ALG Editor’s Note: In the following featured commentary from the Washington Examiner, Mark Tapscott quotes ALG President Bill Wilson on Pelosi’s trick to pass Obamacare.
Pelosi aide says Democratic congressional leaders have settled on legislative “trick” to pass Obamacare; So why have a summit? UPDATED
By: Mark Tapscott
Editorial Page Editor
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s senior health care advisor has told Congress Daily that congressional Democratic leaders have settled on a strategy they believe will allow them to make changes in both Senate and House Obamacare bills, then send a single, revised version to President Obama for signature.
Congress Daily is a subscription-only publication, but LifeNews.com has these details:
“In comments reported by Congress Daily, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s top health care aide Wendell Primus admitted top Democrats have already decided on the strategy to pass the Senate’s pro-abortion, government-run health care bill.
“Primus explained that the Senate will use the controversial reconciliation strategy that will have the House approve the Senate bill and both the House and Senate okaying changes to the bill that the Senate will sign off on by preventing Republicans from filibustering.
“’The trick in all of this is that the president would have to sign the Senate bill first, then the reconciliation bill second, and the reconciliation bill would trump the Senate bill,’ Primus said at the National Health Policy Conference hosted by Academy Health and Health Affairs.
“’There’s a certain skill, there’s a trick, but I think we’ll get it done,’ he said.”
The comments from Primus raise an obvious question: Since it is inconveible that Democratic congressional leaders are moving in this direction without the knowledge of the White House, why call a health care summit and challenge congressional Republicans to come with their best ideas when the plan is already in place to use legislative trickery to pass Obamacare?
The most logical answer would seem to be that the summit is part and parcel of a White House/congressional Democratic strategy to distract attention from what is about to happen on the Hill. It’s the classic magician’s trick of distracting you with the left hand while the right hand does the “trick.”
UPDATED: More details from Think Progress, NetRight Nation
Igor Volsky at The Wonk Room, a blog published by the leftist Center for American Progress, offers additional details on the Primus comments about using reconciliation trickery to jam through Obamacare, including observation that other Democratic congressional aides present agreed.
And Americans for Limited Government chairman Bill Wilson, writing at NetRightNation.com, points to the Democrats’ bottom-line goal in this process:
“The idea here — and the problem — is that House and Senate Democrats want to eliminate the filibuster in the Senate to enact government-run health care, solidifying one-party rule despite the election of Senator Brown in Massachusetts. For, if reconciliation can be invoked to avert the filibuster on this issue, it surely would be used to enact other radical proposes such as caps on carbon emissions, the takeover of the energy industry, the nationalization of the banks, etc.”
As a regular commenter on these pages often reminds us, the “issue” for Democrats is never the issue, the issue is always control.
