Obama’s (Axelrod’s) Choreographed Media Blackout

The “most open and transparent” president in American history is still playing hide-and-seek with the press, and even the liberal New York Times has begun to notice it, as indicated by this headline: “Obama Turns His Back On the Press.”

If the mainstream media were not so ideologically wedded to Obama’s big-government agenda, they would be doing more than pointing out his secrecy and hypocrisy with the occasional headline. They’d be skewering him daily for his marked inaccessibility. Not having a genuine news conference since July would be remarkable for the least transparent administration, let alone one that made openness a signature campaign issue.

But not everyone in the leftist press is exercising such restraint about Obama’s media blackout. CBS News’ Chip Reid decided to ask Obama a question following his signing of the Freedom of the Press Act. Doing his best Hugo Chavez, Obama said, “I’m not doing a press conference today, but we’ll be seeing you guys during the course of this week.”

HotAirPundit posted a video of Reid explaining that he asked the question because the irony of Obama’s signing the Freedom of the Press Act while rarely fielding questions “in impromptu situations” was “too rich to resist.” Reid asked, “Mr. President, in the interest of press freedom, might you consider a couple of questions on BP?”

When Reid took Obama up on his noncommittal pledge and tried to ask him a question at the Rose Garden “news conference” with the president of Mexico a few days later, Obama ignored him.

This should surprise no one. A case could be made that Obama’s never had a news conference that he hasn’t largely controlled. He and his handlers, from David Axelrod to Rahm Emanuel, understand the importance of managing the press to control the message in the interest of advancing the leftist agenda.

They know that their statist goal of greatly expanding government depends on Obama’s not revealing any more than necessary how radical to the core he actually is because true transparency about his real agenda would be suicidal.

But his handlers also realize, even if Obama doesn’t, that the less scripted he is the more difficult it is to manage the message. And they understand that he ought not be allowed to venture too far from the teleprompter very often, lest he demonstrate that his manufactured reputation both for eloquence and wisdom are, well, manufactured.

Oh, yes, and don’t let me forget those manufactured bipartisan myths, but surely no one is clueless enough to pay any attention to those anymore.

There’s just no telling what he might say off the cuff, whether it’s an awkwardly inappropriate “shout-out” to Dr. Joe Medicine Crow before delivering curiously disconnected remarks on the Fort Hood massacre or telling Joe the Plumber we need to spread the wealth around a little or saying, “At a certain point, you’ve made enough money.”

But Obama’s repeated gaffes tell me that he’s too narcissistic to fully grasp that he often undermines his own cause when off-script because he can’t refrain from playing his hand.

But I would bet that in their inner-circle huddles, Obama’s handlers have somehow persuaded him — because he always must be the boss — to studiously avoid unscripted moments like the plague, leave the message scripting to the choreographers, and deal with any press blowback through damage control. That’s a much lesser evil than getting off-message.

In one of his extemporaneous moments at Hampton University, he unwittingly disclosed the administration’s MO, not that discerning observers didn’t already know it. He openly lamented the advent of the “24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter.”

He might as well have just directly said it: “I don’t like the free flow of information in the new media, which tends to impede the advancement of my agenda, which depends on keeping the public in the dark.”

That is exactly the philosophy of his appointed “diversity czar,” Mark Lloyd, who idolizes Hugo Chavez and believes freedom of speech must be subordinated to the left’s “greater” societal goals, and of his Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, who complained about the “overabundance” of ideas that might require government action to “un-skew.”

Think about it: Without Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the new media shining the light of truth daily, populist lies, such as that the Arizona law is racist and discriminatory, might go unchallenged.

We are dealing with a totalitarian mindset in this administration, and it might sound more civil to candy coat that fact, but it doesn’t serve the interests of truth or of the nation.

Read the original article Creators.com

Campaign Rivals Accuse Reid of Using Immigration Push to Help Senate Bid

KING: 100 percent repeal of Obamacare

By Rep. Steve King

President Obama, speaking at a rally in Iowa City on March 25, challenged opponents of Obamacare who have vowed repeal. To repeal advocates, the President said, “Go for it.”

Before the first light of dawn on the morning after this Pelosi Congress sent Obamacare to the President’s desk, I started the process to repeal.My decision to take this fight to and through the next election and probably through the presidential election in 2012 was not a knee jerk response to a legislative defeat.It is a commitment to the Constitution, fiscal responsibility, real health care reform and American Liberty.

President Obama, Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Reid – the troika that controls America today – have long had designs to shove America into the abyss of socialism. Their philosophy, political power and cynical effort to expand the dependency class all lined up to make Obamacare the law of the land. The highest price every generation of Americans will pay is not measured in dollars but in lost liberty.

America is a unique nation with unmatched vitality. The rights and liberties which transformed the “Dream” into the reality of American Exceptionalism are written on our hearts. We have a vitality that is unmatched because we have skimmed the cream of the crop off every donor civilization.

Millions have flocked to America because of the promise of liberty. They have joined natural born Americans to form the most vigorous culture on the planet. Every preceding generation has had the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail.

Obamacare is a reversal of the formula that has produced the world’s unchallenged greatest nation. For these reasons, 100 percent of Obamacare must be repealed.

With the massive costs of Obamacare, we cannot hope to pay our debts in our lifetimes or our children’s. Under Obamacare, costs will go up and quality will go down. Under Obamacare, we must go all the way to the Supreme Court to reestablish the Constitution as a pact limiting the reach of the federal government.

However, all of the aforementioned will not crush our national spirit like the oppressive weight of mandated dependency. Obamacare takes away the American right to manage our own lives.

The rights to “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” are prioritized rights. No one has the right to kill in the name of liberty just as no one has the right to take your liberty in pursuit of their happiness. Obamacare is a “taking” of our liberty.

We the People understand this intuitively and reject this injustice which will, if not repealed, bring about the American decline. We cannot “hide the decline” or “manage the decline.” We must decline the decline by repealing 100 percent of Obamacare.

Every provision of Obamacare must be repealed – not selective parts of it. Not by preserving a short list of less egregious components. Obamacare must be ripped out completely, lock, stock and barrel – root and branch – no vestige left behind – not a DNA particle of Obamacare retained.

The toxic stew of Obamacare would taint every effort to reform and give the next generation of leftist politicians their talking points for another assault on our liberty. Republicans will either stand unanimously together for 100 percent repeal, as we did against the bill, or our ranks will be split and our effort defeated.

The voracious appetite of the leftists to consume American Liberty has spontaneously created a new class of activists whom I define as the “constitutional conservatives.” They are the 9-12 Project groups, all the Tea Party groups, and the organizations who join in their efforts.

Constitutional conservatives are emerging as the new majority makers and will not support a partial repeal. They stood in the streets, town halls and capitols of our states and nation to “Kill the bill.”

No one demonstrated to “kill the most egregious aspects” or “preserve the least egregious aspects” of Obamacare. This is an all or nothing fight from this point forward. Either we will be unified, energized and resolute for 100 percent repeal or we will be divided and deservedly conquered by Obama, Pelosi and Reid.

This is a life or death struggle for the soul of America. We are the redoubt of Western Civilization. It is our charge to set the standard for the world.

From an upstart nation formed on the profound belief that all men are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” we have, over the past century assumed “among the Powers of the Earth,” the responsibility of sole superpower. We have defeated our enemies and saved Western civilization for the world.

We are not a nation created to mimic mediocrity. Our charge is to take this nation upwards to a new level of liberty and prosperity built upon the pillars of american exceptionalism.

Sen. McConnell: Republicans May Support Jobs Bill

Andrew Taylor

WASHINGTON – The top Republican in the Senate said Sunday that GOP lawmakers “may well” vote for a jobs bill this week.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., prefers a costlier version drafted with GOP input and he didn’t commit his support to advance the legislation on Monday to a final vote this coming week.

The pending measure would provide businesses that hire the unemployed a one-year break from payroll taxes and a $1,000 tax credit if those workers stay on the job for a full year. The cost is estimated at $13 billion.

The measure would extend a tax break for small businesses buying new equipment, provide a $20 billion infusion of highway and transit money, and help states and local governments finance big public works projects.

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., upset Republicans this month when he scrapped a bipartisan measure that had many more proposals that weren’t directly aimed at boosting job growth.

Reid dumped business tax breaks and other items on wish lists sought by lobbyists. But he also took out provisions to extend unemployment insurance for the long-term jobless and health insurance subsidies for the unemployed that expire on Feb. 28.

A key test vote looms Monday. It would take at least one Republican to advance Reid’s pared back bill to a final vote on Wednesday. McConnell spokesman Don Stewart said Republicans may try to slow debate down and seek to restore provisions that have been dropped, and hope the measure could advance in a few weeks.

But a Reid spokesman said Reid won’t bring back the full version negotiated between Sens. Max Baucus, D-Mont., and Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, which Reid criticized on a Nevada news program last week.

“The fat cats did pretty well,” Reid said last week on “Face to Face with Jon Ralston,” a Las Vegas news program.

The larger measure included about $33 billion in popular tax breaks, including an income tax deduction for sales and property taxes and a business tax credit for research and development, would be extended through 2010.

The tax breaks, more than 40 in all, expired at the end of 2009. They are routinely extended each year – the House voted to extend them in December – but the Senate never addressed them because senators were consumed by the health care debate.

Read the article CBNNews

Giles:Evil, Capitalistic,Bigoted America Comes to Haiti’s Assistance

Doug Giles

Thursday morning I was watching Fox & Friends to see what was going down in the aftermath of the apocalyptic earthquake that rocked Haiti. As I sat there in my shorts drinking my coffee, I was gobsmacked as I viewed the insane carnage inflicted by the 7.0 death-dealer that crushed that little nation seven hundred miles from my Miami bunker.

As the horrendous before and after satellite images of a city flattened by mother nature rolled, I became prouder and prouder of how the U.S., our 

magnificent military, and a stack of high-quality Christian organizations are flying into high gear with millions of dollars and thousands of people to sacrificially help—as in risk their lives—to do whatever they can to assist during such unimaginable suffering.

Basking in the warm glow of the American spirit in such a tragic event, I started getting kinda, sorta ticked off regarding how the Lefties repeatedly pitch our nation as an evil, bigoted, greedy, capitalistic, militarily-oppressive regime that loves to squish the underdogs.

Y’know, in reality—as in a blistering, natural disaster reality—one always finds that it is America that rocks the hardest in regard to real relief. We blow away other nations. Yep, whether it is a tsunami or an earthquake, you can count on evil, mean, nasty, bigoted, murderous, Christian American men and women to be the first responders to offer no-BS help in time of need.

It’ll be interesting to see how many (and at what level) Muslim organizations and nations, atheist organizations, Code Pink, PETA punks, Chavez and Castro, GLSEN, euro-socialist dillweeds, Green Peace, and Avatar’s woodsy blue people pony up and help the Haitians through their hellish nightmare. I wonder if they’ll even come close to our American Judeo-Christian largesse?

It’s also really interesting to me how mean, white America runs to relieve a city that’s 99.9% black without blinking. At least we’re not going around like Reid, Biden and Byrd and calling them “clean Negroes” who can turn their black slang on and off.

This just in! A buddy of mine Facebooked me a moment ago about how a couple of his evil Christian friends just got back from a 10-day missions trip to Haiti and are trying to head back. He continued to say that it is, no doubt, just a show they’re putting on to advance the conservative agenda and subvert the Religion of Peace.

In addition, my co-host on ClashRadio.com, Steve Pauwels sent me this note on Friday regarding his Marine son Sam saying, “We seek your prayers for our middle son, Sam, who is now awaiting his newest deployment down to Haiti … When I asked Sam how he was doing one hour ago, he said: “Fine. We just want to go.” (Note; he and his unit have been back in the states for ONE MONTH after being overseas for six months).” Ah, our evil wicked soldiers, eh Lefties?

You know, at the end of the day, countries and people who need true aid and who long for authentic liberty always look to the massive helping hands of the Judeo-Christian rooted, God blessed American men, women and military—and not to secularists, atheists, Islamists and grimy hippies who regularly blather about how bad America is.

Read the original article on TownHall

Why Does Obama Get to Absolve Reid?

Jennifer Rubin

Harry Reid’s egregiously inappropriate comment from the  2008 campaign that Obama is ”a  light-skinned” African-American who “lacked a Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one” is causing quite a stir. But let’s be clear: had any Republican said it, he or she would be chased from office by Monday. But Harry Reid is no Trent Lott and the standards are different for Democrats. (John McCormack points out that even Obama had a different standard in 2002.) In this case, Obama is trying to snuff out the controversy, declaring:

Harry Reid called me today and apologized for an unfortunate comment reported today. I accepted Harry’s apology without question because I’ve known him for years, I’ve seen the passionate leadership he’s shown on issues of social justice and I know what’s in his heart. As far as I am concerned, the book is closed.

Why does Obama decide when the “book is closed”? This was not a personal insult limited to Obama only. Reid’s comment was a peek into the views, prejudices, and attitudes of the Senate Majority leader. Reid is engaging in what’s textbook-definition of racism: evaluating someone on the basis of skin color. It isn’t up to Obama to wipe the slate clean. He is, after all, only the president, not the supreme court of racial justice. He might be the nation’s most prominent African American but he is not the spokesperson of an entire race, nor the nation’s designated spokesperson on racial matters.

When Obama tried be the nation’s official race policeman in Gatesgate, he got himself in a heap of trouble – jumping to conclusions without facts and seeming to condescend his fellow citizens. The country cringed, wondering why the president presumed to lecture us on race. In the case of Reid, Obama has every right to accept the apology himself. He isn’t, however, authorized to give Reid a get-out-of-hot-water card. That judgment — whether Reid, for expressing views most Americans find abhorrent, should suffer political consequences — belongs to voters and to his fellow senators. Reid might well get away with it, given the double standard on race for politicians of the two major parties. (Or it might be a handy excuse to show Reid the door.) But it’s not Obama’s call.

Read the original article on CommentaryMagazine

Schumer backed Obama before publicly supporting Hillary Clinton

New book ‘Game Change’ claims Sen. Schumer backed Obama before publicly supporting Hillary Clinton-
Kenneth R. Bazinet and Michael Mcauliff In Washington and Celeste Katz In New York 

Sen. Chuck Schumer secretly rooted for Barack Obama during the 2008 presidential race even though in public he was one of Hillary Clinton‘s biggest cheerleaders, a new book claims.

“Game Change,” an account of the historic election by reporters Mark Halperin and John Heileman, digs into the behind-the-scenes workings of the contest – and sparked some immediate pushback from the subjects of its reporting.

The book paints Schumer as a man torn between a need to make nice with the Clintons publicly – but also one convinced that Obama was the best pick for the job.

A Schumer aide vehemently denied the claims.

As the contest shaped up, Clinton-boosting senators like Schumer “would root for Obama secretly,” the book says, leaving little doubt as to where that group’s “head and heart were on the question.”

Schumer spokesman Josh Vlasto confirmed that when Obama approached him in 2006 about a possible run, Schumer told the Illinois senator he’d be a good candidate – “but he told Sen. Obama at the time, should Clinton announce, which was expected, that he would fully back her.”

“From the day she announced to the day she withdrew, [Schumer] was a full and complete supporter of then-Sen. Clinton and gave no help to the Obama campaign,” Vlasto said.

The book reports that in the summer of 2007, Schumer and others wanted Team Obama to get tougher on Clinton.

At one point, the authors contend, Schumer felt “Obama needed to take a two-by-four to Hillary,” the book says.

Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill was tapped as the messenger from the worried senators to the Obama campaign.

She denies feeling any such pressure.

“It wasn’t like he [Schumer] came to me and said, ‘Be for Barack Obama – I gotta be for Hillary,’” McCaskill told the Daily News Saturday. “He never, ever said a word to me that would give the kind of impression Reid have apparently smoothed things over regarding another explosive revelation in “Game Change” – that Reid once described Obama as “light-skinned” and “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”

Reid personally apologized to Obama – which the President accepted – and said he regretted “offending any and all Americans, especially African-Americans” with his comments.

Read the original article on NYDailyNews

Repeal the Health Bill

Christopher Chantrill

Sooner or later, the American people must rise up and do more than complain about the latest wizard wheeze of the progressive educated class. We must take one of their gigantic government takeover bills and flat-out repeal it.
Otherwise, they will return every generation and lay another unjust burden upon us.

Why don’t we do it to the Frankenstein’s monster of a health bill now in final delivery, courtesy of the Obama administration and the Reid/Pelosi Congress? The Obama-Reid-Pelosi bill takes one-sixth of the economy and puts it under the power of the administrative state.

Over the last century, our liberal friends had one great advantage: Their naked power plays were written up by liberal journalists and historians as the very essence of progress and justice. Woe betide the dissident conservative who attempted to tell a different story.

But then, in the fall of 2008, a political blessing came. The Democrats won the presidency, and eventually a filibuster-proof majority in Congress. They had the opportunity to ram through legislation that their liberal base wanted and that the American people hated, and they took it. They rammed their corrupt and unjust health bill down the throats of the American people. And the American people saw their liberal masters as they really are.

Last week, Michael Barone recalled a similar moment in American history. It was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, championed by Sen. Stephen Douglas (D-IL), that repealed the Missouri Compromise of 1820. The act said, “Hey, fellas out there in the newly-settled territories! You can vote slavery in or out for your state, as the mood takes you.”

Sen. Douglas thought that he had resolved the slavery issue once for all. But he was wrong. Instead, he set off a political earthquake. The Democrats lost seventy seats in the House of Representatives in the elections of 1854 and two new parties, the American Party and the Republican Party, arose to oppose their unjust and immoral Kansas-Nebraska Act. If seventy seats doesn’t seem all that much to you, don’t forget that the House had 252 seats in 1854. In today’s House with 435 seats, the equivalent would be 121 seats changing hands next November.

The Politico‘s Lisa Lerer and Chris Frates cast a jaundiced eye upon the tactics of the health bill repeal idea as a cheap political trick.

The repeal-or-bust strategy is designed to give Republican candidates a powerful talking point for the midterms – a way to tap into deep anxiety about the health care plan among the GOP base and independent voters.

Some Republicans say they don’t see what all the fuss is about.

“They can push for repeal; they’re just not going to get it,” said Tom Davis, former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. “I think there are probably better targets for Republicans.”

We will see a lot more of this from experts and pundits still mired in the old politics.

That was then. This is now. In 2009, we conservatives had the blinders pulled off our eyes. We thought that the Reagan-Bush years had established a rough national consensus that one-size-fits-all government centralism is a failure. National politics would now follow the example of the successful welfare reform. The era of big government is over, President Clinton told us.

Now we know that we were wrong.  The Obama Democrats are like the French Bourbon kings after the fall of Napoleon. After thirty years of Reagan and Bush, they have learned nothing, and they have forgotten nothing. Given a brief opening, they have stampeded back to the big-spending liberalism they love — only this time, it’s on steroids.

So the question before the American people is simple and straightforward. Shall we allow this injustice to stand, or shall we band together and work and fight in 2010, and every year thereafter, until the stain upon our national honor is expunged and the present generation of liberal leaders is banished to political oblivion?

Let every American know that Reid plus Pelosi plus Obama equals injustice.

Read the original article on American Thinker

Obamacare sparking 10th Amendment rebellion, action in seven states

By: Mark Tapscott

Looks like the steadily growing list of constitutional, ethical and political outrages that constitute the Harry Reid version of Obamacare is sparking a rebellion in the states, as AP reports South Carolina’s attorney general plans to investigate the vote-buying that surrounded the proposal in the Senate majority leader’s office.

According to AP, South Carolina’s Henry McMaster is being joined by the attorneys general of Michigan and Washington state in a suit to determine the constitutionality of the Obamacare proposal. Their initiative was prompted by a request from South Carolina’s two senators, Lindsay Graham and Jim DeMint, both Republicans.

Attorneys-general in at least four other states are also considering joining McMasters, according to AP. A move by a group of states to challenge the constitutionality of Obamacare could reinvigorate the efficacy of the 10th Amendment, which reserves  to the states or the people all rights not specifically granted to the federal government.

Graham has been all over cable news today visibly angry about the vote-buying by Reid that secured the votes of Senators Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, as well as possibly other senators as yet unknown.

DeMint has also been active, especially on the issue of the Reid amendment’s provision seeking to bar future congresses from changing even a single word of Section 3403 on the Independent Medicare Advisory Board (IMAB).

The IMAB will become the federal health care ground zero under Obamacare if it becomes law. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has a link to DeMint’s floor speech on the issue and additional information, analyses, and links.

Nelson’s deal with Reid has attracted the most attention because it exempts Nebraska from paying its share of Medicaid expenses in perpetuity. Medicaid expenditures are among the most expensive federal mandates on state governments, and the Obamacare bill will significantly increase costs for all other states that don’t somehow wangle a similar deal.

It also raises a constitutional issue, which McMasters explained in a statement issued earlier today:

“The Nelson provision is unusual in that there is not cut off date or phase out. Many provisions in federal law have a sunset date — say 2, 5, 10, or even 20 years– but this provision will continue in perpetuity. Quite obviously, this issue raises very serious concerns about equity, tax fairness as well as the constitutionality of having federal tax levies and mandates that treat one state differently from all the others.

“If the Nelson provision is not unprecedented, I feel comfortable in saying it is an exceptionally rare occurrence. States generally are treated in a similar manner. In this case, Nebraska will be treated in a widely divergent manner than any other state.

“Beginning today, I have instructed my attorneys to begin looking into the constitutionality of this provision and exploring the options that may be available to South Carolina and other states to defend taxpayers should this provision ultimately become law.”

My colleague David Freddoso wonders what might happen if the governors of states bordering Nebraska – Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Iowa, and Missouri – announce that they are no longer funding their Medicaid programs and encourage those needing Medicaid services to visit the Cornhusker state.

Read the original article Washington Examiner

Democrats Clinch Deal for Deciding Vote on Health Bill

By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and CARL HULSE

WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats said Saturday that they had clinched an agreement on a far-reaching overhaul of the nation’s health care system and forged ahead with efforts to approve the legislation by Christmas over Republican opposition.

As the Senate convened in a blizzard, Democratic leaders hailed a breakthrough that came when Senator Ben Nelson, Democrat of Nebraska, agreed to back the bill after 13 hours of negotiations on Friday, making him the pivotal 60th vote for a measure that President Obama has called his top domestic priority.

“Change is never easy, but change is what’s necessary in America,” Mr. Nelson said at a morning news conference. “And that’s why I intend to vote,” he said, “for health care reform.”

Mr. Obama, appearing on television from the White House, said: “Today is a major step forward for the American people. After nearly a century-long struggle, we are on the cusp of making health care reform a reality in the United States of America.”

The legislation, the most significant overhaul of the nation’s health care system in more than a generation, seeks to extend health benefits to more than 30 million uninsured Americans.

The blinding snow outside the Capitol added to what had already been a chaotic few weeks for the Senate, which has met every day since Nov. 30 and was working through its third consecutive weekend. The sergeant-at-arms had four-wheel-drive vehicles at the ready to bring lawmakers in for votes. And while senators wore the jackets and ties required on the Senate floor, dress shoes gave way to boots.

Mr. Nelson committed his vote after winning tighter restrictions on insurance coverage for abortions, as well as increased federal health care aid for his state.

With Senate leaders increasingly confident that they would pass the bill, Mr. Nelson pointedly warned that he would oppose the final version if negotiations with the House, which approved its bill last month, result in changes that he does not like.

But House liberals are expected to resist some concessions made in the Senate. To secure the votes of centrist holdouts, Senate leaders dropped a proposed government-run health insurance plan, or public option, and an alternate plan to let some people ages 55 to 65 buy coverage through Medicare, both favored by liberals.

Because the Democrats nominally control 60 seats in the Senate — the precise number needed to overcome a Republican filibuster — every senator in the Democratic caucus effectively has veto power over the bill. No Republican is willing to support it.

“The lines are drawn,” said Senator Richard M. Burr, Republican of North Carolina. “He has to get 60 votes. If he doesn’t get 60 votes, the American people win. If he does get them, America’s payback will come in the form of the 2010 elections.”

Not all Democrats have publicly said they will vote for the bill, but Senate leaders and senior White House officials believe they have agreement.

“All Senate Democrats stand shoulder to shoulder with President Obama and the American people, who know that inaction is not an option,” the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, said at a news conference.

Faced with Republican resistance that many Democrats saw as driven more by politics than policy disagreements, Senate Democrats in recent days gained new determination to bridge differences among themselves and prevail over the opposition.

Lawmakers who attended a private meeting between Mr. Obama and Senate Democrats at the White House on Tuesday pointed to remarks there by Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, as providing some new inspiration.

Mr. Bayh said that the health care measure was the kind of public policy he had come to Washington to work on, according to officials who attended the session, and that he did not want to see the satisfied looks on the faces of Republican leaders if they succeeded in blocking the measure.

The measure would extend health benefits by expanding Medicaid and providing subsidies to help moderate-income people buy private insurance. It would require nearly all Americans to obtain insurance or pay financial penalties for failing to do so.

By redrawing the health care sector, the legislation stands to reshape roughly one-sixth of the American economy.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the legislation would cost $871 billion over 10 years, with the expense more than offset by revenues from new taxes and fees and by reductions in government spending, particularly on Medicare.

The budget office said the bill would reduce future deficits by $132 billion over that period.

Republicans have accused Democrats of using accounting tricks to hide the true cost of the measure, which they predicted would be huge, particularly if Congress did not follow through with the Medicare cuts.

In place of the public option, the Senate bill would create at least two national insurance plans modeled after those offered to federal workers, including members of Congress. The bill includes a new government-run long-term-care insurance program. And it imposes tight new regulations on the health insurance industry, barring insurers from denying coverage based on pre-existing medical conditions and limiting how much extra they can charge based on age.

Read the original article NewYorkTimes page 2