Governor's Not Looking for Any New Unfunded Mandates

One thing Congress is really good at is creating mandates for the states without providing any money for them. Many governors are afraid that's about to happen with Obamacare:

The nation’s governors, Democrats as well as Republicans, voiced deep concern Sunday about the shape of the health care plan emerging from Congress, fearing that Washington was about to hand them expensive new Medicaid obligations without money to pay for them.

The role of the states in a restructured health care system dominated the summer meeting of the National Governors Association here this weekend — with bipartisan animosity voiced against the plan during a closed-door luncheon on Saturday and in a private meeting on Sunday with the health and human services secretary, Kathleen Sebelius.

“I think the governors would all agree that what we don’t want from the federal government is unfunded mandates,” said Gov. Jim Douglas of Vermont, a Republican, the group’s incoming chairman. “We can’t have the Congress impose requirements that we are forced to absorb beyond our capacity to do so.”

The governors’ backlash creates yet another health care headache for the Obama administration, which has tried to recruit state leaders to pressure members of Congress to wrap up their fitful negotiations. Both Ms. Sebelius, who was Kansas’ governor before she joined the cabinet in April, and the federal Medicaid chief, Cindy Mann, made appearances at the meeting on Sunday. Meanwhile, other administration officials spent the day pushing President Obama’s proposal on television talk shows.

Mr. Obama also plans to address questions about his health plan at a news conference on Wednesday evening.

The momentum is clearly shifting away from support for Obamacare. Obama's statements are beginning to sound more and more desperate. I imagine the Wednesday presser will features variations on the same two themes:

1. If we don't do this now it will bankrupt America;
2. We're going to get this done, count on it.

That's been the theme of the Obama statements of late. I wonder which member of the White House Press Corps has been tasked to ask the softball questions that will set those themes up?

FYI - The Huffington Post got a question at the last presser, but so far I haven't been invited.

UPDATE: Jake Tapper gives us something else we can expect to hear:

On Friday, on a "Conservatives for Patients Rights" conference call with conservative activists dealing with health care reform, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., said, as Ben Smith at Politico reported, "If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him."

You should expect to hear that quote this week from the White House as they use it to rally their troops, a White House official tells ABC News.