Saturday, July 4, 2009

Battle of the (Senate) Titans

Senators Kennedy (Chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee) and Senator Dodd (Kennedy’s wingman while he fights cancer) are seemingly lined up as opposition forces to Senator Baucus (Chairman, Senate Finance Committee ) on some aspects of health care reform legislation. Various theories are evolving:

1) this is a real dispute
2) this is a clever ruse to allow a compromise that gives political cover to all types of Democrats
3) this is just some foreplay designed to allow Kennedy to be a hero one more time, with serious cred to Baucus, a rising power in the Senate
4) some combination of #1 - #3


Kennedy and Dodd’s latest: http://dodd.senate.gov/?q=node/5062/print

1 comment:

jamzo said...

kennedy's HELP committee has certain authority and power over the health reform initiative and max baucus and the finance committee have certain authority and power over the health refrom iniative

baucus is being pressured to end his procrastination and get his piece - financing done

the HELP committee sent up an unfinished proposal and got CBO to score it, then went back to work and submitted another proposal which CBO scored more favorably

this puts pressure on the finance committee to get their work done and out of the way