When basically the entire House Republican caucus voted for Paul Ryan’s budget, which includes a “plan” to destroy the very popular Medicare program and replace it with insufficient private vouchers, I couldn’t tell if they made such a terrible political move because they were so trapped in their own ideological bubble that they actually thought [...]

While there seems to be some growing intellectual consensus in support of slightly reforming Senate rules to modestly reduce obstructionism, the idea of returning the Senate to its original intent of a majority rule chamber is still labeled too radical. In reality there is nothing radical about merely bringing back the original Senate rule that [...]

The House Democratic caucus is truly pathetic. They are, in fact, so pathetic that I’ve been forced to use a thesaurus to find new ways of describing their pathetic behavior: weak, impotent, pitiful, feeble and toothless. Last night, they again folded completely and passed the Senate’s version of the Obama-McConnell tax deal–as is–even though only [...]

The House Democratic caucus voted today to reject the Obama-McConnell tax deal. From Sam Stein: In a meeting on Thursday morning, the House Democratic caucus rejected the president’s proposed deal on the Bush tax cuts but did not fully submarine the possibility of its passage, multiple sources tell The Huffington Post. Members, by voice vote, [...]

It is good to see Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is vigorously calling for an end to the filibuster. From Ryan Grim at Huffington Post: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has some advice for her Senate counterparts: Try majority rule for a change. Pelosi, in an interview with the Huffington Post, called for an end [...]

While not passing a COBRA extension, Congress did manage to vote for an incredibly expensive second engine for the F-35, which the military says it doesn’t need and really doesn’t want. We are literally wasting billions on hardware the military is asking Congress to cut while causing economically besieged Americans to lose their insurance.

After a full year of debate and dozens of excuses, the Democratic leadership now stands naked in their opposition to the public option. President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all claimed they that wanted one. They are the three most powerful people in Washington and have huge margins in [...]

Late last night, Republicans won two parliamentary points of order that resulted in a few lines being removed from the reconciliation bill. Since the Senate can now no longer pass a bill that is word-for-word identiacal to one that passed the House, it must go back to the House for a final vote. Who could [...]

On Sunday, the House passed the Senate health care bill and a reconciliation package that contains a number of so-called fixes. That reconciliation package is being taken up today in the Senate. Because of the strange nature of the Byrd rule, which requires every part of the reconciliation package to affect the budget, it is [...]

Welcome to the liveblog on the House of Representative’s health insurance reform vote live on C-Span).   Whether you support the bill or opposite it, whether the bill passes or doesn’t this is a historic vote. If a potential deal is struck with the Stupak bloc and the “pro-choice” caucus does not bolt, there would [...]