Friday, October 16, 2009

How Goes the Shell Game?   [Rich Lowry]

A Senate GOP source just told me that Harry Reid has told Mitch McConnell he doesn't want to bring up the SGR business on Monday as originally planned. Apparently the discomfort among moderate Democrats is causing him trouble. Reid wants to block all amendments, but that's not so easy because members of his own caucus want to offer changes of their own. Reid would prefer to keep Republicans from offering an amendment to pay for the thing. I would think the best play for them politically would be to try to pull a revenue source or savings from the Baucus bill to make the point that all of this is of a piece. My source guesses that, in the end, there will be some sort of small temporary fix rather than the all-out $250 billion repeal. In any case, there probably won't be a vote before Tuesday afternoon.

10/16 04:15 PMShare