Harry Reid’s Deputy Doesn’t Know What’s in Reid’s Healthcare Bill
Here we are twelve days before Christmas and Democrats want to overhaul our nation’s health care system before members adjourn to celebrate the holiday with their kith and kin. Problem is they don’t have a draft of the bill they can share with Senate Republicans, indeed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hasn’t even shown a copy to his own deputy, Richard Durbin, the Number Two Democrat in the United States Senate:
Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin admitted Friday that he is “in the dark” about the national health care bill currently under construction by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. In an exchange on the Senate floor, Republican Sen. John McCain asked Durbin, “Should we not at least be informed as to what the proposal is that the Senate Majority Leader is going to propose to the entire Senate?” Durbin’s answer: “I would say to the senator from Arizona that I am in the dark almost as much as he is, and I am in the leadership.” Durbin explained that during a Democratic caucus, Reid and the small group of senators involved in crafting the bill turned to their fellow Democrats and “basically stood and said, ‘We are sorry, we can’t tell you in detail what was involved.’”
They haven’t even told their own partisan colleagues what’s involved. Maybe Reid can’t share a copy with Durbin because even he doesn’t know what’s (to be?) included.
Let’s see, then, our elected representatives haven’t seen the bill and don’t really know what’s in it. And in the fewer than two weeks before Christmas, they want to vote on this while the American people are busy doing their holiday shopping and otherwise preparing for various religious solstice festivals. Seems like a way of slipping one past us.
Kudos to Senator McCain for pressing his Illinois colleague on the contents of this legislation. And kudos to Mr. Durbin for his honesty. He has helped expose an emerging reality of this past year of Democratic governance. Keeping us all in the dark. A more transparent government, this ain’t.
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Yeah that was an amazing amount of candor from Durbin and his honesty out of place in the den of liars. You can’t help but believe that this house of cards is about to tumble. All the Dems need is their “fall guy”. I think they are hoping they can somehow pin this in the GOP but they have kept their mitts off this bill.
Comment by Bob — December 13, 2009 @ 9:29 am - December 13, 2009
There’s some… some campaign promise from somebody that is probably also going to become relevant here before it’s over, and that has already been broken over and over… I can’t think what it is…
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 13, 2009 @ 10:47 am - December 13, 2009
This sort of CR*P shouldn’t be allowed, period. One reason that the Federal Code and the tax laws are so byzantine is exac tly this…the legislators don’t have any requirement to read and stand-behind legislation, so all sorts of “cleverness” seeps into the system.
It’s bad-enough that bills get “consolidated” and revised “in conference” with language that neither House explicitly approved when voting them to conference. In practice, we have a tricameral Federal legislature: the House of Representatives, the Senate, and the Conference Committee.
Comment by Ted B. (Charging Rhino) — December 13, 2009 @ 11:35 am - December 13, 2009
This is the Obama transparency.
What a joke.
Actually though it could be used by most Democrats most of the time.
“No transparency and we’re in the dark”.
Duhhhh morons.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — December 13, 2009 @ 12:58 pm - December 13, 2009
And yet, the talking heads and Tano and his other manifestations can guarantee that Federal money for abortion, death panels, single payer schemes are NOT in the bill and that the bill is deficit neutral.
At least some people are on the inside.
Comment by heliotrope — December 13, 2009 @ 3:35 pm - December 13, 2009
[...] Oh, by the way, does anyone have a copy of the text of the legislation ol’ Harry had scraped together a week or so ago, you know, the one whose contents remained unknown (as of this past weekend) to own Democratic deputy? [...]
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Pingback by Rep. Parker Griffith Throws Democrat Party into Yuletide Tailspin… Defection to GOP « Frugal Café Blog Zone — December 22, 2009 @ 2:12 pm - December 22, 2009