Senate leaders on Thursday announced a climactic Finance Committee vote next week on health care legislation, even as Democrats and Republicans kept feuding over its cost and breadth of coverage.
Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Finance Committee will vote Tuesday on a 10-year, $829-billion proposal that would expand coverage to 94 percent of eligible Americans_while reducing the federal deficit. A positive cost report on the legislation Wednesday from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office marked a turning point for its main author, Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont.
Immediately after announcing plans for the vote, Reid, D-Nev., tore into Republicans Thursday, saying they have no health plan of their own to offer and are only trying to obstruct.
“There are still those who consider this a zero-sum game, and will only declare victory if President Obama concedes defeat,” Reid said. “Let me be clear: Just as Democrats believe in ensuring quality, affordable care for every American citizens, we believe equally as strongly that this country has no place for those who wish for it or its leaders to fail.”
He accused Republicans of following a strategy of “distortion, distractions and deception,” and challenged them to be “productive partners rather than partisan protesters”
House Republicans failed Wednesday for a third time to oust Rep. Charles Rangel as chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, but they kept the political spotlight on his ethical problems.
The House voted 246-153 along mostly partisan lines to refer a GOP resolution to remove Rangel to the House ethics committee. The Democratic maneuver rendered the Republican effort meaningless, since Democratic leaders have said they have no intention of removing Rangel while the ethics committee is conducting a long-term investigation of his conduct.
The ethics committee’s investigation of Rangel’s financial and fundraising activities has been under way for about a year, and that has provided Democrats political cover to avoid taking action.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said Tuesday he opposes an RNC resolution renaming Democrats the “Democrat Socialist Party,” urging committee members to “be smart” in the rhetoric aimed at the opposition.
“I am not for that at all,” Steele said of resolution on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.”
“I’ve mentioned that to folks inside the party and said, you know, ‘I think that we should be smart and strategic about that,’” he added. “But, you know, a lot of people have passions and the beauty of the Republican Party is you get to express those passions in various ways.”
The committee will vote on the resolution during its meetings Tuesday and Wednesday in Maryland. Steele is set to address the RNC Tuesday afternoon following a lunch.
“I don’t know how that resolution is going to turn out,” Steele said. “We have members who have very strong passions about the direction the administration is taking our economy.”
Veteran Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania abruptly switched parties Tuesday, a move intended to boost his re-election chances that also pushed Democrats within one seat of a 60-vote filibuster-resistant majority.
“I now find my political philosophy more in line with Democrats than Republicans,” Specter said in a statement posted on a Web site devoted to Pennsylvania politics and confirmed by his office. Several Senate officials said a formal announcement was expected at mid-afternoon.
But even before the event took place, Specter attended a Senate subcommittee hearing on the swine flu outbreak and took a seat on the Democratic side of the dais.
He made no overt mention of his decision, but said, “Sorry I can’t stay longer, but this is a complicated day for me.”
President Barack Obama called Specter almost immediately after he was informed of the switch to say the Democratic Party was “thrilled to have you,” according to a White House official.
Spurned Republicans said his defection was motivated by ambition, not principle.
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele said, “Let’s be honest: Senator Specter didn’t leave the GOP based on principles of any kind. He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Senator Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don’t do it first.”
