Below is from my FNC colleague James Rosen:
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I just spoke with a House GOP lawmaker who told me he intends to vote “no” on the compromise. This lawmaker was present on the GOP conference call and quoted Speaker Boehner as saying both “We got 98 percent of what we wanted” and that “The minority leader’s on board,” which prompted this lawmaker to ask: “Really? Nancy’s cool with only 2 percent? She’s that stupid?”
Most importantly: This lawmaker says: “Obamacare got protected; the military got screwed” in this compromise. Here’s how, according to this view:
If the Joint Committee’s proposed cuts are not enacted, and there is no vote on a balanced budget amendment, then automatic, across-the-board cuts are enacted; this process is called “sequestration.” Under the terms of sequestration as forged in this compromise, right off the bat, half of the cuts that get enacted come from…the Department of Defense. Medicaid, Social Security, veterans, and civil and military pay are exempted from these “sequestration” cuts.
So this lawmaker asked, in language not reproduced here: “Why is D.O.D. bearing half the costs of sequestration? We’re a country at war, for God’s sake! And why are civilian government employees treated like military?” This lawmaker quoted Boehner as saying on the call: “I’m comfortable with the firewalls for Defense.” This prompted this lawmaker to say: Why?
And the lawmaker asked why Medicaid isn’t subject to sequestration. The theory he advanced was that “Obamacare,” as he put it, will be pursued by pushing greater numbers of recipients of government health care benefits to Medicaid.
Still, the lawmaker predicted the measure will pass the House, noting that the House GOP Conference now includes a lot of Ron Paul-style libertarians who think this will hasten the end of the wars, and who “don’t care about [the Department of] Defense.”
“They didn’t tell us how many votes Pelosi is bringing,” the lawmaker concluded. He requested anonymity so as to be able to speak candidly.
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