The Senate Is the Enemy

Charles Krauthammer quotes Speaker Tip O'Neil in that description of the Senate as he discusses what the House is facing on Obamacare (h/t The Corner):

So here we go. If this is going to pass, the House has to accept the bill that the Senate has passed as step one. Now, I have heard that some members of the House want to attach a provision that says that unless the Senate then fixes it with the sidecar — this fixing amendment bill — the bill passed in the House will stay in the House and never be on the president's desk, so it never becomes law.

But I also understand that the parliamentarian in the Senate is saying that unless it [the original Senate bill] becomes law, you can't have the sidecar. So it's a catch-22.

Now, if all of that is true, then what you have here is an issue of trust. Do the members of the House trust their own Democrats in the Senate?

And there is an aphorism out of the House which I think is attributed to Tip O'Neill where he says . . . "The House Republicans are the opposition, the Senate is the enemy."

If it passes in the House — if it [the House] passes the Senate bill as is — what is the incentive, ultimately, for the changing of the bill in the Senate? It will stay as is. They [House Democrats] worry they are going to be left hanging high and dry.

Exactly. Once the House passes the Senate bill, it's over. Obama signs it and we're stuck with Obamacare. And, we'll never hear about health care again...until the next bill designed to move it even closer to single-payer nationalized health care. The "fixes" won't get done because they'll never get out of the Senate.

At least one House Democrat, Steve Kagen (D-WI) knows the score:

"Let me put it this way: you're asking whether or not I trust the United States Senate, where they came up with a deal for Nebraska that the other states didn't get; where Louisiana would get a special deal. No, I don't trust the U.S. Senate."

Smart guy.