GOP Intransigence

Steve Tilley and Rob Mayer in Kansas City on their pre-session media tour

Missourinet's Bob Priddy reacts to the effective end of this year's special session: 

The special legislative session crashed and burned about 7 p.m., Monday, October 17, in frustration and deadlock. There will be some heavy finger-pointing.  There will be some disagreements about whether the House or the Senate was the cause of an excruciatingly slow and painful downward spiral from September 6th, the day of the session’s already-flawed launch. One-hundred ninety-seven people, members of the House and Senate, were injured but are expected to recover by January....

This was something none of us had ever seen before.  An absolute, total, failure.  And dispirited lawmakers were voicing only faint hopes at the end that things will be appreciably better for the regular session in January. In a perverse way, though, the collapse is instructive...

"Don't ever tell the public that we do good work in here." 

Sen. Kevin Engler (R-Farmington)

Yes. 

These politicians hope that by being obstinate, they can derail the health care reform law they so despise. But they are denying their states the opportunity to design affordable, consumer-friendly insurance marketplaces.

Opponents of reform need to tell the public what they intend to do about the problem of uninsured Americans. “Let them die” isn’t an acceptable fallback position.

h/t Political Wire

CQ/Roll Call's Political Wire: "A new CBS News poll finds Americans 'are unimpressed with their political leaders' handling of the debt ceiling crisis.' Key finding: A majority disapprove of all the involved parties' conduct, but Republicans in Congress fare the worst, with just 21% backing their intransigent resistance to raising taxes. A stunning 71% disapprove."

h/t Political Wire

Via Politico: “I would just say Mitch, honestly, with a straight face, do a press conference and say, ‘Here’s the solution to the problem: Let’s let the Democrats do it and we want them to do it three times before the next election and it will be OK with us if they do it as long as we don’t have to touch it.’ And people aren’t ridiculing that? This is when we’re supposed to come together.”

Despite all of their public protestations, it looks like House GOPers are itching for a government shutdown in private.  As reported in the Washington Post this morning:

House Republicans huddled late Monday and, according to a GOP aide, gave the speaker an ovation when he informed them that he was advising the House Administration Committee to begin preparing for a possible shutdown. That process includes alerting lawmakers and senior staff about which employees would not report to work if no agreement is reached.

The state Senate adjourned early today to make time for baseball -- without passing legislation with overwhelming bipartisan support to accept extended unemployment money from the federal government.   Senate President Pro Tem Rob Mayer promises that he's meeting today with Sen. Jim Lembke today "to make some suggestions to him...so we could free this money up today to get it to those who are unemployed," but I have a hard time believing that much will come from that conversation.  

Here's what the Star's Barb Shelly wrote about the continued insanity:

Shortly before 11:30 a.m., the Missouri Senate adjourned so that lawmakers can attend the Cardinals and Royals opening games, if they so choose. “Drive safely and have a great weekend,” the leader told members as the august body called it a day.

It won’t be a great weekend for the thousands of Missourians described below. They will now lose their unemployment benefits because four senators filibustered a bill accepting federal money, and senate leaders chose not to stop them. Shameful...

On the apparently-not-very-secure-in-some-portions-of-the-Capitol Facebook social networking site, Sen. Brian Nieves (R-Washington) warns that the 2011 legislative session "may get ugly." Specifically, "My self, Sen. Lembke & a few other Constitutional Conservatives in the Senate will be KILLING some Bad bills this year ... It may get ugly so Stand With Us!!"  [Capitalization, punctuation and spelling in the original.]

To which Sen. Jason Crowell (R-Cape Girardeau) responds, "i'm in...lets start with the budget..."

Note also former Rep. Cynthia Davis' promise to seek a state Senate seat in 2014, when Scott Rupp's (R-Wentzville) current term expires.

Due to lack of interest, the House Budget Committee will not be worrying about the budget they actually have to balance. 

Fox2Now reports that "around four million Americans, including anywhere from 35,000 to 40,000 in Missouri, will lose their extended unemployment benefits as of December 1st" because House Republicans blocked a measure to provide the crucial money.

h/t St. Louis Activist Hub

Because Republicans really care about struggling families, Republicans blocked legislation yesterday to extend unemployment insurance for three more months.  Representatives Todd Akin, Roy Blunt, Jo Ann Emerson, Sam Graves and Blaine Luetkemeyer all voted against the extension. 

Good stuff from The International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.

The Kansas City Star's Editorial Board takes a look at the House GOP's 'Pledge to America': "Maybe it was appropriate that leaders of the Republican Party gathered at a Virginia hardware store to unveil their 'Pledge to America.' Under this plan, the United States would get hammered. The GOP pledge is a collection of warmed-over rhetoric, little or no different from what the party has been saying for close to two decades. It rightly left both liberals and many conservatives less than impressed."

I suppose it's not shocking from a candidate who thinks we would have been better off if Medicare and Medicaid had never been created, and who thinks that "Medicare has never done anything to make people more healthy,"  but I was still a little surprised to see this quote in the new Post-Dispatch story about the health care reform positions of Roy Blunt and Robin Carnahan.

"The health care law doesn't really take effect until 2014," said Blunt spokesman Rich Chrismer, 'so the only option Congress has at this point is to decline to allocate tax dollars for this government takeover."

While it is true that 2014 is an important milestone in the implementation of the new law -- at that point, health insurers will be prohibited from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions (something Roy Blunt used to tell voters he supported, but then failed to do anything about), and tax penalties will begin for individuals who do not purchase insurance -- Chrismer's statement demonstrates an incredible ignorance about what is actually contained in the law he claims to detest.

In fact, Roy Blunt wants to junk all of the following new provisions that are taking effect in 2010. (Perhaps because he's been so blinded by thoughtless obstruction to notice.)

• Young adults will be able stay on their parents' insurance until their 26th birthday.
• Seniors will get a $250 rebate to help fill the "doughnut hole" in Medicare prescription drug coverage, which falls between the $2,700 initial limit and when catastrophic coverage kicks in at $6,154.
• Insurers will be barred from imposing exclusions on children with pre-existing conditions. Pools will cover those with pre-existing health conditions until health care coverage exchanges are operational.
• Insurers will not be able to rescind policies to avoid paying medical bills when a person becomes ill.
• Lifetime limits on benefits and restrictive annual limits will be prohibited.
• New plans must provide coverage for preventive services without co-pays. All plans must comply by 2018.
• A temporary reinsurance program will help offset costs of coverage for companies that provide early retiree health benefits for those ages 55 to 64.
• New plans will be required to implement an appeals process for coverage determinations and claims.
• Adoption tax credit and assistance exclusion will increase by $1,000. The bill makes the credit refundable and extends it through 2011.
• A 10 percent tax will be imposed on amounts paid for indoor tanning services on or after July 1.
• Businesses with fewer than 50 employees will get tax credits covering 35 percent of their health care premiums, increasing to 50 percent by 2014.

Again, these are all 2010 provisions -- provisions that Chrismer indicates do not actually exist. Maybe if he knew more about the law, we'd see a little less demagoguery from Blunt and other Republicans? 

This ad isn't running is Missouri (yet), but lays out a compelling contrast ahead of the November elections.

h/t Digby

The House passed a crucial state aid package this afternoon by a 247-161 vote that will save thousands of education and public employee jobs, help balance next year's state budget and reduce the federal deficit. 

The Missouri Division of Budget and Planning estimates that Missouri will receive $209.3 million in health care resources and $189 million for education over the next year, according to a statement from the Governor's office.

The vote broke down on party lines (it's still unclear why Republicans opposed a bill to save jobs and reduce the deficit), with Roy Blunt absent.

Roll Call: "Senate Democrats beat back nearly unified GOP opposition to a $26 billion education and Medicaid funding measure, winning a key procedural vote Wednesday with the help of Maine Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe."

The legislation will provide crucial Medicaid and education funds to help balance Missouri's budget (and other state budgets), and actually reduces the federal deficit, but Republicans opposed it en masse because...well, that's what they do.

President Obama, yesterday: "They have not come up with a single, solitary new idea to address the challenges of the American people. They don't have a single idea that's different from George Bush's ideas, not one. Instead, they're betting on amnesia."