s keep it real, he is leading Max Baucus and Kent Conrad around by the nose right now and everything he has asked for he has just about gotten. He said public option is off the table and Baucus and Conrad rushed to throw it away. He talked about death panels and end of life counseling was thrown out of the bill. Joe Wilson calls the President a liar and Baucus and Conrad trip over themselves trying to be the first to get to the bill and revise it to legitimize Wilson’s outburst. Grassley may as well ask for a Republican bill, hell he just might get it with those clowns in charge. It is what it is.
@rukidding – I disagree only on one point. I think Obama believes (and I certainly do) that a far more bipartisan and civil form of governance is both possible and desirable. And increasingly necessary. There are huge problems almost certainly coming and we don’t have time to be frigging around like schoolkids hating the other half of our country and hating the rest of the world. World food stocks and the oceans are at serious risk and the social upheavals that seem likely to come are going to be met by a sane and cooperative shoulder to the wheel or something else very much worse. What Obama is trying to do (and he’s not alone among present world leaders and others) is very important.
@Imsinca – thankyou. I had not seen that piece (saw the title, skipped it, should not have). Excellent reporting by Salon. My apologies the madman was Canadian.
@Imsinca
Bernie
My only question to you is who would Pres Obama be bipartisan with? Even the two supposedly reasonable Republicans, Olympia and Snowe, have now basically thrown the health care reform bill under the bus. He can’t be bipartisan all on his own, and the Republicans don’t plan on doing anything in any way shape or form to help them. Maybe, possibly he could get some if they get creamed again in the mid terms but historically that doesn’t happen. And if the Republicans regain seats in the Senate and the House next year it will actually reinforce all the bad behavior they are exhibiting now.
Now Pres Obama can keep appealing to rank and file Republicans in the country but being bipartisan as far as in a legislative sense, that is just about close to impossible right now.
Greg
So far access seems to be working fine this morning, at least for me. Thanks!
@lmsinca–thanks for pointing me to the Salon piece. So fraking scary but a must read I think.
My understanding of the Baucus bill is that it will require all US citizens to buy health insurance.
Can anyone think of another example where the government has required literally every person in the country to buy a product from a private company?
in order to meet Grassley’s definition of bipartisanship, Dems must effectively hand over to Republicans total veto power over health care reform.
I think it’s been clear for some time now that by and large this is the Congressional GOP’s definition of bipartisanship. This definition of theirs makes it much easier to understand why Grover Norquist once stated that bipartisanship was just another word for date rape.
Oh, and the shorter Grassley statement would be, “If I vote for anything other than what the Iowa GOP base wants I won’t survive the next primary.” Since the Iowa GOP base is noted for the large percentage of evangelical Christians it contains the safe bet is that he’s paying very close attention to the teabaggers.
To be clearer, what this really means is that in order to meet Grassley’s definition of bipartisanship, Dems must effectively hand over to Republicans total veto power over health care reform. It’s that simple.
To be even clearer, Grassley wants the bill HIS way or not at all.
Imsinca:
“We need to keep the pressure on the conserva dems.”
Really?
Pardon my asking, but with what, exactly? ACORN is in the process of being Federally de-subsidized. This is the “Kiss of Death” for a Liberal organization.
The Union Bosses can read their poll numbers too, (approval of unions at historic lows), and they don’t want to shoot all their wad on Health Care, since they may want to try pushing Card-Check later.
Couple those two facts with Obama’s back-in-the-cellar poll numbers and Van Jones’ defenestration, and you’re looking at a purge of Libs going on within the Democratic Party.
Liberals have proven themselves liabilities to Democrats staying in power, and now those “conserva-Dems” are actively co-operating with the GOP in shoving the Libs back into the Sweat Lodge and barring the door from the outside.
The joyride’s over, kids. Hope y’all had fun while it lasted.
@sgwhite “My only question to you is who would Pres Obama be bipartisan with”
Somehow, sometime, in some way, a new model (or an old model) has to be advanced and promoted. I really do know what you are speaking about and as my post up top tried to argue, the modern conservative component is dead-set against cooperative endeavor that might bear fruit. They have become institutionalized in a manner which presently will simply not permit it. Obama, it seems to me, has two choices. Just do whatever to crush the opposition bluntly and openly or to forward a more responsible, grown up, cooperative model (while not being a chump and getting things done) on the presumption that the polity will approve and improve with the conservatives being forced, by electoral realities if nothing else, to stop marginalizing their members who are sane and responsible and begin, again, marginalizing the destructive parts of their party/movement.
@ Bernie…may we agree to disagree? I respect all of your posts which are lucid and timely but I must disagree with both you and President Obama’s thoughts on bi-partisanship.
“I think Obama believes (and I certainly do) that a far more bipartisan and civil form of governance is both possible and desirable.”
While I agree it’s absolutely desirable I’m afraid I agree with my fellow Floridian Sgt White when he points out what to me seems obvious…”who would Pres Obama be bipartisan with?”
I respect your desire for civility and intellectual rational approaches to the myriad problems facing our nation and the world…but really…the Republican Party is going the way of the Whigs. As I wrote yesterday as a Progressive I could be happy about that…but I’m truly not…I wish we had the Eisenhours..Teddy Roosevelts…Buckleys et al instead of the Grassleys…Palins..Gingrich..Limbaugh..Beck…a REASONED thought from the other side is always welcome but look what happened to Colin Powell…any thinking..non knee jerk Republican is referred to as a RINO. How do you debate substantively with idiots like Palin over “Death Panels”..or Chuck Grassley’s pulling the plug on Grandma.
And so Bernie I agree with you and President Obama that bi-partisan was PREFERABLE…but it is not ESSENTIAL…Social Security…Medicare…were not genuine bi-partisan efforts. Hell the Republicans would still end Medicare if they could.
ScottC:
“Can anyone think of another example where the government has required literally every person in the country to buy a product from a private company?”
At the Federal level, ship P&I clubs, (ship insurance)
probably true for the airlines as well.
At the State level, auto insurance.
At the County level, school supplies.
# Bilgeman | September 12th, 2009 at 11:52 am
End the illegal occupation of Confederate Land and begone from us. We are not of the same nation, and judging from the slurs posted and allowed here yesterday, nor should we be. They would then be free to sneer their contempt at us to their heart’s content from within the borders of whatever lands that remain to them.
…………………….
You have renounced your American Citizenship. By your own standards, that makes you a foreigner, and that means you have no right to make any comments about the United States of America.
In fact, you are now an Illegal Alien, so you better not try to use any of the USA social services, or show up at an emergency room for treatment. Turn in your social security card, because only legal residents are allowed to have them.
rukidding – Obviously, I might have these things wrong. They’re best-guess opinions. Quite ok to disagree. But my mother knows where you live.
Better to have no Republicans supporting this thing. We can scrap the Baucus plan and use something closer to the HELP plan, which still has many flaws.
Bilge:
No one is forced to purchase an education from private schools.
Only auto owners are forced to buy auto insurance.
I don’t know anything about ship insurance, but I do know I don’t purchase any.
I’m pretty sure this would be a first, where literally every American would be required by law to directly purchase a product from a private compnay.
In 20 years, when Dems are fighting for single payer, Republicans will be defenders of the public option and the younger generation Republicans will be crying for Govn’t to keep their hands off their public option.
A public option gets around the idea of every American being forced to buy a product from a private company.
cheers to you Mike, and to Joe Wilson for saying what i was thinking!! What happen to free speach??? Hello? Thanks for saying what i was thinking!!
Joe Wilson’s wife called him a nut, for what he said to the President, and Joe Wilson called the President, and apologized.
You are cheering him for doing something that his wife said only a nut would do, and which Joe Wilson, himself, said was a stupid thing to do.
That makes you even a bigger nut that Joe, I apologize Mr. President, Wilson
Kathleen-Exactly
Scott C
Thanks for reading that article I posted yesterday. I just thought it was somewhat thought provoking and it did have a question mark at the end.
mike – In 20 years, there won’t be any republican party.
tg – Why are you trolls so uneducated ? Did you finish school ?
Kathleen:
A public option gets around the idea of every American being forced to buy a product from a private company.
So does not forcing people to buy it.
A mandate, whether for private or public insurance, is all about personal responsibility, about not inflicting the costs of your ill health on the rest of society. I thought conservatives liked that concept.
Bob:
A mandate, whether for private or public insurance, is all about personal responsibility, about not inflicting the costs of your ill health on the rest of society. I thought conservatives liked that concept.
No one can “inflict” the cost of their ill health on society. If the rest of society picks up the tab, that is society’s “choice”. No one is forcing it to do so.
@Greg Sargent: I believe you misunderstand almost completely. What Grassley means is that Dem leadership has not agreed to protect the bipartisan compromises hammered out in Baucus bill when it comes time to reconcile the House and Senate versions. It’s fairly simple: Why should Grassley vote this out of committee if Pelosi is simply going to strip out all of the bipartisan provisions when it comes time to reconcile the bills?
what will it take for Mr. Obama to realize the bipartisan
ship has sailed, leaving him on shore with his pants
down.
“Bipartisanship is preferable, but not essential”
Exactly right. Let’s not lose sight of the fact that congress is sent there to get a job done, not stroke the ego of a party who has been rewarded for behaving horribly in opposition and brutally in majority since at least the 90’s.
Why should Grassley vote this out of committee if Pelosi is simply going to strip out all of the bipartisan provisions when it comes time to reconcile the bills?
What citation can you provide indicating Grassley endorses the Baucus bill as it stands? Your statement implies that you think Grassley does endorse it (or its outline at any rate), but that Grassley won’t endorse it because he does not believe the provisions he likes will still be there in the final bill.
What public statements of Grassley’s support this?
I don’t like Grassley but I think your reading of this is disingenous. What Grassley is saying is that he doesn’t trust the Dems, once the bill leaves the committee, to stick to any compromise that is reached in committee. It’s not unreasonable for him to say to the Dems that – if agreement can be reached in the committee – both sides should agree thereafter to stay behind that agreement as negotiations continue toward getting an actual bill passed.
Scott, you are not living in the real world if you think our society is ever going tell people who didn’t buy health insurance that they can’t come into the emergency room. Once you acknowledge that you are going to pay for that care, you might as well look for the best way to minimize the cost, maximize the efficiency, and spread the burden as fairly as you can. The “choice” that you talk about does not exist except in some Ayn Rand novel.
@oddjob: I’m sorry to have implied that Grassley supports the outline as it now stands – he obviously does not. My intent here was to respond to the specific quote that Greg reprints:
“On top of all that, there’s no guarantee that a Finance Committee bill, even if it becomes bipartisan, will stay that way after it leaves the committee. An overriding issue for some time has been the fact that members of the Democratic leadership haven’t made a commitment to back a broad bipartisan bill through the entire process.”
I believe my comment stands. Should the bill become bipartisan through markup, Grassley is still concerned that Pelosi will strip all of its bipartisan accords.
“Can anyone think of another example where the government has required literally every person in the country to buy a product from a private company?”
Building codes require you to buy Smoke detectors and the services of licensed Electricians, Plumbers, Building inspectors, etc.
Auto insurance is obviously the most direct analogue, and while some have pointed out that only applies to people who have cars, I expect the Health insurance mandate will only apply to people who have health…
All that said, a public option would ensure a consistent minimum plan available to all.
Should the bill become bipartisan through markup, Grassley is still concerned that Pelosi will strip all of its bipartisan accords.
Considering how clear it is that the present Congressional GOP definition of “bipartisan” is “only that which we ourselves would write if we were in the majority now”, I don’t blame Pelosi for not promising to do that.
“Bipartisan” should not equal “all the minority party wants and nothing else”.
When even Olympia Snowe cannot support the bill, you know it is bad. The Dems should quit whining about the lack of GOP support and pass it through reconciliation. But I think that even they realize that the angry backlash from the American people will be much greater than they bargained for.
No, the angry backlash from the GOP base will be loud, but the rest of us will continue to live our lives.
The rest of us ultimately will not allow ourselves to be held hostage to those who pine for yesterday.
I’m pretty sure non-partisan means not being a source of all the positioning nonsense. Doesn’t this all boil down to the side in power wants more government intrusion and power, some on the other side don’t, and neither of them are willing to admit that way more often than not they ARE the problem? Don’t you think in total ours is the greatest country that has ever existed? If not, what other country in all of history would you prefer us to be more like?
How is it we are even having a national healthcare discussion without our elected officials being fully informed on all the details and facts to the point that they are disseminating that knowledge to all of us. If this isn’t the blind leading the blind, then it’s manipulators attempting to persuade the manipulatees.
Aside from the avoidance of the topic of liberty vs tyranny, here’s another example of a “minor” omission from the discussion: Is anybody here informed on the GAO’s 12/2007 calculation of our nation’s $54 Trillion in unfunded liabilities? I personalize it as 20 times the federal budget. So therefore, each taxpayer’s portion is 20 times what they pay annually in social security and income taxes, due today, just to get us back to even on our pre-bailout commitments. Assuming these numbers are even in the ball-park, how does ANYTHING else matter?
If memory serves, medicare’s portion of the $54T was $38 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Feel free to question my motives for not trusting an at best deficit neutral healthcare plan, or its promoters, as appropriate to address a $38T funding shortfall.
How do YOU know when you’re being manipulated?