There is a pony hidden the that pile of budget manure

Harry Reid has refused to allow a vote on the repeal of Obamacare. As part of the budget deal, Republicans will get that vote. This was a masterful move by House Speaker John Boehner. Even is the measure fails, Senate Democrats will be put on record as ignoring the wishes of the majority of voters. Democrats have a large number of seats to defend in 2012 and some are in moderate to conservative states. Democrats are at serious risk of losing control of the Senate in 2012. This vote may well be the nail in their coffin.

(FOX News) — When the GOP-led House voted in January to repeal President Obama’s health care law, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said he wouldn’t even take up the measure in his chamber and he scorned Republicans for wasting time on “symbolic votes.”

But after Congress struck a last-minute budget deal Friday night to avert a government shutdown, Reid will have to eat his words.

The deal that funds the government through the end of September and cuts $38.5 billion from current spending levels also guarantees a debate and vote in the Senate on legislation that would repeal the president’s signature on the domestic initiative that Republicans derisively call “Obamacare.”

The deal also requires several studies that will force the Obama administration to disclose the full impact of the law’s mandates, including a study on the cost of premiums; an audit of all the waivers given to businesses and unions that can’t meet the new annual coverage limits; and a report on all of the contractors who have been hired to implement the law and the cost of those contracts to taxpayers.