Deadlines, Schmeadlines -- No Breakthroughs, No Deals, No Health Care Bill

July 31, 2009 8:28 AM

ABC News’ Jonathan Karl reports:

With the health care bill languishing in the Senate and under fire in the House, Democratic leaders are quietly preparing for Plan B.

Under the scenario now being discussed, bi-partisan talks would be aborted and parliamentary maneuvers used to force the bill through with a party-line vote. 

Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., still has time to try to work out a deal with his Republican counterpart Chuck Grassley, but fellow Democrats are growing restless.

“There’s rising disgruntlement with how Baucus has handled this,” a senior Democratic aide tells ABC News.  “We have to look at other options.”

ABC’s Z. Byron Wolf was there last night when the Senate officially blew past yet another deadline for action. Senator Baucus declared that his committee would not, could not pass a bill before the Senate leaves for August recess next Friday.

"The bill is not ready for prime time," Senator Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., said.  (When did Mike Enzi become one of the most quoted and quotable Senators?)

“You folks keep looking for the news and there ain’t no news,” said Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Baucus’s primary Republican counterpart.

This is a big deal.  When Congress missed President Obama’s August deadline for passing bills out of the House and Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid vowed to at least get the bill out of the Finance Committee to set up a Senate vote in early September.

Not going to happen.

Does this mean we’ll still be seeing live reports on bi-partisan talks from CNN’s Dana Bash outside Max Baucus’s office when Congress returns in September? Don’t count on it.  Baucus has some time to work out a deal over the August break, but Democratic leaders are unlikely to allow talks with Republicans to drag on into September.

FACTOID:  The bi-partisan “Gang of Six”  Senators involved in these negotiations represent six states with a total of less than three percent of the U.S. population (Montana, North Dakota, Wyoming, Maine, New Mexico and Iowa).

Things are progressing better in the House, but not much better.

Henry Waxman struck a deal with moderate Blue Dogs that should help him get a bill out of his Energy & Commerce committee today, but liberals aren’t happy; 57 of them sent Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi a letter warning that they would vote against a bill that looks like the Blue Dog deal.

"We have compromised and we can compromise no more," an angry Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Calif.

“Although the leadership has more than a month to rally enough votes to pass healthcare bills when Congress returns in September, the latest unrest is raising a menacing specter for the president and his allies,” write Noam Levey and James Oliphant in the LA Times.  “Some worry about a possible repeat of the healthcare debacles in the early 1970s and '90s, when divisions within the party helped doom bids to create universal coverage.”

Meanwhile, Speaker Pelosi yesterday offered a variation of Will Rogers’ line about belonging to no organized political party: “We have tremendous diversity, whether it is generational, geographic, philosophical, ethnic, gender, you name it," she said. "It is a great kaleidoscope."

And as for that Blue Dog deal, House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn suggested on ABC News’ Topline that it may not matter much because, “we have no idea” what will be in the final House bill.”

Clyburn: “I don’t think that anyone can guarantee what the final document is going to be.” 

Surprise, surprise

Power has been good for the Blue Dogs.  Dan Eggen reports in the Washington Post that the Blue Dogs have seen their fundraising coffers swell as they have taken center stage in the fight over health care.

“The group has set a record pace for fundraising this year through its political action committee, surpassing other congressional leadership PACs in collecting more than $1.1 million through June. More than half the money came from the health-care, insurance and financial services industries, marking a notable surge in donations from those sectors compared with earlier years, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity.”

War Front:  Grim Trend

The month of July has been the deadliest month, by far, of the Afghanistan war for Americans (41) and for the coalition (74).  It has also been the least deadly month in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003 (four U.S. combat deaths).

And this may be the most important article in the newspapers this morning:

The Washington Post reports that the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, is preparing a new war plan that will include a request for a significant increase in U.S. troops.  Such a request would likely put General McChrystal on a collision course with at least some members of the President’s national security team and Congressional Democrats who are wary of a further escalation of the war in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the NYTimes’ Michael Gordon highlights “an unusually blunt memo” from a U.S. colonel in Iraq saying it is “time for the U.S. to declare victory and go home.”  It is not a view shared, however, by commanding General Ray Odierno.

“As the old saying goes, ‘Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days,’ ” Colonel Reese wrote. “Since the signing of the 2009 Security Agreement, we are guests in Iraq, and after six years in Iraq, we now smell bad to the Iraqi nose.”

Are the Iraqi’s capable of maintaining security on their own?  Today five mosques in southwest Baghdad have been bombed.  Iraqi police sources tell ABC News the death total from he attacks has already reached 27.

For those keeping track, there are still 130,000 American troops in Iraq, more than twice as many as the nearly  60,000 in Afghanistan.

Cash for Clunkers is Broke.

The good news:  the program, which gives new car buyers up to $4,500 in exchange for trashing gas guzzling junks,  has been wildly popular.  The bad news:  after just 4 days, so many people have traded in their clunkers, the program is broke.

“The speed with which it took off now puts it among the most successful stimulus packages to come out of Washington since the start of the recession,” reports the Wall Street Journal.  “But the program's unexpected success also will put Congress and the Obama administration in a bind. With deficits soaring, lawmakers are increasingly reluctant to spend additional billions they don't have.”

And scoop from Mike Allen in today’s Playbook, quoting a Democratic aide:

"Before it passed, there was a big debate between the auto state lawmakers and the pro-enviro lawmakers over whether the bill should be stimulus for the auto industry or whether it should combat global warming by getting inefficient cars off the road. The auto-state senators won, cars of [many] varieties were made eligible, and the money got spent in a blink. For next round, there will probably be a renewed push to increase the mileage requirements of the new purchases.”

Beer Summit

Jake Tapper finds the most interesting quotes following President Obama’s beer summit with Henry Louis Gates and Sgt. James Crowley, especially this one from Professor Gates:

 “Sergeant Crowley and I, through an accident of time and place, have been cast together, inextricably, as characters – as metaphors, really – in a thousand narratives about race over which he and I have absolutely no control.“

Helene Cooper found the addition of Joe Biden (drinking alcohol-free beer, by the way) at the table “interesting, for a number of reasons.”

“The addition of Mr. Biden was interesting, for a number of reasons. Mr. Biden was able to draw on his credibility with blue-collar, labor union America and his roots in Scranton, Pa., to add balance to the photo op that the White House presented: two black guys, two white guys, sitting around a table.”

Pork Watch:  Senators Byrd and Kennedy may be sidelined with illnesses, but the two remain Senate powerhouses when it comes to funneling taxpayer money to their home states. 

“Byrd has secured 48 earmarks worth more than $109 million in eight funding bills that have cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee so far this year,” reports Abby Phillip and Manu Raju in Politico.  “Kennedy has secured 26 more worth almost $8 million.”

Palin Follies, continued

Is Sara Palin stiffing the Reagan Library?  A speech to the Reagan Library was to be her first big public event after quitting her job as Alaska’s governor.  The library had even sent out invitations to the speech.  But, reports Ben Smith, it’s not going to happen.

Texas showdown

The sniping has already begun. Mr. Perry is on a "quest to be governor for life," a spokesman for Ms. Hutchison told the Dallas Morning News on Wednesday. The governor's spokesman shot back, telling the paper that Ms. Hutchison should stay in the Senate because "even though she's failed miserably at it, she was elected to serve that term."

SPOTTED: Phil Schiliro, the head of legislative affairs for the White House, at an afternoon performance of the “We Rock” puppet show at Chesterbrook Elementary School in McLean.  It was far more entertaining than the Senate Finance Committee. 

Kicker

“Sergeant Crowley and I, through an accident of time and place, have been cast together, inextricably, as characters – as metaphors, really – in a thousand narratives about race over which he and I have absolutely no control.“
       - Henry Louis Gates

“You folks keep looking for the news and there ain’t no news,”
    - Senator Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.

Today on the “Top Line” political Webcast, live at noon ET: Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D.; and This Weeks' George Stephanopoulos.

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