Gotta love those progressives when they stand by their principles:
“I don’t need to see my colleagues vote for the Senate bill in the House. We don’t like the Senate bill. Why should we be forced to do that?” said Lynn Woolsey, co-chair of the House Progressive Caucus, D-Calif. “But what we need to know, before any Senate bill is passed, that we have enough of the fixes that we’ve asked for, that we will be satisfied with the final product as a beginning for health care [reform].”
Asked if she would be comfortable with the House voting to deem the bill passed, rather than actually taking a recorded vote on the Senate-passed bill, Woolsey said: “I would be OK with that.” [emphasis added]
But you do need to see your colleagues vote in order to pass the bill you’re going to then be amending, don’t you? Apparently not. Just “deem the bill passed,” without deigning to lower yourself to the democratic process.
When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”… Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate.
