Sunday, April 26, 2009

Obama tells Republicans bipartisanship means you vote for my bills or I'll use cutthroat tactics


During a private White House meeting with GOP leaders, Obama complained about their failure to support his pork laden stimulus bill and threatened to use "reconciliation" to prevent filibuster of his health care bill. Reconciliation is a legislative process that limit debate on spending bill to 20 hours in the Senate. No filibuster is possible. This process has been used only thirteen times since 1980. According to alternet.org,
A GOP source familiar with the meeting said that the president was extremely sensitive -- even "thin-skinned" -- to the fact that the stimulus bill received no GOP votes in the House. He continually brought it up throughout the meeting.

Obama also offered payback for that goose egg. A major overhaul of the health care system, he told the Republican leadership, would be done using a legislative process known as reconciliation, meaning that the GOP won't be able to filibuster it.

So much for bipartisanship.

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