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President Barack Obama is pushing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to go further than Obama has previously disclosed to strip the final health care reform bill of the narrow deals aimed at appeasing specific senators.
The president wants to eliminate more than just Sen. Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback” and Sen. Bill Nelson’s agreement to shield 800,000 Florida seniors from Medicare Advantage cuts, the White House told POLITICO Wednesday in response to questions about other deals in the bill.
Obama has asked Reid to strike provisions requested by senators from at least five other states, in an unusual move that accentuates the culture clash between the president’s rhetoric on changing the ways of Washington and the Senate leader’s needs to exercise the old-fashioned tools of Congress to pass laws.
“We’ve removed many of the special provisions that initially found their way into the legislation, and we’ve made it clear to the Senate that the president’s position is that the final bill shouldn’t include any earmarks or provisions that would favor a single state or district over the rest of the country,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said in a statement Wednesday.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the decision on what to keep in the bill rests with congressional leaders and that no determinations have been made.
Senators whose deals have been targeted — some of whom did not know the deals might be in danger — said they would fight to maintain them, arguing they are in no way as egregious as the Cornhusker Kickback.
“We have defended it, and we will defend it,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose state picked up $600 million in extra Medicaid funding for having already expanded its coverage of low-income individuals.
But ever since last-minute deal making helped sour voters on the Senate bill that passed on Christmas Eve, any provision identified by Republicans or the media as benefiting a single state or a small number of states has sat on shaky ground.
Obama tried to publicly distance himself from the deals, saying he wasn’t in the room when they were struck, even though some of his aides were. The president rankled Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by criticizing them for doing what generations of their predecessors have done: cut deals. And in the process, he may have made it entirely untenable for them to deploy one of the tried-and-true methods for muscling major reforms through Congress.
“Legislators need pork to make things happen,” Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University professor of history and public affairs, wrote in POLITICO Wednesday. “It is unrealistic to expect that legislative leaders won’t use one of the few tools at their disposal to get things done.”
Zelizer noted that then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson promised the construction of a federal dam in exchange for votes for the Civil Rights Act of 1957 from a group of Western Democrats.
In a letter to congressional leaders last week, Obama targeted the Nebraska and Florida deals for elimination. (The Florida provision could also shield some seniors in California, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according Sen. Bill Nelson's office.) But in response to questions from POLITICO, the White House detailed other provisions that the president wants to see removed.
The president wants to eliminate more than just Sen. Ben Nelson’s “Cornhusker Kickback” and Sen. Bill Nelson’s agreement to shield 800,000 Florida seniors from Medicare Advantage cuts, the White House told POLITICO Wednesday in response to questions about other deals in the bill.
Obama has asked Reid to strike provisions requested by senators from at least five other states, in an unusual move that accentuates the culture clash between the president’s rhetoric on changing the ways of Washington and the Senate leader’s needs to exercise the old-fashioned tools of Congress to pass laws.
“We’ve removed many of the special provisions that initially found their way into the legislation, and we’ve made it clear to the Senate that the president’s position is that the final bill shouldn’t include any earmarks or provisions that would favor a single state or district over the rest of the country,” White House spokesman Reid Cherlin said in a statement Wednesday.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley said the decision on what to keep in the bill rests with congressional leaders and that no determinations have been made.
Senators whose deals have been targeted — some of whom did not know the deals might be in danger — said they would fight to maintain them, arguing they are in no way as egregious as the Cornhusker Kickback.
“We have defended it, and we will defend it,” said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose state picked up $600 million in extra Medicaid funding for having already expanded its coverage of low-income individuals.
But ever since last-minute deal making helped sour voters on the Senate bill that passed on Christmas Eve, any provision identified by Republicans or the media as benefiting a single state or a small number of states has sat on shaky ground.
Obama tried to publicly distance himself from the deals, saying he wasn’t in the room when they were struck, even though some of his aides were. The president rankled Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi by criticizing them for doing what generations of their predecessors have done: cut deals. And in the process, he may have made it entirely untenable for them to deploy one of the tried-and-true methods for muscling major reforms through Congress.
“Legislators need pork to make things happen,” Julian Zelizer, a Princeton University professor of history and public affairs, wrote in POLITICO Wednesday. “It is unrealistic to expect that legislative leaders won’t use one of the few tools at their disposal to get things done.”
Zelizer noted that then-Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson promised the construction of a federal dam in exchange for votes for the Civil Rights Act of 1957 from a group of Western Democrats.
In a letter to congressional leaders last week, Obama targeted the Nebraska and Florida deals for elimination. (The Florida provision could also shield some seniors in California, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according Sen. Bill Nelson's office.) But in response to questions from POLITICO, the White House detailed other provisions that the president wants to see removed.