Keep in mind that in order for Reconciliation to work, the House must pass the Senate version first.

A couple of thoughts after reading Kim Strassel’s Wall Street Journal article The Summit Sideshow:

There is a concern about how many free passes Pelosi gave to conservative Democrats to vote against ObamaCare during the House vote last year in an effort to provide them political cover. In reality, the concern is not ours, but Pelosi’s.

Those who voted no have seen what happened to those who voted yes. Plummeting poll numbers of conservative Democrats who voted yea on the bill are not encouraging signs for their nay counterparts, so why flip and ruin your political career? For Pelosi? I don’t think so.

Pelosi faces many challenges. One, hold the yes votes. Two, flip the no votes on enough conservative Democrats to pass ObamaCare, and three, hope that retiring conservative Democrats who voted yea originally are not convinced that vote hastened their departure and will express their displeasure at the Pelosi, Reid, Obama triumvirate that seems hell-bent on destroying the Blue Dog conservative Democratic caucus and political careers in the process.

Look for a lot of no votes to stay that way. Especially after yesterday’s lackluster performance by the Democrats at the healthcare “summit”, I don’t see a lot of Representatives rushing towards the cliff for a leadership that has demonstrated nothing but contempt and disregard for the political careers of their colleagues in what amounts to an obsessive-compulsive neurotic rush to shove an unpopular bill down an unwilling public’s throat.

Add to that Senate pressure and a promise by Senate Republicans to throw enough amendments at any reconciliation attempt to keep the ball rolling until 2050. The only way out of that trap will be for the Democrats to evoke the Bryd Option and kill the fillibuster. How many Senate Democrats will sign on to that, and if you are a House member from a state with a Senator that stands firmly against that tactic (a true nuclear option), how do you stand on your vote for ObamaCare? The pressure will be enormous to buckle and vote against ObamaCare. The same argument holds for reconciliation itself.

Newsmax is reporting today that Senator Byrd, the architect of the reconciliation process said using reconciliation to expedite health-care reform would be “an outrage that must be resisted.”

Eric Cantor makes the case that Pelsoi faces an uphill climb getting votes for ObamaCare. I think the problem is an even bigger one that described by Representative Cantor.

I think this bill is dead.

Related:

Pelosi losing grip on the House?

Oba-Kabuki: A box-office bomb

Health Care In Spinsville

Does Pelosi have the votes to pass Obama’s new bill?:

Ironically, for all of the left’s endless whining about the filibuster, it ain’t the Senate that’s their biggest problem anymore. A simple question for you from Philip Klein, who’s been counting heads in the lower chamber for weeks: Given that they’re starting with only 217 “yes” votes, who’ll be stupid enough among the no’s to flip in favor of what even David Brooks is calling a “fiscal time bomb”?

Of the 39 Democrats who voted against the House health care bill [in November], 31 of them were elected in districts that went for John McCain in 2008, according to a TAS analysis. One of the Democratic “no” votes, Rep. Parker Griffith of Alabama, has subsequently switched parties. Given that a Republican who campaigned on being a vote against the health care bill was just elected to fill the Senate seat once held by Ted Kennedy in a state that went for Obama by 26 points, it’s hard to see why anybody in a McCain district who already voted “no” would decide switch their vote to “yes.”

While Obama won the districts of the remaining eight “no” votes, in six cases, he won by only single digits, making them potentially competitive races this time around. And a closer look at several members who represent these areas are not very encouraging to proponents of Obamacare…

The biggest problem she faces is that President Obama’s proposal maintains the abortion provision in the Senate bill, rejecting Rep. Bart Stupak’s more restrictive language. When the bill passed the House the first time around, 41 Democrats voted for the health care bill only after voting for the Stupak amendment. Any of them could explain switching to a “no” vote on a final bill by citing abortion funding. Stupak himself has said there are at least 10 to 12 Democrats who voted for the bill the first time who would vote against it if it didn’t include his amendment (he reiterated Tuesday morning that the Senate abortion language adopted by Obama was still “unacceptable”). One of his co-sponsors, Rep. Brad Ellsworth, said at the time that he was only able to vote for the bill after the Stupak language was adopted, and he’s now running for Senate in Indiana, where a Rasmussen poll taken last month shows voters oppose the health care legislation by a 23-point margin.

An alternative explanation from former Bush economist Keith Hennessey: They know they don’t have the votes and this is all just a blame-shifting exit strategy.

It is possible that we are witnessing uncoordinated Democratic leaders each pursuing their own exit strategy in anticipation of legislative failure:

• The President proposes a “compromise” and blames Republicans for being unreasonable and unconstructive. Legislative failure is the Republicans’ fault, not the President’s.
• Speaker Pelosi continues to press for a two bill strategy in which the House and Senate will pass a new reconciliation bill. If the Senate cannot or will not do so, legislative failure is the Senate’s fault, not the House’s or Speaker Pelosi’s.
• Supported by outside liberals, Leader Reid points out that the House could just take up and pass the Senate-passed bill. Legislative failure is therefore not his fault or the Senate’s.

Update: Rush Limbaugh just admitted he was wrong about stating the Republicans should not attend the summit. Republicans are knocking Obama around like a lightweight.

Watching the sob stories from the Dems in Kabuki theater is making me sick.

I come from Canada – single payer. My wife was born in Britain – public option. So a Canadian premier comes to US for heart surgery to repair a valve. In Canada he would have required a full on cracking on the sternum, in the U.S. they came in through his armpit. In Britain, a breast cancer saving drug was denied to millions on the public plan by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) – a real cruel acronym if ever one existed.

A drug which can give women with advanced breast cancer extra weeks or months of life has been turned down by a government watchdog body for use in the NHS.

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (Nice) says it proposes to reject Tyverb (lapatinib) in spite of changes in the rules brought in specifically to allow people at the end of their lives to have the chance of new and often expensive treatments.

Tyverb is the only drug licensed for women with advanced breast cancer whose tumours test positive for a protein called HER2 and for whom Herceptin, a Nice-approved drug, is no longer working. In much of the rest of Europe, Tyverb is then given, in combination with a standard chemotherapy drug called capecitabine.

Herceptin was denied until the NHS was sued.

Let’s see – Kennedy had brain cancer and he went to…hmmm….Britain? No. Germany? No. Canada? No. Mexico? No. China? No. Oh, that’s right – he stayed here in America. I wonder why?

And Bill Clinton loves American health care too:

With President Obama hoping this week’s “bipartisan summit” will move his health-care bill out of the ICU, it’s worth taking a look at a recent high-profile operation — the heart work done on former President Bill Clinton.

Clinton, of course, got the best of care — a cardiac stent (a tiny metal cylinder) coated with a drug to help keep his artery open. Recent studies in the New England Journal of Medicine and elsewhere have shown that these drug-eluting stents are more effective than bare metal ones.

But they cost two-to-four times more — and the technology is relatively new. That combination has left government-run health-care systems slow to adopt them. The disparity between the US and Canada is striking.

Per capita, our neighbors to the north receive only half as many coronary interventions. And only 30 percent of the stents placed in Canada are drug eluting, compared with a whopping 80 percent in the United States.

So a Canadian cardiac patient is less than a quarter as likely as an American to be outfitted with the kind of state-of-the-art stent that Clinton had.

In Canada, land of single-payer health insurance, you’re also less likely to get the stent as soon as the need is clear — especially in western provinces where resources are extremely limited and access is spotty. In Edmonton, Alberta, the wait for a cardiac procedure is routinely three to four months. In many areas of western Canada, less than half of angioplasties and stents are done at the same time as the original angiogram, a big waste of time and resources.

Canada has been attempting to deal with this problem of excess delay and inefficiency by introducing a database-driven system that assigns scores based on urgency. But many American cardiologists shudder at exactly this kind of solution — a federal system for deciding who needs an urgent procedure and who doesn’t. And if you were to think that rationing cardiac care is a way of saving money, you’d be dead wrong. An Austrian study just published found that the cost of waiting dramatically increases the average cost of treatment per patient.

The record of the last half-century is unmistakable: Government-dominated health sectors don’t innovate as fast, and they resist the latest discoveries because they “see” the costs up-front, and are slow to accept the benefits.

Any of the ObamaCare bills would push us in Canada’s direction, with policymakers looking hard to find overly simplistic solutions to justify lower costs for cheaper technologies. Indeed, some US “experts” are already brandishing a single 2008 study, known as the COURAGE trial, that seems to undermine the value of stents.

But ask any of the one million US patients who have received a stent over the last year if they think the capital investment that companies have made on evolving stent technology has been worth it. Perhaps even the former president would agree to the cost/benefit of stenting, even as he’s championing a form of health care that could take that routine option away.

I got sob stories for you. If ObamaCare passes, I will have millions of them. A lot more than the dems are regurgitating now.

Related:

More Vote Scoring of the GOP At Healthcare Summit

The House Goes First or ObamaCare Dies

Watch out Republicans: Obama Readies a Fallback Health-Care Proposal. Read more here.

GOP, do NOT agree to anything from this manipulative trickster. Hold your ground and review anything thoroughly. If you stick it to us on this, you will pay a dear price. They have LOST. Do not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Blowhard-a-thon at Blair House: Health care summit open thread

The original post is here, to which I would like to add some thoughts related to Karl Rove’s suggestions:

The congressional Republicans at today’s televised health-care “summit” at the White House naturally want to prevent the president from turning it into a PR stunt. This is no easy task. They’ll not only have to point out problems with his plan and offer their own ideas, but correct the president when he makes statements that are not true.

The GOP participants appear ready for the first two tasks. In an unusual approach, House and Senate members prepped together the way a candidate preps for a presidential debates—by pulling together debate books and conducting mock sessions. But the third task is the most critical and the most difficult.

President Obama has a habit of making false statements, and getting away with them. At a Republican conference in Baltimore last month, for example, he denied that his budget nearly triples the national debt over 10 years. He got away with it because he didn’t face follow-up questions or objections.

I disagree with him on one point made later in the article- this President does not deserve any respect. Obama is a socialist at best and a Marxist at worst. Do not be frightened of a man who is attempting to tear down this country. If the GOP does not correct the president during attempts to lie or mislead the American people the action will be scored as a vote for ObamaCare. All the gains by the GOP with the electorate will evaporate if ObamaCare passes because the GOP left its collective spine at home this morning.

Also, if reconciliation occurs in the Senate, as hard as it will be, DeMint’s tactic of using hundreds and, if necessary, thousands of amendments to slow down the process all the way to November if necessary must be done by the GOP or it will be scored as a vote for ObamaCare with all the accompanying consequences.

The GOP better head into the summit with every intention of killing ObamaCare. They had better head out of the summit with the same attitude. No excuses.

Also read from Dr. Hunter: Stop the Raid on Medicare before it begins.

Related: Update: Watch out Republicans: Obama Readies a Fallback Health-Care Proposal. Read more here.

GOP, do NOT agree to anything from this manipulative trickster. Hold your ground and review anything thoroughly. If you stick it to us on this, you will pay a dear price. They have LOST. Do not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Blowhard-a-thon at Blair House: Health care summit open thread

Update: Watch out Republicans: Obama Readies a Fallback Health-Care Proposal. Read more here.

GOP, do NOT agree to anything from this manipulative trickster. Hold your ground and review anything thoroughly. If you stick it to us on this, you will pay a dear price. They have LOST. Do not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

——————-Original Post

So says Kent Conrad, and as this Redstate post shows, we have Senator DeMint to thank for that:

Senator Conrad, the Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee said yesterday that reconciliation can only be used if the House passes the Senate bill first. As Sen. Conrad declared, “I don’t know of any way, I don’t know of any way where you can have a reconciliation bill pass before the bill that it is meant to reconcile passes.” Neither do I.

Then, the kicker: “When reminded that House Democrats don’t want to do health care in that order, Conrad said bluntly: ‘Fine, then it’s dead.‘”

Now, the Speaker finds herself in the position of having to pass a bill she says she does not have the votes to pass.

Without passing the Senate bill she can’t pass, the Speaker can’t do reconciliation. (See Sen. Conrad, above.)

OK. Now, this next part is really, really important.

The Speaker and the White House find themselves in this position because of Senator DeMint (R-SC). He insisted that Senator McConnell object to the appointment of the House-Senate Conferees, thus preventing a Conference on the bill.

The inability of the Dems to have a House-Senate Conference then forced the Speaker to have a House floor vote on the Senate bill, which she can’t pass. And there the process has been stuck. Has not moved an inch since Sen. DeMint’s objection. It can’t, she does not have the votes.

The Speaker could fix the Senate bill on the House floor by amendment, then pass the Senate bill amended and fixed, but then it would have to go back to the Senate, where it would have to get 60 yes votes, or die. Since it will not get 60 votes ever again in the Senate, it will die — if the Speaker tries the amend the Senate bill on the House floor and send it back to the Senate route.

As the post author Dan Perrin notes:

When the Democrats finally admit ObamaCare is dead, historians should note, this is the single act that killed it. And it was such an artistic assassination of the bill.

One of the comments goes further (link and emphasis mine):

Senator DeMint is a hero on so many levels.

First there is his point-of-order amendment and instruction-to-the-conferees in last years budget bill that passed unanimously in one case and by 79-14 in the second that basically stated the yeah votes intent NOT to use reconciliation to pass ObamaCare. The only reason it did not make it into the final [budget] conference report for the Senate (after the House and Senate conference meeting) is that Kent Conrad ignored the will of the entire Senate. Kudos number 1 for DeMint – it’s not his fault the Senate can’t stick to its own rules and hold Conrad responsible for ignoring the will of the entire Senate.

Kudos number two is his discovery of the loophole in the reconciliation process that allows for open-ended amendments, which, should this ever get to reconciliation (I don’t think it will), McConnell better have thousands of these things ready to tie up the process until 2050, not just a handful to make a statement and then let the zombie bill pass.

DeMint for president. I’d vote for the guy. Hell, I’d dedicate my every waking moment to making sure this guy stomps Obambi in 2012. Ya hearing us DeMint? What say you? Come on, take up the mantle! Your country needs you.

It really is beginning to look like this thing is dead. The summit appears more and more to be a combination messaging and exit strategy Kabuki theater yawn fest. Yet another one of Obama’s “genius” strategies that fails to impress. What a clown.

Related: Blowhard-a-thon at Blair House: Health care summit open thread

Update: Hot Air believes VP Biden can shut down the amendment bomb process. However, Robert Dove, former Senate parliamentarian, disagrees:

Senators are also entitled to offer as many amendments as they choose during reconciliation. Though Democrats have a large enough majority to beat back GOP attempts to alter the bill, neither they nor the parliamentarian can limit the number of amendments introduced, Dove said.

A Senate insider agrees. The Vice President as President of the Senate can overrule the parliamentarian, but if the parliamentarian is not in a position to rule, the Vice President has nothing to overrule. What the Senate can do is invoke the Byrd Option, also known as the constitution option. This would effectively kill the filibuster period. Try getting 50 votes for healthcare after that. Such a move for sweeping legislation would have far reaching and disastrous consequences.

Whatever Dove said on MSNBC, it does not jive with his previous statements. Of course, being fired by Republicans in the Senate during the GWB years cause one to question anything Robert Dove says. However, note below what is NOT being said. Regardless of the process, the end result is to kill the filibuster. This would be a disaster for the country, and the Democrats are counting on the GOP to go spineless on this one. As I indicate below, that strategy may be working. Instead of buckling, the GOP needs to call their bluff or face the wrath of the public and watch electorate gains turn to losses.

Assume even for a moment that I and many others are wrong, the consequences for the VP pulling this stunt would also be disastrous. However, if the reader thinks about it, if the VP can do this, he IS effectively killing the filibuster – there is no difference. So the reality is the Senate can stop reconciliation by killing the filibuster. How they do that is of no matter, the end result and consequences will be the same and when we are in power the Democrats will face the same treatment. Just remember the gang of 14 and Senator McCain. He created that gang for a reason. Killing the filibuster would be a disaster and the Democrats know it. It won’t happen. Right now, my biggest concern is everyone is getting so worked up that Republicans will sense fear from their constituents and fold. Senator Kyl has already stated Republicans will not stall ObamaCare reconciliation with unlimited amendments. If we go weak, they go weak.

Forcing amendments (although I don’t think we will even get to this point) is a good strategy as one can force the Democrats to take difficult votes. I certainly hope McConnell is paying attention.

It would be in the Senator Kyl’s best interest to recall the GOP was exposed as wanting to put up a lackluster fight against ObamaCare so its passage would guarantee GOP gains in November. The Senator would also be best served to remember when a team of organizations exposed not only this GOP tactic but the betrayal of Senator DeMint by many in the Senate GOP when he tried to slow down ObamaCare by removing unanimous consent.

Roll over on reconciliation and see where that gets the GOP in November. The American people do not want ObamaCare so the Senate GOP had BETTER OBSTRUCT and use a little strategical thinking here or face the consequences. The gains in the electorate can disappear as quickly as they appeared. The narrative of GOP weakness is not an animal that needs feeding, especially given the excellent performance at the healthcare summit. Now is not the time to remove the spine. The same is true for us. It is time to present the facts and stand tall. If we lose this fight in the Congress, it is on to nullification and possible repeal (although the later will be difficult in the near term and even in 2013). That is not to say nullification is easy, but as a solution it offers the best long term survival of our country. If Washington is unwilling to listen, the states need to remove the purse strings except for those aspects of the federal government that require funding PER the constitution.

Also via Politico: The problem with reconciliation.

Also read Rule By Tyranny. Senator Byrd’s (D-WV) Thoughts on Reconciliation. If the architect of the process is vehemently against using it to pass sweeping legislation, don’t you think this needs national exposure? Why are the GOP talking heads so silent on this? Even the blogosphere, with few exceptions, is not reporting this. From a public relations perspective the words of Senator Byrd are pure gold.

Need to contact your Republican Senator to ensure they are on board with this process, or would you like to contact your Democratic Senator and tell them to say no to reconciliation? If so, look them up here.

——————–Original Post

Folks are getting pretty fired up over both the Redstate post concerning VP Joe Biden overruling the Senate parliamentarian during reconciliation and then this post from Hot Air stating that the Democrats are near a deal on ObamaCare ahead of the healthcare summit this month:

In other words, instead of bargaining with the GOP from scratch — as Boehner and Cantor initially insisted and as 57 percent of the public wants, per yesterday’s Zogby poll — The One’s going to do the opposite by walking in, pushing a fake deal in front of the GOP, and declaring before the cameras that America’s health-care problems can now be solved unless the “party of no” insists on further obstructionism. And if they do, of course, he’ll have no choice but to save America by ramming the bill through in reconciliation.

The thinking is that Democrats are going to use either standard reconciliation or what I like to call the nuclear option reconciliation described in the Redstate post. What many are forgetting is that even with a nuclear option reconciliation, the Republicans still have a trick up their sleeve. It is for this reason that I believe the threat of reconciliation is a bluff with the intent of getting the GOP to agree to something at the summit.

Falling for this trap would be foolish indeed. The GOP better hold its ground during this farcical summit and remain the party of no when it comes to ObamaCare, thereby implicitly daring the Democrats to attempt reconciliation.

The country demands it of them.

I doubt the Democrats have the guts or temerity to attempt a parliamentary trick if the end result is in doubt and the increased cost to their party come November beyond their ability to comprehend. The biggest mistake the GOP could make is to enable the Democrats to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat by delivering any overtures of bi-partisanship towards a bill which is blatantly partisan. The cost to the GOP in the mid-terms would be incalculable and any gains in the electorate erased before their eyes.

The GOP must follow up on the threat of using amendments to slow down reconciliation.

Both VP Joe Biden and the parliamentarian would be unable to stop this process:

Senators are also entitled to offer as many amendments as they choose during reconciliation. Though Democrats have a large enough majority to beat back GOP attempts to alter the bill, neither they nor the parliamentarian can limit the number of amendments introduced”, Dove said.

The Dove referred to in the quote is Bob Dove, Senate Parliamentarian until 2001.

As there is no limit to the amount of amendments that could be offered, the bill would be delayed and obstructed until it died the death of a thousand cuts.

Recently, the Tea Party polled better than both Republicans and Democrats in a generic ballot. Why? Because they are the party of no – no to ObamaCare, no to bailouts, no to fiscal lucre – no, no, no. Obstructionism in defense of liberty is no vice and cooperation in pursuit of tyranny is no virtue. Republicans better get the message.

Some good advice from Dr. Hunter:

Hey, Republicans, heads up, ears open, eyes on the prize: Object, Obstruct and Delay any effort by the White House and congressional Democrats to revive the death march toward nationalization of healthcare. And most importantly, don’t do anything to allow RhinoCare to be resurrected from the dead.

So throw up those amendments such as tort reform, buying insurance across state lines, and anything else painful for Democrats to vote on. Make them go on the record as being against common-sense reform as the GOP continues to amend, amend, amend until the bill is dead.

If the GOP plays its cards right, the Democrats not only do not get to shove their precious bill down our unwilling throats, but face an even greater slaughter in November for daring to usurp the will of the American public and trample on minority rights in the Senate. Get the popcorn.

Related: Does The Public Want A Public Option – No It Does Not

Of course, if all goes wrong, there is always nullification!. Actually, the only way to really stop the amendment bomb would be to invoke the constitution option (once known as the Byrd option), which would effectively kill the filibuster. While I don’t think the Democrats have enough votes even for reconciliation, a part of me hopes that, in the end, they go the filibuster killing route (highly unlikely). That would be a perfect start to begin nullification with a bang instead of a whimper and bring us back to constitutional governance where the states hold the power as opposed to a centralized federal government. What many do not realize is that the Supreme Court is not the final arbiter of the constitution – it is the states. What fun!

Reconciliation, the public option, and Demcare revival

A Tortured History of ObamaCare. Dan Perrin has been a real rock during this entire debate. This is just one of many posts where he once again reassures us that ObamaCare is dead. However, just to be sure, keep up the pressure; Cut off its head, dismember it, scatter the body parts, and set them on fire before blasting them individually off into deep space.

It Lives!

Love it: NYT Admits Conservatives Are Right About Government Healthcare

This has always bothered me and I never have really seen any good follow up along the lines of the analysis below. Right now the public option polls good – due to how the question is asked. When asked in a way that more honestly represents the real meaning of “public option”, its popularity tanks. Right now there are plenty of folks in the blogosphere, Senators, and Representatives making overtures to bringing back the “popular” public option, and they often quote some of the numbers from the article. When are conservatives going to get on message and push additional polls or at least message out the information provided in the linked article? I am tired of hearing about how popular the public option is when it is most definitively not popular. I don’t doubt that polling data for the public option and how well it is received is going to be highlighted at the upcoming summit. I hope the Republicans have their wits about them and draw attention to the skewed polling techniques that show how popular a very unpopular public option is.

Let’s take a look at Rasmussen. He has offered a series of really interesting questions on health care. First, he gives a basic version of the question that ABC News/WaPo, CBS News/NY Times, Marist, and CNN asked:

Would you favor or oppose the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option that people could choose instead of a private health insurance plan?

That gets strong approval, as per usual when people hear words like “choose,” “compete,” and “option.”

Then Rasmussen asks this follow up:

Suppose that the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option encouraged companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their workers. Workers would then be covered by the government option. Would you favor or oppose the creation of a government-sponsored non-profit health insurance option if it encouraged companies to drop private health insurance coverage for their workers?

What happens when this Republican argument is substituted for the Democratic argument? Support for the public option plummets dramatically. Nearly 3/5ths of all respondents voiced opposition to the public option when it was phrased in this way.

So next time you hear a liberal spew out the “pubic option polls well” talking point, give them a dose of something they are not too familiar with – inconvenient facts.

From Investors Business Daily: If ‘Unsustainable’ Is New Normal, Collapse Is Closer Than We Think .

The other day, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, described current deficits as “unsustainable.” So let’s make them even more so.

The president tells us, with a straight face, that his grossly irresponsible profligate wastrel of a predecessor took the federal budget on an eight-year joyride, so the only way his sober, fiscally prudent successor can get things under control is to grab the throttle and crank it up to what Mel Brooks in “Spaceballs” (which seems the appropriate comparison) called “Ludicrous Speed.”

Obama’s spending proposes to take the average Bush deficit for the years 2001-08 and double it, all the way to 2020. To get out of the Bush hole, we need to dig a hole twice as deep for one-and-a-half times as long. And that’s according to the official projections of his economics czar, Ms. Rose-Colored Glasses.

By 2015, the actual hole may be so deep that even if you toss every Obama speech down it on double-spaced paper you still won’t be able to fill it up. In the spendthrift Bush days, federal spending as a proportion of GDP averaged 19.6%. Obama proposes to crank it up to 25% as a permanent feature of life.

But if they’re “unsustainable,” what happens when they can no longer be sustained? A failure of bond auctions? A downgraded government debt rating? Reduced GDP growth? Total societal collapse? Mad Max on the New Jersey Turnpike?

Testifying to the House Budget Committee, Director Elmendorf attempted to pull back from the wilder shores of “unsustainable”:

“I think most observers expect that the government will act, that the unsustainability will be resolved through action, not through witnessing some collapse down the road,” he said. “If literally nothing is done, then eventually something very, very bad happens. But I think the widespread view is that you and your colleagues will take action.”

Dream on, you kinky fantasist. The one thing that can be guaranteed is that a political class led by Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barney Frank, a handful of reach-across-the-aisle Republican accommodationists and an economically illiterate narcissist in the Oval Office is never going to rein in unsustainable spending in any meaningful sense.

That leaves Elmendorf’s alternative scenario. What was it again? Oh, yeah:

“Some collapse down the road.”

Speaking of roads: I see that, according to USA Today, when the economic downturn began, the Department of Transportation had just one employee making over $170,000. A year and a half later, it has 1,690.

Happy days are here again!

Did you get your pay raise this year? What’s that, you don’t work for the government? Yes you do, one way or another. Good luck relying on Obama, Pelosi, Frank and the other Emirs of Kleptocristan “taking action” to “resolve” that.

In the last month, the cost of insuring Greece’s sovereign debt against default has doubled. Spain and Portugal are headed the same way. When you binge-spend at the Greek level in a democratic state, there aren’t many easy roads back. The government has introduced an austerity package to rein in spending. In response, Greek tax collectors have walked off the job.

Read that again slowly: To protest government cuts, striking tax collectors are refusing to collect taxes. In a sane world, this would be a hilarious TV comedy sketch. But most of the Western world is no longer sane. It’s tough enough to persuade the town drunk to sober up, but when everyone’s face down in the moonshine, maybe it’s best to just head for the hills.

Well this is just great.

Read the whole thing.

More from Hot Air’s Greenroom.

Roll Call via Real Clear Politics: Pelosi Pushes to Bypass GOP If It Continues to Oppose Heath Bill’s Passage:

Roll Call reports:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pinning the blame on Republicans for a lack of bipartisanship in Congress and plans to bypass them if they continue to oppose efforts to enact near-universal health care.

This the clearest indication yet that Democrats are gearing up to jam the Senate version of the bill through the House on a party line vote and use the reconciliation process in the Senate to make modifications. Pelosi’s comment also suggests that President Obama’s bipartisan health care summit scheduled for February 25th is going to be nothing more than a public relations exercise.

As if any more clarity is needed, Pelosi went on in her interview with Roll Call to state that the use of the filibuster in the Senate to prevent the passage of health care “isn’t legitimate:”

A constitutional majority is 51 votes,” Pelosi said in an interview Tuesday with Roll Call. “If in fact the Republicans are going to say nothing can be done except by 60 percent, then maybe we all should be elected with 60 percent. It isn’t legitimate in terms of passing legislation.

Try it Nancy – I dare you. Heck, I double dog dare you. If you could do it, you would have done it by now, and if you are stupid enough to do it, remember the day will come when we are in power. Go ahead and get Reid to be your lapdog and pull the trigger; I’m getting some popcorn.

In the meantime, this is proof positive the GOP should skip the so-called healthcare “summit”. Nanny state Nancy appears to be admitting herself it’s a ruse.

ObamaCare is dead and very unpopular with 58% opposing the current bill before Congress, but that does not stop the One from calling, what even CBS is admitting, a faux bi-partisan meeting with the GOP in a last ditch attempt to salvage his failing plan. Obama seems to understand how Newton’s first law of motion applies to legislation; legislation in motion will remain in motion and legislation at rest will remain at rest unless acted on by an external force. As ObamaCare is most certainly at rest and dead, Obama has nothing to lose and the GOP has nothing to gain by this farcical display. To flip it around, Obama has everything to gain and the GOP has everything to lose by attending the so-called healthcare summit.

Attend or not attend, the liberal media will spin the story in Obama’s favor, so again – why the hell is the GOP leadership committing such a explicit act of stupidity? ObamaCare is treading water and the GOP is about to throw it a lifeline. From the CBS story:

What these presidential appeals for bipartisanship always mean is: do it my way.

(AP)Mr. Obama said he “won’t hesitate to embrace a good idea from my friends in the minority party.” But he wants his way. He wants his energy policy enacted along with his jobs bill, his financial regulatory reform and his health care plan.

And if the opposition continues to block his objectives, he said he “won’t hesitate to condemn what I consider to be obstinacy that’s rooted not in substantive disagreement but in political expedience.”

When a sitting president calls for bipartisanship by the opposition – he really means surrender. And if they block his proposals, its “obstinacy” and not political views they hold as strongly as he holds his.

So my first instinct is to state that attending the summit, if ObamaCare subsequently passes, the GOP attendance will be scored by the grassroots of this country as a vote for ObamaCare. As Representative Eric Cantor already committed to attending, the GOP better pray that Obama does not walk circles around them as he did recently during the Republican retreat in Baltimore:

This wasn’t supposed to be televised, incidentally, but both sides agreed to it at the last minute in the name of showing the public how bipartisan they are. The GOP figured it’d give them a platform to prove that they actually do have policy ideas of their own, but I think the format ended up benefiting Obama more than them. He was on camera the whole time; he did most of the talking; he got to show that he’s perfectly capable of extemporaneous debate even with multiple prepared challengers lobbing questions. (Which should have been clear after 20+ debates in 2008, but the TOTUS jokes have taken on a life of their own.) Even conservatives I follow on Twitter were saying that he seemed more appealing in this format than in his thousand speeches last year. Who knows? Maybe that means we’ll see more of this.

Update: Not surprisingly, White House aides tell HuffPo they’re ecstatic with how things went while GOP aides tell NBC it was probably a mistake to let the cameras roll. Oh well.

Prior to Representative Cantor’s foolish committal to attend the One’s Hail Marry summit, I was quite pleased to read the letter from House Republican Leader John Boehner and Rep. Cantor (House Republican Whip) to Obama’s chief of staff Rahm Emanuel:

Washington, Feb 8 –

February 8, 2010

The Honorable Rahm Emanuel
Chief of Staff
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. Emanuel:

We welcome President Obama’s announcement of forthcoming bipartisan health care talks. In fact, you may remember that last May, Republicans asked President Obama to hold bipartisan discussions on health care in an attempt to find common ground, but he declined and instead chose to work with only Democrats.

Since then, the President has given dozens of speeches on health care reform, operating under the premise that the more the American people learn about his plan, the more they will come to like it. Just the opposite has occurred: a majority of Americans oppose the House and Senate health care bills and want them scrapped so we can start over with a step-by-step approach focused on lowering costs for families and small businesses. Just as important, scrapping the House and Senate health care bills would help end the uncertainty they are creating for workers and businesses and thus strengthen our shared commitment to focusing on creating jobs.

Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward on health care in a bipartisan way, does that mean he will agree to start over so that we can develop a bill that is truly worthy of the support and confidence of the American people? Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today that the President is “absolutely not” resetting the legislative process for health care. If the starting point for this meeting is the job-killing bills the American people have already soundly rejected, Republicans would rightly be reluctant to participate.

Assuming the President is sincere about moving forward in a bipartisan way, does that mean he has taken off the table the idea of relying solely on Democratic votes and jamming through health care reform by way of reconciliation? As the President has noted recently, Democrats continue to hold large majorities in the House and Senate, which means they can attempt to pass a health care bill at any time through the reconciliation process. Eliminating the possibility of reconciliation would represent an important show of good faith to Republicans and the American people.

If the President intends to present any kind of legislative proposal at this discussion, will he make it available to members of Congress and the American people at least 72 hours beforehand? Our ability to move forward in a bipartisan way through this discussion rests on openness and transparency.

Will the President include in this discussion congressional Democrats who have opposed the House and Senate health care bills? This bipartisan discussion should reflect the bipartisan opposition to both the House bill and the kickbacks and sweetheart deals in the Senate bill.

Will the President be inviting officials and lawmakers from the states to participate in this discussion? As you may know, legislation has been introduced in at least 36 state legislatures, similar to the proposal just passed by the Democratic-controlled Virginia State Senate, providing that no individual may be compelled to purchase health insurance. Additionally, governors of both parties have raised concerns about the additional costs that will be passed along to states under both the House and Senate bills.

The President has also mentioned his commitment to have “experts” participate in health care discussions. Will the Feb. 25 discussion involve such “experts?” Will those experts include the actuaries at the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), who have determined that the both the House and Senate health care bill raise costs – just the opposite of their intended effect – and jeopardize seniors’ access to high-quality care by imposing massive Medicare cuts? Will those experts include the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which has stated that the GOP alternative would reduce premiums by up to 10 percent? Also, will Republicans be permitted to invite health care experts to participate?

Finally, as you know, this is the first televised White House health care meeting involving the President since last March. Many health care meetings of the closed-door variety have been held at the White House since then, including one last month where a sweetheart deal was worked out with union leaders. Will the special interest groups that the Obama Administration has cut deals with be included in this televised discussion?

Of course, Americans have been dismayed by the fact that the President has broken his own pledge to hold televised health care talks. We can only hope this televised discussion is the beginning, not the end, of attempting to correct that mistake. Will the President require that any and all future health care discussions, including those held on Capitol Hill, meet this common-sense standard of openness and transparency?

Your answers to these critical questions will help determine whether this will be a truly open, bipartisan discussion or merely an intramural exercise before Democrats attempt to jam through a job-killing health care bill that the American people can’t afford and don’t support. ‘Bipartisanship’ is not writing proposals of your own behind closed doors, then unveiling them and demanding Republican support. Bipartisan ends require bipartisan means.

These questions are also designed to try and make sense of the widening gap between the President’s rhetoric on bipartisanship and the reality. We cannot help but notice that each of the President’s recent bipartisan overtures has been coupled with harsh, misleading partisan attacks.

For instance, the President decries Republican ‘obstruction’ when it was Republicans who first proposed bipartisan health care talks last May. The President says Republicans are ‘sitting on the sidelines’ just days after holding up our health care alternative and reading from it word for word. The President has every right to use his bully pulpit as he sees fit, but this is the kind of credibility gap that has the American people so fed up with business as usual in Washington.

We look forward to receiving your answers and continuing to discuss ways we can move forward in a bipartisan manner to address the challenges facing the American people.

Sincerely,

House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH)
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)

I have also read Gibbs sorry excuse for a rebuttal to the Boehner and Cantor letter. Gibbs letter is proof positive they other side is bankrupt of ideas and is rehashing the same old tired rhetoric. It also shows they smack of desperation and have nothing substantial to say. Gibbs basically channeled Obama’s typical generalites (see page 2 of the Politico story).

By sending this letter and then accepting the invitation, it’s time to hold the feet of the GOP to the fire. They asked for it, and now its time to pay the piper. If the GOP wishes to continue to forge and nurture the relationship it has enjoyed with grassroots organizations and voters across this country, then it is time to step up to the plate and prove your worthiness. Therefore, I submit the following if ObamaCare passes subsequent to the meeting (the following scores apply to the GOP):

• The meeting will take place at a round table with no teleprompters allowed. If this agreement is not accepted the meeting is off. Failure to secure this agreement prior to the meeting will be scored as a vote for ObamaCare.
• The President and Democrats in both Houses have already said they will not start over. More to the point a Politico story states that “Obama hopes to walk into the Feb. 25 summit with an agreement in hand between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid on a final Democratic bill, so they can move ahead with a reform package after the sit-down.” The GOP must make this an issue and call out the President on the false premise of the entire event. If agreement is reached on a final bill, what is the purpose of the meeting? Where is the bi-partisanship if the bill was agreed to a priori to the event? Failure to do so will be scored as a vote for ObamaCare.
• The President stated that reconciliation will not be taken off the table. As this amounts to shoving an unpopular bill down American’s throats and trampling on minority rights in the Senate, the entire premise of the summit is again called into question and the President’s real agenda for the meeting exposed. The GOP must challenge the President on this point. Failure to do so will be scored as a vote for ObamaCare.
• The GOP must insist they be able to invite House Democrats opposed to the measure. If they are not allowed to do so, the meeting is over. Failure of the GOP to insist upon this provision will be scored as a vote for ObamaCare.
• The GOP must be allowed to invite officials and lawmakers from those states that has passed or are working on passing legislation/resolutions challenging the constitutionality of the individual mandate. Failure of the GOP to insist upon this provision will be scored as a vote for ObamaCare.
• The GOP must be allowed to invite their own experts, including but not limited to actuaries from the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and members from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Failure of the GOP to insist upon this provision will be scored as a vote for ObamaCare

Again, whether the GOP attends or not, the liberal media are going to spin, spin, spin. This “summit” is a disaster in the making; we have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Obama, Pelosi, and Reid have dug a deep hole, jumped in and are now extending their hands for our assistance in extricating them out of a disaster of their own making. If Republicans help revive this bill, they will lose a number of us out here in the voting world. I fear going to this summit will be a turning point.

If the Senate is going to use reconciliation, they are going to do it with or without this summit and I doubt they are going to use it, although the summit may embolden the House to pass the Senate version if Obama plays his cards right. I and many others have VERY strong reservations about this summit. The House GOP needs to think really hard and ensure the President does not use this as a platform to railroad over any real discussions. Equal time, no teleprompters, the President at a table and not lording over the event from a podium, and all the above relevant conditions met prior to the GOP accepting this offer and during the event itself.

The President wants no preconditions for good reason; the entire “summit” loses its utility if it is controlled in such a way as to force the President to address the issues related to the bill on terms not entirely of his own making. If the meeting is held, use it to highlight the flaws in the bill and remind the President why the American people do not like this bill. Bring your testosterone boys, you are going to need it. You made the promise, you wrote the letter, now it’s time to deliver. Failure to do so would be very bad….for you.

A piece of advice for the GOP: as three-quarters of independents now have a favorable view of the Tea Parties, either turn down the offer or bring your A game.

Oh, and let’s not forget that we may have a bill here that fines and imprisons people for not having insurance. I would like to see these aspects discussed if they are indeed in the bill. Also, last I heard – it’s so hard keeping up with all the changes – the current Senate bill places some type of constraint or rules requirement on future chambers to amend or repeal certain aspects of the bill. If true, I want to know the details and hear Obama’s response.

Update: It does not appear, at least to me, this is a done deal yet:

When asked by Greta Van Susteren on Fox News last night if Republicans would attend, Boehner said he was awaiting answers from the White House.

“There are a number of questions I’d like answered before I give you or the President an up or down answer,” Boehner told Fox News last night.

Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith told HUMAN EVENTS last night that they have not received a formal invitation, any details on the event or a response to their letter.

Keep up the pressure folks.

Update 2: Dr. Hunter agrees:

Now, Republicans have reverted to their old ways and appear prepared to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again. Instead of negotiating the point of departure of their own defeat, Republicans should be insisting on postponing any consideration of healthcare reform until after the new Congress convenes in 2011. This Congress has lost all legitimacy where healthcare is concerned. This is a lame duck Congress, and it is time for it to fold its wings and float on the pond in silence and inaction until the people have an opportunity to vote for a new Congress a few months hence.

So, here we go again. Hey, Republicans, heads up, ears open, eyes on the prize: Object, Obstruct and Delay any effort by the White House and congressional Democrats to revive the death march toward nationalization of healthcare. And most importantly, don’t do anything to allow RhinoCare to be resurrected from the dead.

Remember, obstructionism in defense of liberty is no vice and cooperation in pursuit of tyranny is no virtue.

This Congress is lame; don’t give it legs.

Read the whole thing.

In other news:

Porkulus II: Return of the Phony Jobs Boondoggle

WaPo/ABC poll shows Obama losing command of the issues

The Negotiations Fraud

Will the Stupid Party Blow It?

Reconciliation, the public option, and Demcare revival