Do you think we’re stupid?
by digby
So the President was caught with a hot microphone talking to donors:
In the candid remarks, Mr. Obama complains of Republican attempts to attach measures to the budget bill which would have effectively killed parts of his hard-won health care reform program.
“I said, ‘You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We’ll have that debate. You’re not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we’re stupid?'” recalled the president of his closed-door negotiations on the bill to fund the federal government until September.
Mr. Obama said he told House Speaker John Boehner and members of his staff that he’d spent a year and a half getting the sweeping health care legislation passed — paying “significant political costs” along the way — and wouldn’t let them undo it in a six-month spending bill.
I have been saying for a while that this is the one area he will not allow them to mess with. I suspect that there could be some tinkering with the Medicaid portion, which has always been the most vulnerable. And obviously, he was willing to trade away aspects of the bill that weren’t his. But he’s not going to let them mess with his legacy program in any substantial way.
But the Republicans have very good reasons to keep pushing it. First, of course, is the fact that Michelle Bachman and the tea partiers are out there squawking like a bunch of Myna birds about “repealing Obamacare” every single day and they have to at least pretend to appease them. But I’m guessing that that they know very well that the President isn’t going to deal away his signature issue so they are going to put it on the table to get concessions in return. The question, as always, is what he wants or is willing to deal instead.
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