In October 2009, John Boehner, now the House speaker-elect, complained to a reporter for the Washington Times, “[Democrats are] writing a health care bill in secret, even though the president called for all of this to be out on an open table and have C-SPAN cameras in the room.” Not surprisingly, the Washington Times, a right-wing propaganda daily owned by Sun Yung Moon, leader of the South Korean “Moonie” cult, published Bloehner’s comment without fact checking.
Boehner’s complaint was classic truthiness. The C-SPAN cameras weren’t allowed in to the hearing room, but otherwise he was lying:
The nonpartisan group Sunlight Foundation, an organization committed to transparency in government, said of the House committees on Education and Labor and Energy and Commerce: “Those following the health care debate should be thankful that two of the three committees that marked up the bill in the House are exceeding their peers in online disclosure. The ability to have all the information on the legislative path of such important legislation is vital and it’s great to see the efforts of a few years of advocating for better committee transparency pay off.” The organization was referring to postings on the committees’ websites outlining all committee transactions and amendments.
[Then House-Majority Leader Steny] Hoyer notes House committees “have spent 160 hours on hearings and markups of health care legislation.” In an effort to provide transparency in the health care debate, Hoyer posted the bill in its entirety 72 hours before a vote. On October 29, Hoyer outlined the attempts to ensure transparency in the process: “Democrats have held 100 hearings on health care since 2007. This year alone, we held close to 3,000 health care events in our districts. Three committees have spent 160 hours on hearings and markups of health care legislation. Much of the legislation that is being announced today has been available for review and comment for more than three months.”
Now Boehner, who is set to take the gavel from Speaker Nancy Pelosi tomorrow, has scheduled a vote on Jan. 12 on bill to repeal the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act — and, just like in the old days of the Bush era, Republicans wrote the repeal bill behind closed doors and are permitting no hearings on before the vote.
Steve Benen at Washington Monthly:
Apparently intent on treating Americans as idiots, the House GOP has named their bill the “Repeal of the Job Killing Health Care Law Act.” (Try listening to Republicans explain why health care reform undermines job creation. It’s almost amusing to hear them stumble over their own gibberish.) It’s a fairly short measure — Republicans would simply undo everything done through the Affordable Care Act, revering back to the pre-March status quo.
The context for all this is truly farcical, even by GOP standards. Remember all the incessant whining about process during the actual debate over health care reform? This week, Republicans met behind closed doors to craft a bill, with no input from anyone outside the top party leadership. There will be no hearings to explore the merit of the legislation, or to consider the consequences.
Perhaps most interesting, the House Republicans, in their first big legislative push, have decided to put aside their own budget guidelines in order to pursue repeal. They don’t have much of a choice — the Affordable Care Act lowers the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars. The GOP can’t pay for its repeal push, so it’s decided not to try — Republicans would just add the costs the deficit, which they occasionally pretend to care about.
That’s right. If it were to become law, the repeal is not paid for.
Under new budget rules released by Republicans, the House could repeal the healthcare reform law without offsetting the $143 billion that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates it will shave from the deficit over 10 years.
The new rules allow the Budget Committee to “make appropriate budget adjustments” to account for the repeal of the reform law before adopting a fiscal 2012 budget plan, House aides explained.
James Horney, director of federal fiscal policy for the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said the GOP rules include “various things that would make it possible to repeal it without running into points of orders.”
Horney said Democrats have a potent argument against the Republican plan.
“It’d bad for the budget,” Horney said. “It would increase deficits, and Democrats should certainly make that case.”
And, here’s something that should be utterly unschocking: Former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Army, now head of Freedomworks, the tea bagger corporate astroturf group funded by the extreme right-wing Koch Industries fortune, is totally on board for adding $143 billion to the deficit:
The new Republican rules skirting “pay-go” requirements have the support of an influential Tea Party group, which suggested the strategy in a memo to Republican leaders earlier this month. In the memo, FreedomWorks said the deficit reduction provided by the reform law is “a small amount” and that the savings would “vanish” in the next CBO estimate.
Got that? To Boehner and tea party Republicans, $143 billion — roughly the cost George Bush and the Republicans Congress borrowed from the Chinese to run their unnecessary war in Iraq for three years — is “a small amount,” not worth covering under the Republicans’ own pay-as-you-go rule.
The premise that “no one should have to pay to repeal an unconstutional bill” is, of course, another falsehood. Two federal judges — one in Michigan and one in Virginia — have ruled that the mandate is constitutional. Another federal judge in Virginia, a Bush appointee with business ties to Virginia GOP political operations, ruled that the mandate was unconstitutional but refused to strike down the rest of the law or to stop the government from implementing it.
