After six weeks of drafting a bill behind closed doors, the Majority has produced a bill that increases premiums, raises taxes, and slashes Medicare by half a trillion dollars to create a new government program. This is not what the American people want. I don’t believe they think this is reform. This is not the direction to take.

It’s a little early to grasp everything that’s contained in the bill, but it’s worth noting a few things about the criticisms.

1) The primary tax increases in the Senate bill target only the wealthiest Americans. One bumps Medicare’s payroll tax from 1.45 percent to 1.95 percent for individuals earning more than $200,000 per year, and families earning more than $250,000, while another applies a 40 percent tax to insurance plans costing more than $8,500 for individuals, or $23,000 for families (excepting a number of blue-collar jobs). Those aren’t typically middle-class salaries or insurance rates.

2) The largest chunk of the Medicare cuts ($118 billion worth over 10 years) don’t target Medicare, but the private insurance plans that the government pays to cover Medicare patients. That program, called Medicare Advantage, costs taxpayers roughly 14 percent more per senior than the traditional program. The MA “cuts” actually just scale back the insurance company subsidies so that rates are more closely aligned with those under traditional Medicare.

3) Many of the proposed cuts in Medicare are designed to discourage provider behaviors that lead to needless treatments and expenses. One provision, for example, “cuts” payments to hospitals for treating conditions that were acquired after the patient arrived at the facility.

4) Many other Medicare “cuts” are not really cuts at all, but proposals to slow growth in projected spending. That is, the raise for some providers might be reduced, but it will be a raise nonetheless.

Last year, the Bush administration proposed hundreds of billions of similar Medicare “cuts.”

Glenn Greenwald has pointed out the irony of Republicans now raising fears of another terror attack simply because the president has decided to prosecute terror suspects in a way that’s consistent with American values.

But some important points are being drowned out by the hysteria. Retired Adm. John Hutson, now the dean of Franklin Pierce Law Center, yesterday observed that “there’s no particular reason to believe that if terrorists are going to take vengeance on the US for prosecuting these people, that that’s going to happen at the location or at a hard target.” A federal supermax prison or high-security New York City jail is actually “the least likely place for vengeance to be taken,” given the obstacles presented by all the security, he said on a conference call organized by Human Rights First. “The logical consequence of that stream of logic is that we not prosecute them at all to avoid some form of retribution.”

The other point largely overlooked is that while Attorney General Eric Holder announced plans to try the alleged 9/11 plotters in federal court, he also announced that the suspected USS Cole bomber, among others who’ve attacked U.S. soldiers or military targets, would be tried in the newly reconstituted military commissions. So are they getting a lesser trial?

“Despite the changes enacted by Congress this year, that untested system does not have the track record of fairness and justice that our criminal justice system has,” said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.) yesterday, after praising the decision to try KSM and his alleged co-conspirators in federal court.

Col. Morris Davis, the former chief military prosecutor for the commissions, made this important point Sunday in The Wall Street Journal: having two different justice systems “establish[es] a dangerous legal double standard that gives some detainees superior rights and protections, and relegates others to the inferior rights and protections of military commissions. This will only perpetuate the perception that Guantanamo and justice are mutually exclusive.”

Another former military prosecutor, Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, who resigned his post in protest last September, echoed that yesterday. “To say that you’ve achieved the gold standard for certain defendants by holding their trials in federal courts, and the rest can go to Gtmo, doesn’t necessarily resurrect the image of Gtmo or the military commissions as beacons of fairness. And if one of the stated goals in closing Gtmo is to restore America’s moral position in the world, the decision taken today won’t get us closer to accomplishing that.”

Holder’s justification for trying the Cole bomber and others by military commission is that in each case, their targets were a U.S. soldier or military installation. But isn’t that what we use our regularly constituted military courts for? Isn’t that why Major Nidal Malik Hassan, who last week apparently shot up 13 soldiers at the Fort Hood military base, is being tried by court martial? The only difference would appear to be that the suspects headed for military commissions are not American citizens. So that’s why they get an inferior justice system?

That decision combined with the implicit acknowledgment in Holder’s  announcement yesterday that U.S. federal courts a superior form of justice to the military commissions just highlights a question that’s becoming increasingly difficult to answer:  Just what is the purpose of those new military commissions?

At the same time, Paul is never going to out-Kentucky his opponent. He’s one of the 2010 upstarts casting his campaign as part of a nationwide movement to clean up Washington and radically roll back government.

After voting 85-2 yesterday to proceed to legislation extending unemployment benefits at least 14 weeks nationwide, the Senate remains stalled Tuesday over a second procedural vote required to move to final passage.

Delaying the bill are (1) Republican leaders insisting on consideration of unrelated amendments, and (2) Senate rules requiring two cloture votes to move to final passage of a bill originating in the House when Senate Democrats want to swap it out for a substitute proposal, as was the case here.

So yesterday’s cloture vote was on the Senate substitute bill, with a second needed to move to the (amended) House bill. That’s a long way of saying that the final vote will  come Thursday at the earliest, unless party leaders can reach an agreement beforehand.

Neither side, though, appears ready to budge.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters in the Capitol today that GOP leaders are stalling intentionally in order to prevent other Democratic priorities from reaching the floor.

“Even today they’re still stalling before we can pass this bill finally,” Reid said. “Perhaps Senate Republicans don’t think it matters to stall and delay, but it matters to the unemployed worker who so desperately needs this money.”

Democratic leaders first asked Republicans for their consent to pass the bill unanimously on Oct. 8. GOP leaders, however, refused that and subsequent requests, citing first the absence of a cost estimate, then the reluctance of Democrats to consider amendments on ACORN and illegal immigrants, and finally the Democrats’ refusal to vote on three other GOP amendments, including a provision to end the Wall Street bailout and another to fund the unemployment benefit extension with unspent stimulus funds.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters today that if Reid wants to pass the unemployment benefits quickly, he simply needs to agree to votes on those three provisions. Otherwise, McConnell said he has every intention of dragging the process out as long as he can.

“We could have passed this unemployment insurance bill last Thursday,” McConnell said.

I offered a consent agreement which would have given us a handful of amendments upon which we were prepared to take short time agreements, but the majority leader didn’t want to have to vote on more amendments.

So my view is, he doesn’t get to pick our amendments. What we were offering was totally reasonable. And he didn’t want to have — he didn’t want to have the votes.

Technically, the second cloture vote could come as early as 11:40 p.m. tonight, though that vote will likely be pushed to Wednesday morning. Afterward, without an agreement, Democrats would have to wait another 30 hours before staging the final vote, which will likely come Thursday afternoon.

The next stop would be the House, which passed a different unemployment bill in September. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that chamber leaders will take up the Senate bill as soon as it arrives from the upper chamber.

“Why they had to wait a week to get the vote is beyond me,” Hoyer told reporters. “Having said that, we will consider the UI when it comes over.”

Last Thursday, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) argued that Republicans have been “extraordinarily reasonable” in insisting on a handful of amendments, some unrelated to the underlying unemployment legislation. The Senate minority leader cautioned that Americans will revolt if Democrats similarly refuse such amendments during the coming health reform debate.

I hope this is not the way the majority leader is planning on handling the health care debate because the American people will storm the Capitol if they think the majority is going to dictate to the minority what amendments will be offered on a bill as significant as restructuring one-sixth of the economy.

That theme is becoming popular in the conservative echo chamber. Yesterday, the Heritage Foundation made a similar link between the amendment process surrounding the unemployment and health reform bills.

An extension of unemployment insurance benefits will occupy the Senate for most of the week, again. Not only is this the wrong way to address the lack of jobs, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has numerous amendments, including those that may actually spur job creation. Shutting down the amendment process does not bode well for the upcoming health care debate.

Of course, Democrats haven’t shut down the amendment process. They’ve just refused to consider controversial provisions that have nothing to do with the underlying bill. The warning here seems to be that we might have to endure once more as the health reform debate is similarly stalled by amendments related to ACORN, illegal immigrants and the Wall Street bailout.

A procedural vote on the Senate bill is scheduled today at around 5:30 p.m.. If the proposal hops that hurdle, it clears the way for final passage later in the week.

Specifically, GOP leaders have dropped their insistence that the Senate consider amendments related to ACORN and immigration. Instead, they’re now demanding a vote on a provision to fund the unemployment insurance extension with stimulus funds, and another to move up the expiration date for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which enabled federal bailouts of Wall Street firms — both non-starters with Democrats.

A third amendment — designed to end federal ownership of bailed out firms — has already been agreed upon.**

If Reid and the Democrats would just agree to a short debate on those three amendments, McConnell said, the Senate could pass the unemployment bill “this very afternoon.”

“This is not an effort to delay,” McConnell said.

Reid refused, arguing that TARP already has a sunset date, and that House leaders were not willing to accept the proposed GOP change.

“This isn’t the time to do that,” Reid said. “It’s just an effort to delay [and] divert attention from this most important issue.”

**Update: This post has been updated. Initially, the third amendment listed was a popular homebuyer tax credit. While party leaders have also reached agreement on that provision, it was not included in the list of amendments McConnell insisted Thursday should be a part of the debate.

Here’s the bad news for those having exhausted their benefits: The vote on cloture to proceed to the bill doesn’t mean that the bill has passed. And there could be a long way to go.

Indeed, Senate leaders are still in disagreement this morning over amendments, with Republicans still insisting on consideration of provisions related to ACORN and immigration — provisions that even GOP leaders concede have nothing to do with the underlying bill.

So what does that mean for those whose benefits have expired? Well, Senate rules dictate that, without an agreement, Democratic leaders must wait at least 30 hours after the cloture vote to proceed (ie, yesterday’s vote) to stage the roll call vote to proceed — meaning the earliest they can do it is 12:26 a.m. Thursday.

Such roll call votes are often scrapped with the consent of both parties — a move that might still happen, but hasn’t happened yet. Indeed, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took to the chamber floor this morning and threatened to hold that roll call vote, if necessary, at that early hour.

“I hope we can work something out with the Republicans,” Reid said. “But we’re going to have that vote as soon as we can. I’m sorry that we might have to do it in the morning.”

Afterward, if there’s still no agreement, Reid would have to file a cloture motion on the actual bill — meaning, by Senate rules, that the cloture vote couldn’t come earlier than 25 hours after the motion is filed (again, unless an agreement is reached first). Now we’re looking at roughly 1 a.m. Friday morning, at the earliest.

After the cloture vote on the actual bill, then the 30-hour clock starts again, after which time lawmakers could hold their roll call vote on final passage of the bill. Now we’re approaching 8 a.m. Saturday morning.

This is all a long way of saying that, without an agreement over the ACORN and immigration amendments, this thing could take a while longer to pass. And it doesn’ t appear that party leaders are ready to reconcile their differences just yet.

Reid this morning blasted the GOP amendments once again, contending that they’re “only an effort to slow things down.”

The other amendments are vexatious. They are argumentative. We don’t want them. They are not germane. They are not relevant to this legislation.

But Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) responded with the argument that there’s nothing unusual about offering unrelated amendments to must-pass legislation. “This is an unnecessary impasse that we have,” McConnell said.

Everyone knows it’s not uncommon in the Senate, in fact it is routine, for there to be amendments — offered by both sides — that are not directly related to the bill. There’s nothing extraordinary about this.

Complicating matters, the two chambers have different proposals. The House bill, which passed last month, offers a 13-week extension of unemployment benefits, but only in those states where unemployment rates top 8.5 percent. Senate Democrats want to pass a more generous 14-week extension nationwide, with six weeks extra for high-unemployment states.

Party leaders aren’t commenting about how they plan to reconcile the two proposals. In one scenario, House and Senate leaders could meet to iron out the differences, creating a third bill that each chamber would then have to pass. Or the House could choose to vote on the Senate bill, with the legislation going to the president afterward.

“This could go into next week,” Reid’s office warned Wednesday.

Or there could be a deal as early as this afternoon. There are a few hundred thousand Americans with expired benefits who are hoping for the latter.

Observers of the weeks-long debate might not be surprised to learn that the sticking points remain the same: McConnell is insisting on consideration of an amendment to prevent ACORN from receiving federal funds, and another designed to filter illegal immigrants out of the workforce. The Kentucky Republican said the eight amendments Republicans are offering won’t take much longer to consider than the six provisions Reid has proposed on behalf of Democrats.

“Under my consent agreement,” McConnell said, “we would finish about as rapidly as we would under the consent agreement that the majority leader just propounded.”

Reid didn’t bite, citing the two controversial amendments, which Democrats say are unrelated to the underlying proposal.

“I see no reason that we have to do immigration on this bill — that’s what E-Verify is all about,” Reid said. “I don’t know how many more times we have to pound on ACORN — we’ve voted on that many times already.”

Reid then asked for McConnell’s consent to pass the unemployment extension without any amendments at all. McConnell’s response:

There’s no reason why we can’t reach an agreement to take up the underlying bill with a limited number of [amendments], and finish the bill expeditiously. Simply cutting people off and not allowing any amendments at all is not an acceptable approach for the minority, therefore I object.