We are approaching 100 days of the Obama administration and things are about to really get cooking now. I have been waiting for the gloves to come off and for the Conservadems and Rethuglicans to start getting their noses punched. Well it looks like the fight is ON!
It appears that President Obama has decided to make an end run around Ben Nelson to end the bank subsidies for student lending. Nelson is none too happy about this. Ryan Grim of Huff Po reports:
It might not be the most glamorous hill, but it's the one that Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has vowed to die on. President Obama, however, isn't going to give him that chance.
Nelson is perhaps the Senate's fiercest protector of subsidies for student lending institutions, which, not coincidentally, are an engine of job growth in Nebraska. He has vowed to block any effort to reduce those subsidies. And given that Democrats have 58 members and generally need 60 to break a GOP filibuster, he can enforce his will on his colleagues.
An agreement struck between the president and House and Senate negotiators won't give Nelson that chance. A process known as "reconciliation" allows budgetary measures to be moved through the Senate with a simple majority, rather than 60. Multiple congressional sources say that congressional Democrats have decided to use reconciliation to go after student-lending subsidies, specifically to get around Nelson.
The article is titled: "Obama to Nelson: We're Going Around You."
To read the full article:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
Next, President Obama basically told the House GOP that he had had enough of them. Ryan Grim reports that at a gathering yesterday at the White House, the President repeatedly reminded the House GOP leadership that they had rewarded his outreach towards them with ZERO votes on the stimulus. He then told them that he would go around them to pass healthcare reform:
In a meeting with House Republicans at the White House Thursday, President Obama reminded the minority that the last time he reached out to them, they reacted with zero votes -- twice -- for his stimulus package. And then he reminded them again. And again. And again.
A GOP source familiar with the meeting said that the president was extremely sensitive -- even "thin-skinned" -- to the fact that the stimulus bill received no GOP votes in the House. He continually brought it up throughout the meeting.
Obama also offered payback for that goose egg. A major overhaul of the health care system, he told the Republican leadership, would be done using a legislative process known as reconciliation, meaning that the GOP won't be able to filibuster it.
Congress has until October 15 to pass health care or student lending reform under the normal process. If it doesn't, reconciliation can be used to eliminate the 60-vote requirement.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
So it looks like the time to play nice is ending and that President Obama is about to kick ass and take names. Excellent, this cannot come soon enough. I hope that the White House starts to do this more and more.
Update: Thanks to commenter Kafkananda for this terrific clip. I had forgotten about this from the primaries:
Update #2: It looks like Booman has also analyzed what has happened with President Obama. He makes the poker analogy here:
http://www.boomantribune.com/...