Tell your Senator: don't let the Baucus giveaway bill hit the floor.

[Pab Sungenis]

The Baucus bill started bad, and it just keeps getting worse. The weak-as-water Cantwell amendment now lets Senators pretend that they voted for a public option, when all they did was just enshrine the status quo.

If your Senator is one of the Democrats on the Finance Committee, tell them enough is enough. This bill is just a poison pill, and will give Harry Reid all the cover he needs to take all the real changes out when he "merges" this piece of crap with the Kennedy bill from the HELP committee.

It has to be stopped now. Tell the Democrats on Finance to vote NO on the Baucus bill and kill it in committee, so we can give the HELP bill a fighting chance.

[Cleita]

1. As soon as I get home, both are getting emails from me and

tomorrow, when I have time they will get phone calls and faxes too. Enough of Baucus.

[Pab Sungenis]

2. I see the Freeper unrec'ers are on this one already.

Didn't take you guys long, did it?

[frog92969]

10. Glad to lend a helping rec

Though my Senators aren't there.

[thunder rising]

3. Hey, it's not what we wanted, but we must get it out of committee to start the REAL fight

[Parker CA]

5. +1.

[Doremus]

6. Thank god someone knows how this works. Just pass it already so we can put the PO in!

[Faryn Balyncd]

18. Translates:"Let play gullible progressives for fools once more." (Pass a bad bill to "fix it later")

If we fall for that again, maybe that what we deserve.

[Doremus]

21. Are you aware that this bill is one of 3 from Senate committees?

Do you realize that it doesn't matter what kind of tripe Baucus and crew spit out because it's not the final bill?

Did you know that the House also has its own bill? Did you know the House and Senate will decide the final bill in conference? Did you know that Baucus' bill is the only one without a public option in it?

Please, do us all a favor and learn how a bill becomes law. Thank you.

[Pab Sungenis]

23. The best way to get a good bill out of conference

is to have two good bills going in. The House is going to give us a good bill. If the Senate bill going into conference is shit, it will be a lot harder to get a good bill out of the Conference Committee.

If we allow bullshit like this Abstinence Only shit and Cantwell's Smoke-Up-Your-Ass "Public" option out of committee, Reid might put them into the "merged" bill he creates from it and the Kennedy bill. Then if any of that crap gets through, it will be harder to get it out in conference.

The Baucus Bill needs to die. Bring the HELP bill to the floor intact.

[Faryn Balyncd]

24. That's the point.... and we need to kill this "tripe" (as you call it) right here in committee....

The idea that we should pass a horrible bill out of committee, with faith that it will be "fixed" in merger, with amendments on the Senate floor, or in joint conference, is (at best) naive ------ and an open invitation for disaster. (At worst, it is a cynical attempt to finesse progressives into supporting another corporate welfare bait & switch.)

This atrocious bill should be killed in committee and not allowed to further water down and corrupt the better senate bills (which are challenged as it is).

Our president should be putting the screws to Baucus, Conrad, and Lincoln.......NOT Jay Rockefeller.

The fact that the president is placing phone calls to Rockefeller, trying to get him to acquiesce to a bad, no-public-option, bill is simply pathetic.

It opens the question of whether our president is actually willing to sign into law a corporate welfare, no-public-option bill that is worse than the status quo, and which will make real reform more difficult, if not impossible....... or whether he has the balls to stand up to, fight and defeat the bastards.

Our president needs to publicly commit, unequivocally, to VETO the Baucus, or any other corporate welfare, no-public-option, bill.

A clear majority of Americans support Medicare-for-All.

If the president is willing to betray the American public & pass corporate welfare, pseudo-reform, we do not deserve to be in power.

[Pab Sungenis]

7. No we don't.

There's no need for this mess to get to the floor, which will let Reid "merge" it with HELP's bill taking out the Public Option and all the real reforms.

If this bill dies, then the HELP bill survives to go to the floor unscathed.

[valerief]

4. I'm in Massachusetts. It's so hard to tell my senators anything except

good job.

My rep is a co-sponsor for HR676, too!

[Barack_America]

8. How 'bout I ask him to combine Baucus's bill with the other ones that have public options.

Something tells me he'll agree to that.

[Pab Sungenis]

11. Reid has said that when he has to merge the bills

the Public Option goes. So we can't allow this bill to go to the floor and give Reid the excuse he needs.

KILL IT IN COMMITTEE!

[Barack_America]

12. ???

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4086551

[Pab Sungenis]

14. I think he's going to pretend that the Cantwell amendment

is a "public option." Before today, when she pretended to introduce a PO amendment, he had announced that he wasn't going to put the option in the final bill.

Tie his hands, give him only one bill to bring to the floor. Kill the Baucus bill now.

[Parker CA]

15. Do you have a link for that?? Everything I've heard recently shows a real PO will

be in the bill on Obama's desk by December. Harkin said today that the conference will likely not even include pubs.

[Pab Sungenis]

16. Link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=8673614

[Parker CA]

17. Thanks, but it's hard to take an article seriously that says...

"It’s true that these aides are anonymous, and that they’re not directly disclosing Reid’s thinking on the public option."

[Faryn Balyncd]

25. (especially since Reid doesn't think.)

[GreenPartyVoter]

9. My Senators are Olympia and Susan, but I'll see what I can do.

[Ironman3476]

13. My senators are Inhofe&Coburn, Lobotomies necessary.

[csziggy]

19. Talking to Bill Nelson is like having a conversation with a table

To borrow a phrase from Barney Frank. I call, and he does pretty much the opposite of what I want.

[Omnibus]

20. My Senators are Grassley (ugh) and Harkin.

Harkin's not on the Finance Committee, and Grassley, as a Repub, will probably vote against it anyway.

[blues90]

22. They aren't listening .

I have many times and get a form letter and always a way to donate money . Call and you get nothing either. It takes millions in DC or we will not be heard.

[Penguin31]

26. Tell my senators? I live in KENTUCKY...

The senior senator is *Mitch McConnell*, so that's right out.

Junior senator? Jim Bunning. Who voted "No" on CHIP reauthorization. The man who quoted as saying "Let me explain something: I don't watch the national news, and I don't read the paper. I haven't done that for the last six weeks. I watch Fox News to get my information."" and who said a primary opponent in '04 "looked like one of Saddam's sons". Enough said.

So yeah, telling my senators anything is a no-go.