Subject: POLITICO Huddle, presented by the American Medical Association: BUDGET BATTLE GETS REAL TODAY -- Old bulls harsh pot buzz -- Rubio got heads-up from Cruz -- GUT CHECK TIME FOR DEMS ON SGR
From: "POLITICO Huddle" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2015 05:48:52 -0600

By Burgess Everett (@burgessev or 
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[email-masked] )

POINT OF ORDER HANGS OVER SENATE: The budget gets real today in the Senate, where we will see the first couple votes on amendments and get a preview of the vote-a-rama penciled in for Thursday night. But the real problems for the budget may come later when Republicans try to insert extra defense funding into appropriations bills, as prescribed by the budget. When they do, they will run straight into a 60-vote hurdle, Jeremy Herb and Seung min Kim explain. "That point of order requires at least 60 votes to approve any OCO money in a spending bill beyond what Senate Republicans had included in Enzi's original budget blueprint, which was $58 billion. So the extra $38 billion approved in
 committee would almost surely have to withstand the point of order." 
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LORD OF THE BUDGET FLIES: On the House side it's looking like winner takes all is the name of the game. House leaders are going to put up one vote on the Budget Committee&#39;s blueprint and another budget with plussed-up defense spending; whichever budget can get 218 becomes the GOP's budget, per Jake Sherman. "It highlights Boehner, McCarthy and Scalise's evolving leadership style. Instead of moving the conference in one direction, the leadership is giving its party a choice. Of course, the leadership believes the only viable direction forward is the budget with increased defense spending. Roughly 70 House Republicans - many on the Armed Services Committee - sent a letter to Boehner
 asking him to bump up defense spending." 
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Poll support: After leadership ally American Action Network launched a $500,000 campaign supporting the House budget, the group is now doing polling that shows voters in all parties are more likely to support balancing the budget over 10 years (like Republicans' budget on Capitol Hill) and very unlikely to supportbudgets that don't come into balance. The hope is that the polling makes it a little easier for fence-sitting lawmakers to support the budget.First look here: 
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MEDICAL MARIJUANA'S BUZZKILL: There's a lot of buzz over an effort from Sens. Cory Booker, Rand Paul and Kirsten Gillibrand to legalize medical marijuana, but it's running into a powerful force: The Senate's old bulls. In interviews, senior Senate Judiciary Committee members expressed major concerns with doing anything that could send the message that Congress is cool with liberalizing pot law. Chairman Chuck Grassley told me it will be months before the bill gets a hearing, but he was more charitable than others on the committee. Sen. Hatch: "I'm probably against it." Sen. Cornyn: "I don't think we need to go there. Sen. Sessions: "I'm not sure it ... has any medical justification
 whatsoever." Of course it's hard to get Booker and Gillibrand down; they say they are going to barnstorm their colleagues offices with one-on-one meetings to change minds. 
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WHAT CRUZ SAYS ABOUT OUR POLITICS: The hot new presidential candidate for the 2020 election cycle might not even be a senator yet. That's the way things are going on Capitol Hill, where Sen. Ted Cruz has emerged as the first official White House contender after just two years in Congress. Manu Raju, take it away: "No longer do candidates need to rely on extensive experience to showcase that they can lead the United States government. They can build a national following through social media, promote their ideas on select news outlets, give soaring speeches aimed at their base - then strike while the iron is hot. A lack of experience means a lack baggage from taking tough votes. And a fresh
 face is, in many ways, more attractive than a veteran of decades, particularly one who hails from an institution as reviled as Congress." 
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Paul jabs Cruz: Thinking back to 2011, it's hard to imagine Rand Paul taking the tack that he has more appeal to centrist voters. But that's just where he went last night on the "Kelly File." "Right now, I&#39;m the only one that beats Hillary Clinton in certain purple states ... There will be a lot of conservatives. Ted Cruz is a conservative, but it also goes to winability." CNN: 
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RUBIO'S HEADS UP: Sen. Marco Rubio said he spoke to Cruz last week about his forthcoming announcement and gently knocked Cruz for announcing first. Cruz isn't up for reelection until 2018, so he's risking less than Rubio and Paul might if they run. "I spoke to him last week and I never had any doubt that he was seriously exploring the opportunity of running. He politically doesn't walk away from anything for doing it," Rubio said in a long gaggle with reporters. Rubio also dug into a policy debate as we chatted with him, answering questions until people ran out of them. His response after the Cruz announcement seems to be: Play it cool.. 
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Rubio's leg up: The Conservative Reform Network, previously known as Young Guns, is launching a digital campaign promoting a tax reform plan from Rubio and Sen. Mike Lee. Check it out here: 
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**A message from the American Medical Association: The Deadline is Looming. It's time to repeal Medicare's SGR formula and put patient care first by passing H.R. 1470/ S. 810.The current Medicare physician payment patch expires on March 31, 2015.Visit
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=e68cf7afd3764e3cf808143189454b5d16d7d84b88054bc6251a8902f95a4e56 
 www.fixmedicarenow.org to see how you can help make significant reforms in how Medicare pays physicians that focus on value and efficiency. **

Tuesday means party lunches and press conference. Welcome to the Huddle, your play-by-play guide to everything Capitol Hill, where if you aren't eyeing the calendar for Friday then you are doing it wrong. Please send tips to 
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[email-masked]  and follow along on Twitter @burgessev.

TODAY IN CONGRESS - The Senate is in at 10 a.m. and will vote at noon on a pair of budget amendments. The House is in at 10 a.m. to work on the budget and will vote at around 1:15 p.m.

AROUND THE HILL -At 10 a.m. on the House East steps Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats give a presser on Obamacare's fifth anniversary and House Speaker John Boehner holds a leadership availability outside HC-8. At 10:30 a.m., the Congressional Hispanic Caucus holds a press conference on how the GOP's budget affects Latinos. At 11:30 a.m., House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer holds a pen and pad in H 144. at 12:30 p.m., a group of House and Senate members hold a press conference on Blue Alert legislation on the House Triangle. At 1:30 p.m., Rep. Sean Duffy holds a press conference on the House Triangle on "Operation Chokepoint. At 2:30 p.m. in 2247 Rayburn, Rep. Elijah Cummings and
 Sen. Elizabeth Warren hold a Middle Class Prosperity Project forum on retirement. At 3 p.m. House and Senate leaders hold a Gold Medal Ceremony for Jack Nicklaus in the Rotunda.

MONDAY'S MOST-CLICKED LINK: The Hill's story about House leaders going long on the Doc Fix.

FEEL THE EXCITEMENT: House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers is back from South by Southwest with a Meerkat app on her phone, and she'll be livestreaming this morning's leadership preser on her account @cathymcmorris.

VA CHANGES: It seems a lifetime ago that Congress passed a massive VA reform bill; alas it was only last summer. But the Veterans Affairs Department is making a key change to their interpretation of that legislation ahead of Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson's testimony at a Senate Veterans Affairs Committee this afternoon. An administration official says the VA will announce today that it is changing a rule that allows veterans' to seek civilian care if the nearest facility is more than 40 miles away. The change makes that 40 miles driving distance, not 40 miles as the crow flies, which was forcing some vets to take long convoluted trips to facilities that may have appeared close but required
 a long drive.

GUT CHECK TIME FOR DEMS: Senate Democrats are soon going to have make a decision about how hard they want to play on the Boehner-Pelosi Medicare fix that contains funding for community health centers. David Rogers explains that while they want to take a stand against the expanded restrictions on abortion funding in the bill, if they defeat it they will be working against many of their own priorities. "If the package fails in Congress, the very wealthy will escape having to pay more in Medicare premiums. The biggest losers will be low-income seniors and working-class households down the economic ladder." 
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And for future Dem leaders: Lauren French delves into a theoretical post-Pelosi landscape, which is much more murky with Chris Van Hollen running for the Senate. "While Pelosi has given no sign she's relinquishing her 12-year reign as House Democratic leader anytime soon, Van Hollen's exit means that more than a dozen members who've languished on the second and third tiers of influence can begin jockeying for promotions. Looking at the contenders, it's a good bet the next-generation leadership team will be more diverse, younger and more willing to split with Democratic traditions like the rigid adherence to seniority. 'Nothing is automatic when Nancy leaves,' Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona
 said. 'Nothing.'" 
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D.C. POLITICS IS ACTUALLY LOCAL: I found it quite interesting to see the DNC's Mike Czin go from blasting GOP presidential hopefuls to answering questions about snowfall in D.C. Turns out he's not alone in fleeing the federal government for the local confines of new Mayor Muriel Bowser. WaPo: "Among the pilgrims: Obama's top expert on homelessness among veterans, a chief bureaucrat in the General Services Administration, a former assistant chief of the Small Business Administration, the executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus and the spokesman and two former staffers for the Democratic National Committee." 
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PHOTO OF THE DAY: I'll leave you with a photo of colonially-dressed Code Pink protesters swinging by Sen. Tom Cotton's press conference yesterday. 
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MONDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Will Hailer was the first to answer that Tim McCarthy took a bullet during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981. Note: We had the date wrong, the event occurred 34 years before NEXT Monday, the 30th.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - Will and I have today's question: These two House members hail from the same state and received the largest number of votes for either of their parties in the 2014 election. Name the two lawmakers. The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email me at 
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GET HUDDLE emailed to your Blackberry, iPhone or other mobile device each morning. Just enter your email address where it says "Sign Up."
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**A message from the American Medical Association: The Deadline is Looming. It's time to repeal Medicare's SGR formula and put patient care first by passing H.R. 1470/ S. 810.The current Medicare physician payment patch expires on March 31, 2015.

After 17 patches in 12 years, it is clear that the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR) formula does not work and must be repealed.

Congressional leaders now have the opportunity to pass H.R. 1470 -- a bipartisan, bicameral repeal bill -- but they must act quickly . Visit
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=e68cf7afd3764e3cf808143189454b5d16d7d84b88054bc6251a8902f95a4e56 
 www.fixmedicarenow.org  and tweet using the hashtag #fixmedicarenow so we can finally repeal the SGR to rid Congress of this annual embarrassment and make significant reforms in how Medicare pays physicians that focus on value and efficiency.The time is now.**

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