Now that the new health care law is passed, Democrats are hoping to focus on jobs and the economy. Members of Congress and progressive organizations have begun talking more about the Local Jobs For America Act. It is a good bill that should actually help to create and save jobs while temporarily helping to ease [...]

Normally, by this point in the year, Congress would have already began the process of marking up the 2011 budget resolution. The process got pushed back due to the work on the new health care law, but that means Congress will begin working on it soon after they get back from recess next week. Potentially [...]

With health care and student loan reform passed, one of the next tasks Congress will soon take up is the annual budget. The “budget resolution” is a non-binding resolution by Congress outlining how they plan to spend money. The budget resolution is not law (so doesn’t need to be signed by the President), and, as [...]

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 [...]

Michael Bennet and his staff are just lying. Plain and simple. There is no other way to say it. They claim that fulfilling his commitment to call for an up-or-down vote on the public option will “kill the health care bill.” That is absurd. The bill that expands insurance coverage was already signed into law. This reconciliation bill, with its minor changes for the employer mandate, and changes to the excise tax, is not playing games with the lives of millions of Americans. Whether this new bill passes or not it will have little impact on our health care system.

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 [...]

This may be Democrats last chance to improve health care reform and try to make it even more popular before the November election. Sadly, it appears an opportunity wasted.

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 [...]

The Senate has just began consideration of the reconciliation “sidecar” bill, HR 4872, the “Heath Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010” (PDF). The bill is meant to fix some of the problems with the recently passed health care bill, and deal with student loan reform. Democrats have foolishly decided to actively work against any [...]

Colorado Senator Michael Bennet first circulated a letter to his colleagues in the Senate to “save the public option.” He and 23 other Senators wrote to Majority Leader Harry Reid and asked that the public option be inserted into the reconciliation package for health reform.  Another two dozen Senators expressed public support for a public [...]