In the largest measure, the basic problem is in 2009 Harry Reid passed the ObamaCare legislation in the Senate with 60 votes.  The House then passed the exact same bill, and the Democrats moved to immediate reconciliation to remove the House concerns (Gator-Aid, Cornhusker Kickback, Louisiana Purchase etc.).
In 2017 the Republican congress are attempting to repeal and replace that ObamaCare legislation with only 52 Senate votes available, well, maybe.
Unfortunately for the GOP there are not even 52 votes for repeal.  Portman, Thune, Collins, Murkowski, Graham, McCain, Blunt, Cochran, Cornyn, Hatch, McConnell and others, are not necessarily on board; that’s 11. (Leaving only 41).
No amount of byzantine rule changes surrounding “reconciliation” are going to overcome that factual vote hurdle.  In 2009 Senator Reid started with 60 votes.  In 2017 Senator McConnell starts with 52.

So anything coming from the House of Representatives has to keep this reality in mind.  Even if support or opposition is based on ideological principle, it still has to pass – or it’s moot.
There’s no doubt the Paul Ryan proposal holds the worst U.S. CoC aspects demanded by Tom Donohue.  Heck, Donohue poured a lot of lobbying money into the entire architecture in ’09/’10 and he’s paid republicans in congress hundreds of millions to make sure his interests in keeping ObamaCare around are protected.  Ryan is big GOPe and he’s supported by the Big Club.
And, as much as Paul Ryan is beholden to Donohue to retain some form of ObamaCare, so too are the Rand Paul / Ted Cruz types paid by billionaires like Cary Katz (Conservative Review); who want an abject repeal without compromise. (more…)

You can tell who holds the leverage by the nerves and twitches.  Mexico says they would prefer trilateral trade talks including both Canada and the U.S.; Mexico also wants the talks trade talks to begin ASAP.
Secretary “Wolverine” Ross says bilateral is preferred and there’s no immediate hurry as he intends to notify congress over the next few weeks.  {spit}
Ok, well, he really didn’t spit, but still.  This is exciting stuff.  By mid-summer we shall feel like kids peeking through the fence holes at the O.K. Corral….

(Via CNBC) Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said Friday he hopes to start the formal process of renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement in coming weeks.
Under U.S. law, the government must tell Congress 90 days before it signs any new trade agreement. Ross said he wants to take the step of notifying lawmakers “sometime in the next couple of weeks.”
“We are now in the very early stages” of having the talks to change NAFTA, he said in a joint press conference with Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal, Mexico’s economic minister.
(more…)

Reposting part of a previous outline by request.  The repost is requested as an outcome of the latest wage rate news within the February labor report.  The wage rate increase is not being highlighted, and in some reports downplayed, by media.   However, the measurable matrices inside the space between two economic engines is responding according to prior outline on the new economic dimension.

First the recap of the day’s news on labor rates:

WASHINGTON DC – With the labor market near full employment, wage growth could speed up as companies are forced to raise compensation to retain employees and attract skilled workers. A proxy for take-home pay rose a solid 0.5 percent in February.

The annual wage increase is close to the 3 percent to 3.5 percent range that economists say is needed to lift inflation to the Fed’s 2 percent target. Inflation is already firming, in part as commodity prices rise.

(more…)

Earlier today President Trump and Vice President Pence held a meeting with key congressional committee leaders to discuss the ongoing healthcare reform.

[Transcript] 11:50 A.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT:  Hello, everybody.  I want to thank each of the House committee leaders for being with us today.  Your devotion and leadership has been amazing, and I want to just applaud you and the diligent work of your committees to advance the Obamacare repeal-and-replacement legislation that we’ve been talking about for a long time, and that we’ve been running with and I ran with, and I can tell you.  And that’s what people want, they want repeal-and-replace.  The bill passed just now through Ways and Means, and it will — I think the committee just voted recently, right?
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Put this in the ‘things you won’t see on CNN’ file: Trying to retain their resistant bona fides Democrat Representatives Elijah Cummings and Peter Welch emerge from a meeting with, with, with the bad man, President Trump, seemingly infected with r-r-r-respect.
Aiieeeee… resist we much, and we much, about this, be committed.. Pelosi desperately shouting: “stay away from the light… don’t walk toward the light”… oh noes, the swamp, they’re, they’re walking the-wrong-way…  OMG.  “Curse You Villain !!”
Elijah Cummings obviously having a hard time shaking it off.  It took him a few minutes to gather back his oppositional composure:

(more…)

…“and we will win, and you will win, and we will keep on winning; and eventually you will say we can’t take all of this winning, …please Mr. Trump …and I will say, NO, we will win, and we will keep on winning”.
~ Donald Trump

The February jobs report was released earlier today and the results stunned the markets. Employment in the private sector surged by 298,000 for the month However, no forecaster anticipated manufacturing and construction jobs growing over 106,000 jobs.
Construction jobs swelled by 66,000 and manufacturing added another 32,000. A stunning reversal in the sectors gaining the most significant growth in the first full month of a Donald Trump presidency:

The total shattered market expectations of 190,000, according to economists surveyed by ADP. The blockbuster report also solidified market expectations for the Fed to hike interest rates next week. Probability for an increase jumped to 91 percent after the release, according to the CME.
The report encompassed the first full month under President Donald Trump, who has pledged to rebuild the nation’s aging infrastructure system. (read more)

The results are so far beyond expectations that all current forecast models are being revised. (more…)

FACT: ObamaCare was passed, using the original legislative vehicle, at 1:38am on 12/24/09 with 60 votes in the Senate (see below).  The House then approved that Senate Bill without changes; and in February 2010 created a secondary bill which created the opportunity for the Senate to modify ObamaCare using “reconciliation” for a lower vote threshold of 51 votes.
Literally under the cloak of darkness Democrats rammed their holy grail of a socialist construct down the throat of every American. We no longer needed to imagine having usurping representation that did not represent the will of the people – we saw it.
[Understand the full construct by reading HERE]  If you do not understand how legislation is created; if you do not understand the difference between the Senate and House; if you do not understand the way ObamaCare was created, you really need to read this first.
A clean repeal bill, meaning a law to repeal the entire ObamaCare construct only, would require another 60 vote hurdle in the Senate.
Republicans, while in the majority, only control 52 seats.  Without 8 Democrats voting to approve a “repeal bill”, any House (Or Senate) bill that repeals ObamaCare cannot pass the Senate.
This is why Mark Levin is a con-man; selling snake oil as outrage to keep a listening audience angry, yet clueless and hopeless.   That’s what I don’t like.
A complete repeal of ObamaCare is currently impossible.  The House Freedom Caucus can push all the repeal bills they want, but they cannot get a clean repeal bill through the Senate because they cannot get the 60 votes needed. Period.
Additionally, despite claims to the contrary, the GOP has never passed an Obamacare “repeal bill”. Ever.  What they did previously pass was a “defund bill” using the lower vote reconciliation process. President Obama vetoed it.  A defunding bill was possible because of the financial pathway which falls under reconciliation rules.  The current Ryan bill is almost identical to the 2016 defunding bill everyone is mistakenly calling a prior “repeal bill”.
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Two important videos containing two important aspects to advancing legislation.  In the first video President Trump is meeting with Republican House “whip team”.  The role of the House Majority Whip, Steve Scalise, is to get the various republicans factions to unite in support of a singular legislative goal.  Unite the clans.
President Trump is not meeting with the House Majority Leader, Kevin McCarthy, because Trump views McCarthy as a weasel (don’t ask – just watch).  President Trump gives remarks to the media during the White House meeting:

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The second meeting is Speaker Paul Ryan, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Greg Walden. Ryan, McCarthy and Walden outline the three-step legislative process that a full and replace bill needs.
Walden outlines the House Energy and Commerce Committee beginning the mark-ups on the bill which starts tomorrow.
(more…)

Tread carefully, this is a Paul Ryan announcement which inherently means the various GOPe elements, legislative authors, are most likely the primary sources.

WASHINGTON—House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) issued the following statement on introduction of the American Health Care Act:
“Obamacare is rapidly collapsing. Skyrocketing premiums, soaring deductibles, and dwindling choices are not what the people were promised seven years ago. It’s time to turn a page and rescue our health care system from this disastrous law. The American Health Care Act is a plan to drive down costs, encourage competition, and give every American access to quality, affordable health insurance. It protects young adults, patients with pre-existing conditions, and provides a stable transition so that no one has the rug pulled out from under them.
“Working together, this unified Republican government will deliver relief and peace of mind to the millions of Americans suffering under Obamacare. This will proceed through a transparent process of regular order in full view of the public. I want to thank all of our members who have contributed their ideas, especially Chairman Walden and Chairman Brady, as well as Secretary Price and the Trump administration, for their commitment to keep this promise and get this right.”

Links To Bill – LINK #1 and LINK #2

 

The far-left Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, said this morning there were no wire taps at Trump Tower.   The far-right Director of Non-Intelligence, Mark Levin, outlines all the media reports claiming there were wire taps at Trump Tower.
So were there wire taps, and surveillance at Trump Tower or not?
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey scratches the clay from his cleats, rares back, and hurls an atomic fastball right down the middle.  Saying: Trump was “right” that there was surveillance on Trump Tower for intelligence purposes.  WATCH:

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“This is the difference between being correct and right. The president was not correct in saying President Obama ordered a tap on a server in Trump Tower. However, I think he’s right in that there was surveillance and that it was conducted at the behest of the attorney general – at the Justice Department through the FISA court.”

Here’s what’s going on, that almost everyone seems to be missing. (more…)