Dems Cut Deal with the Blue Dogs

RUSH: I warned you people. I warned you earlier this week. ‘Do not get giddy over the apparent troubles in the House in getting the health care bill vote’ I said. ‘Because the Blue Dog Democrats are at the end of the day Democrats,’ and the way it works in the House of Representatives is that when push comes to shove, Pelosi will bring them in there — perhaps with Rahm Emanuel sitting in the office, Steny Hoyer will be in there — and these Blue Dogs, many of whom are not veterans yet, rookies or second-, third-termers, they’ll be brought in there and they’ll say, ‘Do you guys like being members of Congress? Do you want to have something to do besides just sit on the floor and listen to everybody else debate things and occasionally vote? Do you want to be on a committee sometime? Do you want to be on a meaningful committee or do you want to be in the dogcatcher committee?

‘Because if you want anything meaningful here you’re going to go along with your leadership on whatever it is, and if you don’t we’re going to find a candidate to oppose you the next election in your district, somebody we can trust.’ So miraculously (ahem) there has been a deal. The Blue Dogs have announced that they have now gotten sufficient concessions from the leadership and they will go forward. We have here a $1.5 trillion health care bill. The Blue Dog Democrats say that the ‘savings’ that they wanted, which amount to $100 billion, that’s good enough for them. So they have agreed now. There is a deal. There’s a silver lining in this, though. They’re going to mark it up starting in about an hour in the committee, a half hour from now.

They’ll start the mark-up, but there will not be a vote until September when all of the members get back. So that still leaves the August recess for these members of Congress to hear about it from their constituents out there. This is the only bright spot I can see in this, because once they vote on it it’s going to pass. Once they get the Blue Dogs with them, it’ll pass. The Republicans can’t stop this.