Karl Rove on the Medicare Part D vote:
The House finally voted between 3 am and 5:55 am on the morning of November 22 [2003]. The tally at first stalled out at 216 to 218 against us. House leaders kept the vote open and , using the kind of horse-trading that has always been part of politics, flipped enough members to arrive at 220 to 215 for the Medicare overhaul.
–page 373, Courage and Consequence
It should be noted that the Medicare Part D legislation was an unpaid for entitlement that will cost taxpayers an estimated $7 Trillion this century. But when Rove, and other Republicans, send up the sort of smokescreen about the legislative process being manipulated by Democrats, it is good to remember that one noted political genius described the process as “the kind of horse-trading that has always been part of politics”…and this time, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the new entitlement will be paid for.