House Republicans plan performance art on the House floor

The piece of performance art that will be launched next week on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by House Republicans in a vain attempt to repeal the historic health care insurance reform bill passed last March will add, if successful, $230 billion in the first decade and roughly one-half of one percent of GDP, or over a trillion dollars, in the second decade, to the budget deficit, according to a report by the independent and bipartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

Of course, Republicans immediately tried to discredit the CBO that they routinely use when they get results they want, and new Speaker of the House John “The crying man” Boehner dismissed the report and released a report of his own. The Boner accused the Democrats of somehow rigging the report. Perhaps he missed the part about the CBO being independent and non-partisan. Instead, the Republicans made up their own facts in a report that got the results they wanted.

Who would you believe; an independent, nonpartisan fiscal agency or the Boner.
This lame attempt to overturn a popular and historic law is another waste of time. If it gets enough votes in the House, which it should, it will never get out of the Senate, and on Thursday, the President made it clear he will veto the bill if by some miracle it gets out of the Senate.

In a statement of administration policy released by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the administration said that repeal would "would explode the deficit, raise costs for the American people and businesses, deny an estimated 32 million people health insurance, and take us back to the days when insurers could deny, limit or drop coverage for any American."

"If the President were presented with H.R. 2, he would veto it," the statement said, emphasizing this with an underline.

But political theatre is nothing new to Republicans; like Thursday when they killed an hour and a half to read the U.S. Constitution line by line, at least the parts they liked, on the floor of the House on opening day of the 112th Congress.

Republicans have a history of performing and pandering for the teabaggers, and this was no different. The farce even had a birther disrupt the proceedings.

Perhaps they are not aware that all laws must pass constitutional muster before the third equal branch of government, the judiciary. Apparently, some Republicans skipped the reading, and they did not hear the part where only members of Congress can vote and make motions on the House floor.

Rep. Pete Sessions, R- Texas, made a motion to open the first act of the GOP’s performance of repealing health care insurance reform, an action that can only be taken by an official member of Congress. Sessions, however, missed Wednesday’s swearing-in ceremony while he and fellow Republican Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, R-Penn, attended a fundraiser.