Congress: Forget bipartisanship?
Posted: Thursday, July 16, 2009 9:18 AM by Mark Murray
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Congress
The New York Times: “A party-line Senate committee vote on legislation to remake the nation’s health care system underscored the absence of political consensus on what would be the biggest changes in social policy in more than 40 years. The bill, which aims to make health insurance available to all Americans, was approved, 13 to 10, by the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. The panel was the first Congressional committee to approve the health legislation.”
Video: Countdown’s Keith Olbermann MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell discuss why bipartisanship is not an option when it comes to health care reform.
"As Baucus and Obama kicked up their lobbying campaigns, however, some Senate Democrats were starting to read the tea leaves, fearing GOP Senators would be an impossible get,"
Roll Call reports. "They suggested that Baucus -- despite his months-long effort to craft a consensus bill -- may not prevail and predicted Democrats ultimately would have to forgo bipartisanship."
The AP: "Former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
says he was justified last year in suggesting that Bank of America Corp.'s chief executive could lose his job if the bank backed out on plans to buy troubled Merrill Lynch. His admission, included in written testimony for a House hearing Thursday, comes as Congress debates the government's role in managing financial firms that accept billions of dollars in aid… Rep. Darrell Issa of California, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said Paulson's testimony makes clear that the government became too involved and misused its power."
"Rep. Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.), who is the subject of multiple investigations by the House ethics committee, has emptied his re-election coffers of nearly $723,000 to pay legal expenses in 2009, according to Federal Election Commission reports,"
Roll Call reports. "Those payments bring the senior Democrat’s legal bills to more than $900,000 since he first mounted his defense to July 2008 news reports that he had inappropriately used his Congressional stationery to fundraise for a local college."
