RUSH: Here’s what’s happening with the legislation. And I myself, ladies and gentlemen, even this morning was a little confused based on what I was reading and seeing in the media. I thought I understood it, then I’m reading things people are writing and I thought, ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’ And I thought, well, maybe I’m wrong here. But as usual, I was right.
The confusion is this reconciliation bill, the amendments to the Senate bill that the House posted yesterday. Everybody’s getting caught up in those. It’s important, but here’s what is going to happen, if it happens. Once the House passes reconciliation, that is, the Senate bill and this amendment package that they posted yesterday, once they pass that as one bill, Pelosi will break out the Senate bill, she’ll separate the Senate bill, having claimed it was passed as part of reconciliation. This is the deem-and-pass. The House thinks they’re voting only on the changes, the members of the House think they’re voting only on the changes, so Pelosi will break out the Senate bill having claimed that it was passed, and then she and whoever is in charge of it Senate at the time will certify that they have a bill, and they will send the bill to the Senate. The Senate bill alone — no reconciliation bill goes to the president — the Senate bill alone goes to the president, he signs it, and we have national health care. And this could happen Sunday, unless a court steps in to stop it, which we can’t possibly know if that will happen in advance.
Now all this talk about the Senate stopping the reconciliation or aspects of it does not stop the Senate bill from becoming law. The Senate, dealing with the changes the House makes, will not have one thing to do with whether or not we get national health care on Sunday. At that point, all that’s happening is we’re fighting the amendments to the bill that the House wants. Now, the Republican senators, like Coburn and McConnell and the rest are saying to the House Democrats, ‘Now, look, you House Democrats, we’re not going to make this easy for you. We’re going to track everything that was given to you, we’re going to track every bribe, and we’re going to publicize every bribe. We’re going to stop every nomination — put it on hold — that you may have been promised to vote for this thing.’ In other words, the House Republicans are saying, ‘You’re not gonna get all these amendments. You can’t believe Pelosi when she promises you that these are going to happen.’
For example, this Earl Pomeroy guy getting a big deal for his bank in Bismarck, the one bank that will be exempt from the student loan change, the one bank that will be allowed to make student loans, the one private bank other than the government that will be allowed to make student loans. Mr. Pomeroy, you’re not going to get that. This is the point. Obama is going to sign this bill without that in it and then you’re going to have to rely on the Senate agreeing to all these changes. Pelosi’s making all these promises, and I’m sure Harry Reid is assuring these House Democrats, ‘Oh, yeah, we’ll take care of this for you.’ And the Senate Republicans are saying, ‘Nah-uh, we’re going to fight this at every step of the way and we have a lot of tools at our disposal. You’re not gonna get all these amendments, so don’t vote for reconciliation and think you’re going to get away with telling your constituents that you voted for reconciliation under the assumption that these amendments will be enacted.’
These House Democrats are actually being told that when it comes time to run for reelection, that they’ll be able to say, ‘We didn’t vote the Senate bill, we voted reconciliation.’ And the Republicans in the Senate say, ‘You go ahead and try it but we’re going to tell everybody what you voted for. Whether you deem it or whether not, the Senate bill will have become law because of you.’ The Senate Republicans are going to make it as difficult as possible for these reconciliation amendments to be passed. The Senate would have to approve them, go back to the House, tidy it up and then as a separate bill go to the White House for Obama to sign it before all of these deals, before all of these promises that Pelosi’s making to these members actually become law. So if a House Democrat votes for reconciliation, which is deemed to include the Senate bill, you are knowingly voting for the Senate bill, warts and all. This is what the House Democrats must understand. And I don’t know how much they’re being lied to about this and I don’t know how confused they are. I’ll betcha 90% of them are not going to read the reconciliation bill, and probably haven’t read the Senate bill. I’m sure they don’t really know full well what’s going on.
It is purposely confusing. It is confusing to the point of distraction. All Obama is doing Sunday, all he’s waiting for at the White House is to sign the Senate bill the minute Pelosi and Biden or whoever is in charge of the Senate at the time certify it and send it to him, and then he leaves. Obama will not wait around for debate over reconciliation between the Senate and the House, he won’t care about that, he can come back for that later. The idea that they may go ahead and try to fulfill the promises made to House members is even dubious at best. But the House Republicans and the Senate Republicans are going to make sure that every American knows about every bribe, every sweetheart deal, and they’re pounding the halls of Congress right now telling these Democrats, don’t believe the promises because the Republicans in the Senate are going to block as many of these things as possible. If you’re being promised that your bank will be the only bank to be involved in the student loan program, don’t count on that, Mr. Pomeroy, don’t count on it because we’re going to stop it.
As many of these amendments as possible will be stopped through a legitimate legislative process of objections, amendments, points of order, parliamentary procedure, whatever. Everybody says, ‘Well, but, Rush, they’ll only need 51 votes to pass these things.’ I actually believe, folks, as I’ve said all week, that after Obama signs this, the only people that are going to be openly talking about this are Republicans. Boehner said it today in his press conference just now, once big pieces of legislation are signed everybody forgets it and moves on to the next thing. He said it ain’t going to happen in this case. We’re never going to let people forget what happened here. We’re going to be reminding people all the way through November and all the way through the election of 2012. This will not be forgotten. The temperature and pressure will be ratcheted up by the day to make sure that all of these changes in the reconciliation bill in the House do not happen over in the Senate. And I, again, would not be surprised if the Senate just drops it because this is such a negative, this is such a drag, they don’t want any more talk, they don’t want any more debate, they don’t want any more opportunities for the details of this to become known, as we get closer and closer to the reelection season and the election itself in November.
All right, a brief time-out. I hope that clears it up. Snerdley, are you clear on it now? I was confused. My confusion was I thought what I just told you was the case, then I got up today and I started reading things and I could swear people think this whole thing — they’re reporting it on television that this is not over Sunday. That it goes to the Senate, the reconciliation fight happens, and Obama not signing anything ’til the Senate finishes and that’s just not true. Obama’s going to sign this Sunday because Pelosi’s going to separate or break out the Senate bill from her reconciliation package, and it’s a done deal, we got national health care, and the Senate bill is horrible. The Senate bill is absolutely a train wreck. They’re doing everything they can today as well to make everybody think, oh, we’re close, Clyburn just came out, ‘I think we’ve got the votes now, I think we’ve got the votes,’ and Carl Cameron at Fox, ‘Well, he’s normally very cautious, if he’s saying that they probably do have the votes.’ They’re still ten short.
There’s a story, big news, big press release today. This is the kind of thing designed to make you think it’s over: ‘Congressional Hispanic Caucus Calls for Passage of Health Care Reform — The Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) today called for passage of President Obama’s health care reform proposal, saying that it would greatly improve the quality of life for millions of Latinos.’ What’s the big deal about this? There are no changes here. They voted for it last time. The news is that they didn’t. The news was that they’re thinking about not voting for it unless they get some assurances on immigration, which I’m sure they did. But they were never going to vote ‘no.’ They have not voted ‘no.’ But a lot of people were misled by this whole thing. Every Congressional Hispanic Caucus member voted for the bill last November after threatening not to. They’re going to vote for it this time after threatening not to, but they have never been in the ‘no’ category. But it’s being portrayed here like, whoa, Pelosi’s picked up a whole caucus today. She didn’t pick up anything with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus coming out and lobbying for the bill’s passage.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Now, this carve-out for Earl Pomeroy is being called the ‘Bismarck Bribe.’ I need to clarify something. The bank of North Dakota is a socialist bank. It’s not a private bank, it’s state owned bank, and that’s the bank that has been given a special dispensation from the student loan law and will be allowed it make student loans. Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota says he doesn’t want this. Now, this is key, because Conrad is crucial budget committee when it comes to reconciliation and Conrad does not want any special deals for North Dakota. So, Mr. Pomeroy, you gotta understand something here that your little carve-out here likely is not going to happen if this reconciliation ever does really get to the Senate and if they ever do actually take it up, the bank of North Dakota would be allowed ‘to issue federally subsidized student loans, meaning that it would be the only lender remaining outside of the Education Department’s direct-lending system.
‘The Bank of North Dakota is a state-owned lender that Democratic aides described as representing the type of nonprofit entity they want to encourage. Critics of the loan bill suggested the provision was designed to win the support of a key Democrat, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota,’ but he doesn’t want it. He is on record saying he doesn’t want it. It’s also designed to get Earl Pomeroy, a member of Congress.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Let me run through this, again, folks. I did this at the open of the program because even I, ladies and gentlemen, got confused watching media this morning. I thought I had this all figured out, and now I’m watching and reading media, and I’m saying, ‘Wait, wait. Something’s wrong here.’ ‘Cause what I was reading was that the reconciliation package — the amendments, if you will — that the House Democrats are being promised to secure their ‘yes’ votes, was going to be part of the deemed-to-have-passed Senate bill and sent to Obama and that when Obama signed it, that the Senate bill plus these changes would become law, and I got that impression because of two things. A, they were saying it; and B, they were treating this reconciliation like it was more important than the Senate bill.
And my instincts and what I thought I knew, was, ‘No, no, no, no. The reconciliation bill is not nearly as important.’ Ah! My instincts were right. Here is what is happening. Once the House passes reconciliation — and I hate that word, because it is not accurately describing what’s going on here. This is an amendment package. This is the House changing what they don’t like about the Senate bill in a separate piece of legislation. They are not going to vote on the Senate bill. They’re going to vote on their changes. They’re going to have ‘deemed’ the Senate bill to have passed as they vote on reconciliation. That’s what they’re trying to get 216 votes for, is this package of changes. What the House Democrats need to know is that they’re not voting on that Sunday, in reality. They are voting on the Senate bill. They are being misled and lied to by their own leadership.
If their own leadership is promising them all these special deals — like the Bismarck bank and whatever else that these people are being given — those are not going to see the light of day until the Senate agrees with them. Obama is not going to be signing those into law. All Obama is going to sign is the Senate bill, and this vote Sunday, the House Democrats have to know that that’s what they’re voting on. Now, they think they’re voting on reconciliation, this package of amendments — and that’s what Pelosi’s telling them they’re voting on, and in their minds, they are. They don’t want to vote on the Senate bill. They want to be able to say they didn’t cast the votes for it. ‘Oh, yeah, that was ‘deemed’ to have passed.’ But after they vote, whenever they vote, Pelosi is then going to separate the Senate bill, take it out, break it out. That alone will be sent over to the Senate, and whoever’s running it — either Biden or Byrd, the pro tem — will certify it.
Pelosi will certify it for the House. After the Senate certifies the Senate bill and the Senate bill only, that gets sent to Obama. He will sign it in five seconds and throw the biggest party you have ever seen, and we will have national health care. We will not have any of the amendments, the reconciliation that the House voted on. They have to go over to the Senate, and they will do so separately — and there is where the Republican senators are saying, ‘Look, you House Democrats. We’re not going to make this easy for you to get these promised changes.’ You’re not going to get all these amendments, so don’t vote for reconciliation and think you’re going to get away with telling your constituents that you voted for reconciliation under the assumption that these amendments would be enacted. If you vote for reconciliation, House Democrats, you are knowingly voting for the Senate bill, warts and all. You are not voting for these changes you’ve been promised.
So Obama’s up there, he’s waiting at the White House to sign the Senate bill the minute Pelosi and Biden or whoever over there certifies it, and he flies off or throws his party or whatever. He’s not going to wait around. There’s not going to be debate next week on the reconciliation package. There isn’t going to be debate next week on these changes. Obama’s not going to wait around for the Senate to act on that before he signs this — and this is what got me confused. I’m hearing news media people saying, ‘Oh, see, even if they vote Sunday, this ain’t over. Oh, no. It goes over to the Senate and all these debates have to happen.’ (groans) No, it doesn’t. The Senate bill is going to be separated, Obama’s going to sign it, and we’ve got national health care in a horrible bill. The Senate bill is rotgut horrible. So what needs to happen here is that these House Democrats have to know, somebody’s going to have to sit them down and tell them, that they are in fact voting for the Senate bill when they vote reconciliation.
They think they’re voting for their changes to keep their base happy or to keep the reelection chances looking strong. They think that they’re voting X, Y, and Z but they’re not. They are, in effect, voting for the Senate bill because that’s all that Obama will see. And then the Republican senators are saying (paraphrased), ‘Okay. Every one of you House Democrats that got a special deal, a bribe, or a promised job; we’re going to know who you are, we’re gonna know what you got, and we’re gonna tell everybody what you got, and we’re gonna prevent you from getting it. We’re gonna stop every one of these things as best we can. We’re going to hog the process. We’re gonna use amendments. You may need 51 votes over here in the Senate to get this stuff, but we’re gonna make sure that you don’t get very many votes, period, on any of these things.’ That’s what Coburn has said. That’s what McConnell has said. They’re going to do everything they can. That’s why Coburn said yesterday (paraphrased): ‘You better be prepared. If you’re a House Democrat and you vote for this, you better be prepared to defend the bribe that you got.’