Whatever happened to Senator Ben Nelson? That's a question supporters of the Hoeven-Corker amendment to the Gang of Eight Bill should be asking themselves. The former senator became a former senator by over estimating the limit of his electorate's patience. Nelson agreed to vote for Obamacare after he received a concession known as the Cornhusker Kickback that would spare Nebraska, and Nebraska alone, the cost of expanding Medicaid at the expense of the other 49 states. Nebraskans had more integrity than Nelson and as the outrage intensified the senator and his wife found it impossible to dine in public. Not surprisingly he retired rather than face the voters again.
The lesson that should have been learned is that the voters look at process and procedures as well as content when judging a bill. The Hoeven-Corker amendment is 1200 pages long. It has probably changed the original bill dramatically and given concessions to key senators to win their votes. We the voters and probably most of the Senate will not know what is in the bill until after the vote on Monday. There is almost no way any of the senators voting on it could have read it all, and it’s unlikely even their staff members could do so in a thorough and responsible way in that time. Only the people who wrote it will know what it says, and I imagine it was written in parts by numerous people from several senate offices.
One supposes that Rubio will have the good sense not to tell us that they must pass it to see what's in it but it's doubtful that he will recover his principles enough to oppose it. The public has seen this all before and the comparison to Obamacare is inevitable. An unpopular piece of legislation is rammed through the Senate by senators who have not bothered to read the bill. The Hoeven-Corker amendment does give House Republican the moral high ground to oppose the Gang of Eight Bill and will pretty much end Marco Rubio's future in the Republican Party. He is quickly become the new Ben Nelson.
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