The democrats have reached a compromise on the competing stimulus plans from the House and Senate. Notice I how I say the Democrats, because they were the only ones allowed into the meeting. Obama had staff there, Reid and Pelosi were obviously there, but somehow the Republican’s didn’t get a seat at the table.

Republicans have caught the Democrats in a midnight “stimulus” power play that seeks to cut Republican conferees out of the House-Senate negotiations to resolve a final version of the Obama “stimulus” package. Staff members from the offices of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) met last night to put together the “stimulus” conference report.

They intend to attempt to shove this $1.3 trillion spending bill through in the dead of the night without Republican input so floor action can take place in both chambers on Thursday.

That’s interesting because I could have sworn Obama said these things at his press conference Monday night…

“It’s a plan that is already supported by businesses representing almost every industry in America, by both the Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. It contains input, ideas and compromises from both Democrats and Republicans.”

“And whether we’re Democrats or Republicans, surely there’s got to be some capacity for us to work together, not agree on everything, but at least set aside small differences to get things done.”

He sure threw out a lot of bipartisan rhetoric in that press conference didn’t he? Most of which wasn’t followed through on when the final stimulus compromise was going down. Obama could have asked Pelosi and Reid to bring Republicans into the negotiating room and work through the night to get a compromise, but he didn’t.

Despite the Republicans not even having a say in the final “compromised” bill, Vice President Joe Biden thinks it’ll pass with bipartisan support.

On a trip to Pennsylvania, where he stumped on behalf of the economic recovery plan, Biden told reporters: “We are going to have this bill, hopefully, by today.”

I understand being optimistic but that’s a bit too optimistic. Saying that would assume that the House can vote it through tonight and the Senate could vote it through, without a filibuster, as well. I don’t think the GOP is too receptive of this bill after being shut out of negotiations.

But let’s talk about the compromised bill.

First off, they did cut some money from it, that’s a good start. The total now sits at $789 billion, down from up to $838 billion. According to Harry Reid, a third of the bill is tax cuts (actually tax credits, I’m assuming there are no rate cuts in the bill). According to reports the bill falls short in money for school modernization. Most likely because some moderate Republicans in the Senate stood against that measure and would vote if it was included.

Oh but it gets so much better. There was talk before the compromise that the Senate bill included some creepy stuff about health care, including forcing doctors to get approval for procedures by the government. According to reports, the new compromised bill goes further and begins to ration health care.

Rep. John Shadegg (R.-Ariz.) issued a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D.-Calif.) asking language be stripped from the bill to eliminate the creation of a $1.1 billion government agency he says could deny lifesaving medical treatment to Americans under a nationalized health care system.

The provision at issue is one placed into the bill by House Appropriations Chairman Rep. David Obey (D.-Ohio) to create a “Federal Coordinating Council.” The council would be established to conduct “Comparative Effectiveness” research on the efficiency of health care treatments.

“In other countries where they’ve done this research they’ve used it to deny care…It’s preparing America, at least in this instance, the worst aspects of universal health care and that’s government rationing,” Shadegg said.

The provision in the bill would allow the council to review procedures and then those “that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed.”

There’s this distorted notion that the government has the people in mind and, unlike the big health care corporations, they don’t care about money. That’s false. If the government is providing health care they’ll find the most cost effective way to do it. And if that means cutting procedures that cost too much, despite their effectiveness, so be it.

This bill doesn’t have to be on Obama’s desk until February 16, at least that’s Obama’s due date. I sincerely hope that for the sake of democracy Congress spends that time wisely and debates this bill. Most of this spending won’t even happen until 2010, they have time. As I’ve said before it would be irresponsible to pass an 800+ page bill that spends nearly a $1 trillion in a matter of days. They need to give time to Congressmen to at least pretend like they’ve read it.

–jb