Is the Senate Re-thinking Cap and Trade? They better be.

Cap and Trade, if passed, will be the mother of all boondoggles. It is an economic train wreck and ironically, would be the saving grace of the Republican Party. Democrats are beginning to notice. Thankfully.

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Congress closes in on budget; GOP offers its own

By Andrew Taylor
Associated Press

WASHINGTON - The House took up a budget plan yesterday that would allow Democrats to enact health-care legislation more easily, while Senate Republicans won a key vote to slow the advance of global-warming legislation.
As debate continued on nonbinding Democratic budget plans largely mimicking President Obama's $3.6 trillion budget proposal, Republicans in the House offered an alternative that would eventually end the Medicare program as it is now known.

For all the pell-mell developments on Capitol Hill, Obama's budget proposal, while stripped to its essentials, appeared on track to pass today.

The House and Senate budget resolutions are a necessary step toward enacting major legislation such as Obama's plans to overhaul the health-care system.

Much of the debate centered on who is to blame for mammoth deficits and what to do about them. But the most contentious question may be whether to use the budget plans as a precursor to advancing health-care legislation under fast-track rules that would allow it to pass the Senate by a simple majority after just a 20-hour debate.

As a general rule, debate is freewheeling in the Senate and most bills need 60 votes to advance, guaranteeing leverage to the minority party.

House leaders are insisting on having a filibuster-proof bill at the ready if bipartisan efforts to pass health care fall apart. That effort is being resisted by the Senate, though it seems increasingly clear that the final House-Senate compromise on the budget is likely to allow health-care reform to pass on a fast track.

After a decisive vote yesterday, apparently global-warming legislation will not advance on such a filibuster-proof path. By a 67-31 tally, the Senate adopted an amendment against allowing cap-and-trade legislation to pass the Senate with fewer than 60 votes.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said the Senate "slammed the door on using the fast-track process to jam through a new national energy tax."

In the House, Republicans unveiled a budget plan that would gradually eliminate traditional fee-for-service Medicare, offering a stark alternative to blueprints from Obama and his Democratic allies.

The plan would have future Medicare beneficiaries enroll in private insurance plans and receive a subsidy on their premiums. Benefits would not change for people in the program or those 55 or older.

"If we don't reform our entitlement programs, they go bankrupt and people's benefits get cut automatically," said Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.), author of the plan. Democrats said the GOP proposal would result in sharply higher costs for the elderly.