Max Baucus' Gang of Six has turned into the Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight by blowing enough holes into the health care bill to leave it bleeding on the Senate Finance Committee floor, the OK Corral of the new politics.
The bipartisan bunch has broken apart, with the last Republican, Maine's Olympia Snowe, holstering up over a proposal to tax high-cost medical insurance, which is prevalent in her state.
For his pains in trying to placate Republicans, the Chairman has, at least temporarily, lost his own Doc Holliday, Jay Rockefeller, who calls himself "probably one of his best friends among Democrats," for Baucus' concessions to win the now-gone GOP members of the Gang that killed the public option and scaled back affordability provisions for the poor.
Yet somehow, something will emerge from the Senate Sausage Factory packaged as health care reform and, after more bickering, bartering and butchering in both houses of Congress, leave all sides unsatisfied but allow the White House to claim victory in what the President calls solving eighty percent of the problem.
Wyatt Earp would have turned in his badge and left town.
Showing posts with label Jay Rockefeller. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jay Rockefeller. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Lobbying Lite
Fifty executives of AT&T and Verizon have fallen in love with Sen. Jay Rockefeller this year, contributing more than $42,000 to his campaign fund, ten times what they gave him in the previous five years.
These wet kisses from the telecommunications folks may raise suspicion they are motivated by his chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee and its recommendations about telephone eavesdropping and extending retroactive immunity to carriers that participated in the program President Bush secretly approved after 9/11.
Not so, say all involved. “Any suggestion that Senator Rockefeller would make policy decisions based on campaign contributions is patently false,” says his spokesperson. “Many AT&T executives,” says a company flack, “work with the leaders of both the House and Senate Commerce Committees on a daily basis and have come to know them over the years.”
Lying about lobbying is such a hallowed tradition that it goes back into the mists of time. Almost half a century ago, when I was on the board of directors of the Magazine Publishers Association I received a burn-this letter about making personal contributions to politicians I never heard of who were members of the committees that decided postal rates.
As an editor among all those publishers, I declined to follow orders, but then again, I wasn’t on the board long enough to learn how to get reimbursed for such voluntary largesse.
These wet kisses from the telecommunications folks may raise suspicion they are motivated by his chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee and its recommendations about telephone eavesdropping and extending retroactive immunity to carriers that participated in the program President Bush secretly approved after 9/11.
Not so, say all involved. “Any suggestion that Senator Rockefeller would make policy decisions based on campaign contributions is patently false,” says his spokesperson. “Many AT&T executives,” says a company flack, “work with the leaders of both the House and Senate Commerce Committees on a daily basis and have come to know them over the years.”
Lying about lobbying is such a hallowed tradition that it goes back into the mists of time. Almost half a century ago, when I was on the board of directors of the Magazine Publishers Association I received a burn-this letter about making personal contributions to politicians I never heard of who were members of the committees that decided postal rates.
As an editor among all those publishers, I declined to follow orders, but then again, I wasn’t on the board long enough to learn how to get reimbursed for such voluntary largesse.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)