Who's calling whom "incompetent"?

Recently Passed Law Cutting Medicare, Student Loan
Spending Is Invalid, Public Citizen Tells Federal Court

Version of the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005 Passed by Senate and Signed by President Was Different From House Version

Public Citizen.org

Oh this is too delicious... Let's see this one make the MSM. Turns out the House and Senate can't even get their bills on the same page before sending it on to Bush to sign.

Let he without incompetence cast the first stone....

WASHINGTON, D.C. – A law President Bush signed on Feb. 8 is invalid because he signed a version of the bill that was passed by the U.S. Senate but not the U.S. House of Representatives, Public Citizen told the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in a lawsuit filed today. The law, the Deficit Reduction Act of 2005, decreases student loan and Medicare spending, extends welfare cuts and cuts federal funding of state child-support enforcement programs.

Last fall, the House and Senate passed different versions of the Deficit Reduction Act. To reconcile the differences between the two versions, the legislation was sent to a House-Senate conference committee. The bill was modified and the final conference version was filed on Dec. 19.

On the same day, the House passed the conference report. The Senate, however, rejected the conference report and on Dec. 21 passed an amended version of the bill. The Senate clerk sent it back to the House for its concurrence. But before transmitting it, the Senate clerk made a substantive change to the bill by altering the duration of Medicare payments for certain durable medical equipment such as hospital beds and wheelchairs from 13 months, as passed by the Senate, to 36 months.

The House passed the version with the clerk’s error. Bush then signed the legislation that was passed by the Senate – which did not contain the clerk’s error – and not the version passed by the House, which did.

snip... continue reading at above