Today, Senate Republicans and the entirety of the Republican party have managed to reach a new legislative low by vowing to vote on the latest draft of the Obamacare replacement bill without having an accurate CBO score on which to base their vote.
How will they pull that off?
Simply, the Republicans in the Senate claim that they accidentally missed the deadline to add on the controversial Cruz amendment to the latest assessment from the CBO.
This Amendment, so named because it was proposed by Senator Ted Cruz, would have drastic effects on the insurance markets. As such, it is important that those voting on the bill, and the American public at-large, would know what sort of real-life consequences the amendment would have on the bill.
Instead, Republicans “forgot” to include it, and will now plan to vote on the bill, Cruz Amendment included, despite having an inaccurate and incomplete CBO score.
Despite the fact that it was their mistake which should cause a delay in voting, they plan to move forward and vote, thereby depriving the American people and themselves from a clear-headed decision based on facts and the advice of other government agencies.
But while the idea of such a blind vote is frightening, what is possibly worst is that their refusal to follow the common-sense steps of passing major legislation may break precedent and change the senate forever.
As pointed out by Topher Spiro from the Center for American Progress,
7: But it’s worse than that: they’re casually destroying the very idea of nonpartisan, objective analysis.
— Topher Spiro (@TopherSpiro) July 14, 2017
We have seen how the Republican party is willing to change and disfigure the government for their own political ends, but this marks a new dark step in legislating. If we can’t even respect the most basic, non-partisan checks and balances ahead of some of the most major legislation passed in recent decades, what is there to protect ego and power from one side?
Now is as good of a time as any to reach out to your state’s senators and urge them to vote “No” on the latest bill – if not for its contents, for their complete inability to know what they are even voting for.
