Day By Day December 21, 2009 – He Works Hard for the Money

Democrat Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska provided the 60th vote necessary to invoke cloture and speed a watered-down version of Obamacare to a full Senate vote. It is being called by the GOP as “Cash for Cloture.”

It was the concern of Nebraska’s Republican governor over expanded Medicaid costs in the proposed Senate health care overhaul bill that led to a compromise to cover his state’s estimated $45 million share over a decade, U.S. Sen. Ben Nelson said Sunday.

Gov. Dave Heineman “contacted me and he said this is another unfunded federal mandate and it’s going to stress the state budget, and I agreed with him,” the Nebraska Democrat said. “I said to the leader and others that this is something that has to be fixed. I didn’t participate in the way it was fixed.”

But Heineman expressed anything but gratitude, saying he had nothing to do with the compromise and calling the overhaul bill “bad news for Nebraska and bad news for America.”

“Nebraskans did not ask for a special deal, only a fair deal,” Heineman said in a statement Sunday.

That criticism is only a taste of what Nelson has received since announcing Saturday that he would become the 60th vote needed to advance the landmark legislation.

Despite the perks Nelson managed to garner for Nebraska in finally agreeing to support the overhaul bill, the backlash from those who wanted Nelson to hold a hard line against the measure was immediate.

Abortion foes howled in protest. Nebraska Right to Life, which has long endorsed Nelson, issued a scathing statement that dubbed Nelson a traitor. The state’s Catholic bishops followed Sunday with a statement that they were “extremely disappointed” in him.

The chairman of Nebraska’s Republican Party declared Nelson’s decision to be the end of his political career in Nebraska, and within hours of Nelson’s announcement, the state GOP launched a Web site, , to collect funds to oust the Democrat in the 2012 election.http://www.givebentheboot.com

Nebraska’s Republican Sen. Mike Johanns said he was “stunned and incredibly disappointed,” and called the compromise’s abortion language a “watered-down accounting gimmick that leads to Nebraska taxpayers subsidizing abortions in other states.”

The Obama sanctioned Senate bill must now be voted upon by the full Senate and then proceed to a House-Senate Conference Committee where it will be reconciled.

Stay tuned as the more LEFT members of the House attempt to place back “big government” and abortion-funding provisions which were summarily removed from the Senate version.

What was noteworthy on the Senate vote, was that NO GOP Senators voted for the bill. The Democrats own this bill and will OWN all of the tax increases and deficit spending.

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