House Republicans held a press conference to repond to the Pelosi legislation. Some highlights:
Republican Leader John Boehner highlights that the House bill is no different than the Senate’s in terms of it’s expansiveness and it’s also “clearly designed for government takeover of our system.”
Republican Whip Cantor asks, “Do the American people really believe that this nearly 2000 page bill won’t explode the Federal deficit?”
Rep. Mike Pence observes that the Pelosi legislation is “a freight train of more mandates, more bureaucracy and more taxes.” Further, “it isn’t just the mandates in the last bill, but this bill actually uses the word ’shall’ 3,425 times.”
Rep. Roy Blunt hammered Speaker Pelosi for procedural chicanery and shutting Republicans out of process crafting legislation. Blunt noted that even as they scramble to figure out what’s in the 1990 page bill it’s “highly likely” that an “800 page amendment will be offered the moment it hits the floor… Nobody will know what’s in this bill 72 hours from now.”
Rep. Dave Camp also hit Pelosi and the Democrats for shutting out House Republicans. “They’ve added a 1,000 pages to the bill that none of us have seen yet. … At least, we’re going to try and make sure that the American people know what’s in the extra 1000 pages that were added in secret.”
UPDATE: Whoops. An early version of this had a number of mistakes. I mispelled Rep. Camp’s name, had Boehner’s old title listed and mixed-up Cantor’s title with Blunt. My apologies — I have a terrible cold.