On Democrats’ passing a health care bill that has been rejected by the American people:
- This is the most brazen act of political arrogance that I can remember since the Watergate years, not in terms of breaking the law, but in terms of thumbing your nose at the American people by saying, ‘We know you don't want it, but we're going to give it to you anyway.’”/li> “[Democrats] are tone deaf about what the American people want from this bill.”
- “I think it's a political kamikaze mission for the Democrats to insist on this. Pat Moynihan used to say this – the late Democratic senator – no big piece of social legislation has ever been jammed through just by a partisan vote. Lyndon Johnson had the civil rights bills written in Republican Leader Everett Dirksen's office. Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid – all had 70 votes.
- “I think from the day this passes, if it should, there will be an instant spontaneous campaign to repeal it all across the country. It will define every Democratic congressional race in November, and it will be a political wipeout for the Democratic Party. It will be bad for the country, but it will change the leadership of the country. If it passes, it will define the rest of the year in terms of political contests. If it fails, it will just begin a different debate.
- “[House Democrats are] being asked by the president to hold hands, jump off a cliff and hope Harry Reid catches them in the Senate.”
- “After the bill is law, all 41 Republican Senators have agreed that we're going to enforce the rules of the Senate. Which means, for example, that the only things they can change have to do with taxing and budget. So if they try to change abortion, that won't work.”
- “We're going to go sentence by sentence through the 3,000-page bill to make sure the rules are followed. That's what the American people would expect us to do.”
- “We'll certainly offer a large number of amendments to try to correct the bill. Just think about this for a minute: through elections, through town meetings, through consistent public opinion surveys, Americans have said don't pass this bill. This is the most brazen act of political arrogance that I can remember since the Watergate years, not in terms of breaking the law, but in terms of thumbing your nose at the American people.”
- “[Republicans] are not trying to end the health care debate. We're trying to change it. The American people don't want higher individual premiums, higher taxes, Medicare cuts. They don't want an increase in the deficit. They're wondering why, if we're trying to reduce costs, it costs $1 trillion.”
- “What we ought to do this week is defeat this bill - of course there's not a bill yet, nobody has read it yet, nobody knows what it costs – and let's go to work, setting the goal of reducing costs so more Americans can afford to buy insurance.”
- “Republicans went to the floor of the Senate and offered our step-by-step plan to reduce costs, including: small business health plans, buying insurance across state lines, stopping junk lawsuits against doctors, reducing waste, fraud and abuse. That's a different direction. What the president is trying to do is to expand a health care system that everybody knows is unaffordable. What we want to do is reduce the cost of the health care system.”
Tags: government healthcare, Lemar Alexander, Obamacare, Senator, US Senate To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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