Showing posts with label Pete Sessions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pete Sessions. Show all posts

Friday, June 26, 2015

Republicans, Stunned by the Supreme Court, Plot Next Anti-Obamacare Moves

Rep. Tom Price tears a page from the health care bill during a press conference at the Capitol on March 21, 2012.(Win McNamee/Getty)
 Congressional Republicans were in a state of shock Thursday after the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare's insurance subsidies nationwide, but they quickly laid out next steps in their quest to repeal the health care law.
"Everybody's stunned," said Rep. Dave Brat, a Virginia Republican. "I think the logic and the plain language was going to be the other direction. … This is a stunner."
"I'm surprised," said House Rules Chairman Pete Sessions of Texas. "I believe it is unlawful and unconstitutional for us to have tax provisions where people in different states are dealt with different ways."
For months, Republicans have been crafting a post-King v. Burwell strategy, confident the Court would rule in their favor and strike down the law's insurance subsidies in 34 states using the federal insurance marketplace. They had planned to use the opportunity to extract major concessions from President Obama, like repealing the individual mandate, hoping a ruling in favor of the plaintiffs—which would have left 6 million people without the tax credits that many need to be able to afford their insurance plans—would force the president to cave.
Now, some Republicans are returning to a long-shot legislative strategy to repeal the law: budget reconciliation. "I would anticipate that we would move in the direction of repealing all Obamacare that can be repealed through reconciliation," said House Budget Chairman Tom Price of Georgia.
Republicans left the reconciliation language broad in the budget resolution that they passed earlier this year, which Price said should allow them to repeal major parts of the health care law. "That was clearly contemplated in our budget to allow for the committees of jurisdiction that deal with health care to be the ones that will be offering reconciliation proposals," Price said.
The budget-reconciliation rule allows the Senate to bypass the need for a 60-vote threshold to complete action on a bill, muting the minority party's ability to block the bill. A similar technique was used to pass Obamacare.
If Republicans carry through with their threat, there is no doubt that Obama would veto the legislation. But Price said that isn't the point. "The goal is to have the American people speak to their representatives in numbers large enough to be able to get this administration to move in the right direction, or the next administration to move in the right direction."
Unfortunately for Republicans, the budget-reconciliation process limits lawmakers' ability to add new policy, which means the technique can be used only to repeal the parts of the law that deal with revenue and spending. That technique wouldn't dismantle the entire law, but it could certainly do enough damage to it to make it unworkable.
House Speaker John Boehner would not commit to any specific future plan in his post-ruling remarks, noting that much of the GOP dialogue was about what to do following a Supreme Court victory.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

Republicans Watch With Bewilderment As Democrats Flounder on Trade

June 12, 2015 It's a new vantage point for Republican leaders. After nearly five years of intra-party squabbling of their own, Republicans are watching Democrats erupt into disarray over their own president's trade bill.
Friday morning, President Obama made his final pitch to the caucus, travelling to the Hill to do so. But, the president's only one of many messengers. Unions and other progressive groups have been lobbying members to vote against Trade Promotion Authority, which limits Congress to an up or down vote on future trade deals, as well as Trade Adjustment Assistance, a Democratic priority that provides resources for workers displaced by future trade deals. Democratic leaders had largely stayed neutral on the trade package, leaving the whip operation to the Obama administration.
On the actual vote, Democratic leadership split, with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi giving a speech just before the vote declaring her opposition. Pelosi voted against TAA while Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer would up voting for it. TAA went down by a big 302-126 margin, seriously imperilling the fate of Obama's trade deal.
Republicans pounced that Obama's inability to get members of his own party to support him was a reflection of his waning appeal on Capitol Hill.
"Democrats are caught up in a real challenge where the President of the United States has no clout with their members and they viewed it that the president has never paid attention to them, and when he came asking for something, he was out of step," said Pete Sessions, the chairman of the House Rules Committee.

Thursday, June 11, 2015

PAUL RYAN’S PELOSI-ESQUE OBAMATRADE MOMENT: ‘IT’S DECLASSIFIED AND MADE PUBLIC ONCE IT’S AGREED TO’

Chief Obamatrade proponent House Ways and Means Committee chairman 
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI)
60%
 admitted during Congressional testimony on Wednesday evening that despite tons of claims from him and other Obamatrade supporters to the contrary, the process is highly secretive.

He also made a gaffe in his House Rules Committee testimony on par with former Speaker
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)
7%
’s push to pass Obamacare, in which she said infamously said: “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

“It’s declassified and made public once it’s agreed to,” Ryan said of Obamatrade in Rules Committee testimony on Wednesday during questioning from 
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX)
79%
.

What Ryan is trying to convince House Republicans to do is vote for Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) which would fast-track at least three highly secretive trade deals—specifically the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), the Trade in Services Agreement (TiSA), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (T-TIP)—and potentially more deals.
Right now, TiSA and T-TIP text are completely secretive and unavailable for even members of Congress to read while TPP text is available for members to review—although they need to go to a secret room inside the Capitol where only members of Congress and certain staffers high-level security clearances, who can only go when members are present, can read the bill.
Ryan’s exchange in which he made this gaffe came as Burgess, who opposes Obamatrade, and Rules Committee chairman 
Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX)
65%
, who stands with Ryan supporting it, were discussing the secrecy of the deal with him. It came right after an incredible exchange where Ryan attempted a ploy to try to save immigration provisions contained within the Obamatrade package as a whole—specifically TiSA—that wereexposed by Breitbart News earlier on Wednesday, a problem for which he put forward a phony non-solution designed to get more votes for his Obamatrade agenda but not stop the immigration provisions.

Via: Breitbart

Continue Reading....

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Ted Cruz Opposes Eric Cantor and Pete Sessions’ “Hug It Out” Plan to Fund Obamacare

1tedcruzMultiple people confirm to me that just a few hours ago Pete Sessions blew up about Ted Cruz and made sure everyone in the room knew he held Cruz in absolute contempt.
It might be because Ted Cruz just called BS on Eric Cantor and Pete Sessions trying to screw conservatives.
Cantor and Sessions are pursuing a plan to make it very easy for the House to vote for defunding Obamacare while ensuring Obamacare is still able to get funded. Cruz, in a press release earlier today, called on the House of Representatives to not get cute and actually defund Obamacare.
“Last night, news reports surfaced that the House of Representatives might vote to ‘defund Obamacare’ in a way that easily allows Senate Democrats to keep funding Obamacare. If House Republicans go along with this strategy, they will be complicit in the disaster that is Obamacare.
“The American people are not surprised that politicians in Washington–of both parties–are afraid to take a stand. But another symbolic vote against Obamacare is meaningless. Obamacare is the biggest job killer in America, and people are hurting.
“House Republicans should pass a continuing resolution that funds government in its entirely–except Obamacare–and that explicitly prohibits spending any federal money, mandatory or discretionary, on Obamacare. They should not use any procedural chicanery to enable Harry Reid to circumvent that vote.
“If you oppose Obamacare, don’t fund Obamacare. Our elected leaders should listen to the American people.”
You too should tell Pete Sessions and Eric Cantor to stop playing games with the lives of Americans. They need to defund Obamacare, not just pretend to.

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