what happened? now, it s one thing to have an honest difference of opinion on something. there s nothing wrong with that. you can t walk away from your responsibilities to confront the challenges facing the country because you don t think it s good short term politics. we can t afford that. mr. obama teed up republicans on the stimulus package today as well, another subject on which republicans have been trying to stay on the offense, president obama again no longer letting them. so the very same folks in congress who opposed the recovery act and claimed that it hasn t worked have been all too happy to claim credit for recovery act projects, and the jobs those projects have produced. they come to the ribbon cuttings and they found a way to have their cake and vote against it too. on the issue of health
olympia snowe pip take it as a good sign. buried in the budget yesterday was the assumption of $150 million of savings, $150 billion of savings over the next ten years for health care reform. so the president s number crunchers still think it s alive. the people in new hampshire think it s alive. people like michele bachmann and whoever talks to her from the mother ship thinks it s alive. that s a good sign but doesn t mean we re that much closer to getting a deal today than yesterday. but if the president plows ahead with this and goes long or short or whatever he has to do here and gets over the goal line, i think we ll be better off. drilling down on that, though, you have been very vocal on the fact that health reform needs presidential leadership, presidential energy in order to pass. it also needs to be lent some of his presidential popularity, i think. how does it help? does it move legislators who are on the fence? does it create the sense among the leadership in either house
the preparations necessary for a repeal of the current law and policy. i fully support the president s decision. today the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, admiral mike mullen and bob gates expressed support for repealing don t ask don t tell. john mccain is on record saying that s what he would need to hear to change the policy, that s not how john mccain reacted at today s hearing. at all. in fact, he sort of blew a gasket. i m deeply disappointed in your statement secretary gates. your statement, obviously is one which is clearly biassed, without the view of congress being taken into consideration. you are embarking on saying it s not whether the military prepares to make the change, but how we best prepare for it, without ever hearing from members of congress. so for john mccain, as long as the military leadership is
hardball college tour, right before the midterm elections in 2006, he had john mccain on the college tour with him in iowa. they took questions from the crowd. our military needs as many fine young men and women as we can get. yes. why do we have a policy that discriminates on the basis of declared sell you ll orientation? i listened to people like general colin powell, former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, and literally every military leader i know, and they testified before congress that they felt that the don t ask don t tell policy was the most appropriate way to conduct ourselves in the military. i understand the opposition to it, and i ve had these debates and discussions, but the day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, senator, we ought to change the policy, then i think we ought to consider seriously changing, because those leaders in the military are the ones we give
now, would it go their way? i don t know. it s so close, at the end of a couple hours, or 20 hours of debate, they may be down to 40 something. i believe the president wants some padding, he wants this to marinade for a while. i have some intel on this, by the way. let the president get his political power back. it s february, we re not talking beyond february. get the power back, go back on the hill, get the senators to vote, plus the vice president. get a good solid vote with reconciliation, to compliment the senate bill. the tricky part, and the heaviest lifting is to get 218 in the house, either with stupak or go to the left the other way, they have to make a big decision, pelosi s people, do we go with the 218 or 220 we had before, or ditch stupak and modify it significantly enough to get the prochoicers? it s really tricky. they can do it, but it s so close right now. it seems like it s still in motion. they announced they re going to