Boehner: Obama Has 'Crippled The Credibility' Of Health Summit
Posted: 02-22-10 12:19 PM
Read More: Boehner Summit, John Boehner, Obama Crippled, Obama Health Care, Obama Summit, Summit Health Care, Politics News
Obama on Monday morning put forth his own health care reform plan, intending it to serve as an "opening bid" for Thursday's bipartisan summit meeting.
But House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) quickly released a statement charging that the new proposal seriously jeopardizes the entire bipartisan meeting because it is built off the bills already passed by Democrats in the Senate and the House.
"The President has crippled the credibility of this week's summit by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected. This new Democrats-only backroom deal doubles down on the same failed approach that will drive up premiums, destroy jobs, raise taxes, and slash Medicare benefits," Boehner said. "This week's summit clearly has all the makings of a Democratic infomercial for continuing on a partisan course that relies on more backroom deals and parliamentary tricks to circumvent the will of the American people and jam through a massive government takeover of health care."
Boehner's negative reaction is consistent with the Republican approach towards health-care reform legislation in particular, and Democratic lawmaking in general. The GOP has shown no interest in working constructively with Obama or the majority party, choosing instead to draw the reform process out in hopes of bleeding it to death.
Nevertheless, the GOP appears particularly desperate to delegitimize this week's summit. Obama made his own health care proposal public on Monday morning, giving participants three days to examine them before the meeting. Obama has asked that the summit be televised. And it's heavily rumored that he will add one or two Republican-backed measures to the legislation as a show of bipartisanship. All of these steps satisfy previous GOP demands.
Boehner can spin the summit as a set-up, and he and his colleagues can refuse to show up at the last minute. But even as he extends his hand for Republican support, Obama clearly isn't counting on any.
Through the use of reconciliation, a parliamentary procedure that precludes filibusters, the Senate could pass a bill with only Democratic support. "This package is designed to help us [use reconciliation] if the Republican Party decides to filibuster health care reform," Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer said on a Monday morning conference call with reporters. "That was certainly a factor that went in to how we put this proposal together."
Republicans Unlikely To Pull Out Of Health Summit, GOPers Say
After talking to a bunch of senior Republican aides and advisers on background, I can report that the chatter in GOP circles is that it’s unlikely that Republicans will pull out of the health care summit, despite GOP leadership hints to the contrary.The basic view is that the President would have to say or do something dramatic and eye-popping that would give Republicans an unequivocal pretext for pulling out. GOPers doubt Obama will be clumsy enough to do this, given that the White House clearly wants the summit to happen for its own political purposes.
“I don’t see anybody pulling out at this point,” one senior GOP aide says. “You would have to have something serious to point to as a reason to pull out.”
Reps John Boehner and Eric Cantor sent a letter yesterday to the White House, laying out a number of conditions for Republican participation. The letter said that if Obama was unwilling to scrap the current health reform proposals and start over, Republicans “would rightly be reluctant to participate.”
But one senior GOP strategist who regularly advises the GOP Congressional leadership said this move was more about pressuring the White House to alter the conditions somewhat in the GOP’s favor, and putting responsibility for the optics of the event on the White House, than about any real threat to pull out.
“They put the ball squarely in the president’s court,” this strategist says. “But the anticipation is he’s going to do this in the right way.”
A senior GOP leadership aide involved in plotting party strategy added that Republicans were unlikely to pull out because it would make their own intransigence, rather than Obama’s efforts at a course correction, the story. “After a year of demonstrating a commitment to a partisan agenda it’s on the White House to prove otherwise,” this aide said. “We aren’t interested in doing their work for them.”
“We don’t make a habit out of turning down invitations from the President regardless of the merit of the exercise,” the aide continued. “Although we’re not excited about filming an infomercial for the President’s new `bipartisan’ PR campaign.”
GOP demands White House post health care proposal online, then attacks WH for doing exactly that
Here is one from the "negotiating in good faith" files.
On February 8th, Republican House leader John Beohner sent a letter to the White House, demanding that the White House post online any health care proposal it wished to discuss at the health care summit:
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?So, four days later, the White House accepted this demand, and announced it would post a legislative proposal online more than 72 hours before the summit:
Since this meeting will be most productive if information is widely available before the meeting, we will post online the text of a proposed health insurance reform package.So, naturally, the next day, Boehner attacked the White House for giving into his demand:
"A productive bipartisan discussion should begin with a clean sheet of paper," Boehner said in a statement.I see.
GOP Launch Time Travel Machine to Disagree with Obama in Future
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) - In a plot twist worthy of the television series Lost, key congressional Republicans launched themselves in a state-of-the-art time machine today to complete an important mission: traveling to the future to disagree with President Barack Obama.The self-styled "timestronauts," led by House Minority Leader John Boehner, traveled four days into the future to attend this Thursday's health care summit.
Returning safely to the present after their brief visit to the future, Rep. Boehner took issue with everything Mr. Obama will say on Thursday.
"My colleagues and I have traveled four days into the future and listened to everything the President will say," he told reporters at the Capitol. "And it all will suck."
Rep. Boehner said that the Republican time-travel machine was an unqualified success, and may have even broader applications going forward: "We hope someday to take this entire country back to the nineteenth century."
Minutes after Rep. Boehner's press conference, White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs blasted the GOP time-travel mission as "an insult to the spirit of bipartisanship and a gross misuse of time-travel technology."
Rep. Boehner offered this response: "Obviously, we already knew he was going to say that."
