What Republicans Got for Allowing an Earlier Health Care Vote
December 27th, 2009 in Congress, Republican Party, Stimulus ~ No CommentsFrom OpenCongress:
Under the agreement allowing the earlier health care vote, Senate Republicans have been guaranteed votes on four amendments to the second debt ceiling bill that the Democrats would probably rather have avoided. According to the Senate Calendar, the Republicans will be allowed to hold votes on the following amendments (all will be subject to a 60-vote requirement) when the second debt ceiling vote takes place in January:
- Sen. Thune (R-SD) TARP amendment — would end the Troubled Assets Relief Program (Wall Street bailout) and require that all TARP funds that are repaid by banks be spent on reducing the debt. Many Democrats want to use repaid TARP money for job creation measures.
- Sen. Murkowski (R-AK) EPA amendment — seeks to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating greenhouses gas emissions if Congress fails to pass their own climate change legislation.
- Sen. Coburn (R-OK) rescission amendment — not much information available on this one, but it will likely change the rules and require that Congress votes on presidential rescission packages.
- Sen. Sessions (R-AL) spending caps amendment — would set spending caps for the next five years on all discretionary government spending. Besides entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security, the amendment would limit spending growth to a maximum of 2 percent per year for the next five years.
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