UPDATE: Nancy Pelosi is joining with me and just spoke out about the August recess:
Nancy Pelosi on staying through August:
Asked at a press conference whether she'd support keeping the House of Representatives in session into the August recess to complete work on health care reform, Speaker Nancy Pelosi was fairly adamant.
"I think 70 percent of the American people would want that," she said. "I want a bill. I have no doubt we have the votes on the floor of the House to pass this legislation," she said.
When I heard Joe Lieberman say on MSNBC that he wanted to wait until after the August recess and take the health care bill home with him during his vacation to read it I knew it was a ball of lies to destroy the legislation and it got me thinking. What if the gang of six and the rest of Congress had to forfeit their vacations in August so they could finish up a health care bill? Could it stop them from making a mockery out of this important legislation and actually get the bill done on time like it should be? That's one of the reasons why I asked President Obama if he would tell Congress to forego their August recess if they try and stall the health care legislation on the Blogger Conference call.
Andrea Mitchell picked up on it and asked Senator Wyden about needing more time. Wyden said he'd give up his vacation to get it done.
Mitchell: Senator, do you think these bills could be done by the August break or should there be more time?
Wyden: I want to stick to the president's time table. The president said, he wanted health coverage legislation passed this year. I think he's right to put his foot to the peddle, I support that. Now the letter that the moderate sent, we don't say anything about delaying the August recess, In fact I'm prepared to stay here all the way through the August recess. I told my wife and my spouse, nothing is more important in my view than fixing health care. You can't get the economy on track unless you fix health care. I'm prepared to put off the August recess.
Mitchell: What did your wife have to say about that?
She wasn't exactly cheering for it, but she said ever since you were co-director of Panthers I've heard you talk about this issue so you ought to stay with it.
Mitchell: OK, support from the home front...
I know Andrea Mitchell thought she was making a joke when she brought up his wife, but this isn't a jokey situation. It's real and it's a crisis and they better do their jobs. America is waiting. And if it means that they work like most of America then so be it.
The media is picking up this question now more and more and hopefully they will ask all the Blue Dogs and conservative Dems if they will forego the August recess and work to get us a bill.
By the way, Paul Krugman debunked the gang of six in his post: The six deadly hypocrites
Will the destructive center kill health care reform? It looks all too possible.
What’s especially galling is the hypocrisy of their claimed reason for delaying progress — concern about the fiscal burden. After all, in the past most of them have shown no concern at all for the nation’s long-term fiscal outlook.
Case in point: the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which denied Medicare the right to bargain for lower drug prices, locked in overpayments to private insurance companies, and did nothing, nothing at all, to pay for its proposed outlays. How many of these six self-proclaimed defenders of solvency voted no on the crucial procedural vote? One. (Joe Lieberman, to my surprise.)
And let’s not forget that Ben Nelson, who appears to be the ringleader, has fought tooth and nail against competition from a public option — which would almost certainly save a significant amount of money, as well as providing much-needed competition. If the Gang of Six really does kill reform, remember their names; they will bear the responsibility for vast, unnecessary suffering over the years to come.
They've had this legislation for six months these hypocrites so either do it now or do it during the August recess, it's your call.
