extenders

For over a year House Blue Dog Democrats took a back seat to President Obama's top priorities, a $787 billion stimulus bill and a health reform bill that CBO scored as paid for, but about which many have their doubts. This week the Blue Dogs bit off almost $80 billion from the extenders bill, H.R.4213, most of which passed the House this afternoon on two separate votes. The good news is that those fighting larger deficits in the House are gaining power. The bad news is that the Senate will undoubtedly add back some of that spending when it takes up the bill during the week of June 7. Taking away $8 billion of COBRA health benefits for the unemployed, $24 billion of Medicaid aid for the states, and $40 billion from the Medicare physician reimbursement hits the vulnerable, which I'm not comfortable with, but I've learned the hard way that there are no easy deficit cuts.