I'm Just a Bill

David Waldman on DailyKos has an excellent lesson on how a bill is made in his discussion on how Republicans can try to force a reading of the entire voluminous Health Care Reform bill. Put briefly:

• Republicans CANNOT force a reading of the bill if the Senate takes up the bill passed by the House of Representatives. If the Senate takes up the House bill only the titles need be read.
• The Republican ploy only works if the Senate gets all egotistical and tries to pass its own, wholly different bill. This is because by the Constitution the Senate does not get first shot at revenue bills and the Health Care Reform bill is, in part, a revenue bill. Hence, the Senate must do its separate bill by amending an existing House bill. Amendments must be read in full.

I'm not in love with the Health Care Reform bill as passed by the House (Stupak Amendment). Still, remove that amendment and the House bill is a marginal improvement. The Senate can take up the House bill and leave Tom Coburn holding his flaccid dick.

Unfortunately, at least half of the Democrats in the United States Senate are megalomaniacs who would rather see the nation's population dying in the streets that have any major piece of legislation pass that they did not have a personal hand in writing.

Rather than just leaving Tom Coburn looking like a fool, the Senate Democrats (Harry Reid) prefer making the entire body look like clowns.