While Harry Reid goes in front of the cameras saying there’s a compromise that’ll turn a trillion-dollar spendulus into a trillion-dollar spendulus, the real news was in front of the closed-door meeting:
Congressman Gives Speech in Front of Pelosi’s Office: ‘There Are More Shady Deals Going on Behind Closed Doors’
Chairman of Republican Study Committee Rep. Tom Price blasts congressional leaders for not making the stimulus bill negotiations open to the public.
Transcript:
“My name’s Tom Price and I represent the Sixth District of Georgia and [am] the privileged chair of the Republican Study Committee,” Price said. “It’s now noon on Wednesday. I’m standing outside the office of the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi. The door is closed. We just heard news break there’s been an agreement between the House and the Senate on the non-stimulus bill.
“It’s curious because Republicans were invited to a meeting they said at 3 o’clock this afternoon,” Price continued. “What this means is there are more shady deals going on behind closed doors — without the public, without Republicans in attendance.”
Call it the Charlie Rich Democrats:
And when we get behind closed doors then she lets her hair hang down
And she makes me feel like I’m a man
Oh, no one knows what goes on behind closed doors
Price had already requested the the House-Senate negotiations be televised, to no avail.
Now that the cuts made in their compromise package are being put back into the bill during midnight meetings that the minority is being entirely excluded from,the best thing the GOP as a whole can do is to vote unanimously against this bill in both houses — and the best thing beyond that for Specter, Snowe, and Collins to do would be to apologize to their fellow Republicans and to the American people for being so naive as to negotiate the resuscitation of this bill when it was on life support in their chamber, only to have every cut they negotiated out of it put right back in by a Democrat majority that never had any more intention of living up to its “compromise” agreements than it did of living up to its own rhetoric about “bipartisanship.”
The Dems came up with this pork-rich, catastrophic bill. They have excluded Republicans. Let the Dems own it in full.
UPDATE
Here’s Price’s Congressional page
I just wrote Dr. Price, who’s my representative in Congress, and thanked him for having the guts to stand up to this nonsense.
There is a public relations problem with closed door conference sessions. But then again can anyone name one bill where the conference was open to the press? Probably not for the simple reason that in a bicameral system you have two competing legislative bodies and the need to negotiate without a headline saying, “So and So Votes to Starve Handicapped Children,” or something equally misleading doesn’t occur on a daily basis. This bill does have to go back to both chambers and at that time the public can have its pound of flesh.
Pat,
How about a ton of flesh?