Thursday, October 1, 2009

Getting There...

Baucus just started things off today by announcing that he thinks they're going to finish today, or if not today then tomorrow. He also says this is the longest markup in days (7) for the last fifteen years. Seems right to me -- this is probably the most important bill they've considered in a long time.

You may be wondering, as I was, what happened to Snowe's trigger. Politico (via Ezra) reports that the trigger, the federalist compromise that Carper is working on, and some other remaining significant possibilities won't be offered in committee -- they'll be subject to the negotiations at the next stage, which is merging the Finance Committee bill and the HELP bill. It's not clear from the reporting which things still might come up in committee today, but I guess we'll see; so far, they're on a Crapo grandstanding amendment about taxes.

Meanwhile, the breakout star of the markup was certainly Debbie Stabenow. It'll be interesting to see whether she winds up with a major role in the floor debate, and how she builds on it in the next couple of years.

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