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The Runaway Senate
Getty Images (2); AP Photo; Landov
When Democrats can't even agree to debate the health care bill, the president is no longer in charge of his party. Matt Miller on why Obama needs to crack the whip.
The beltway consensus was that Harry Reid’s ability to get wavering Democratic senators to allow the health care debate to proceed has been a “test of the majority leader’s leadership”—a test that Reid looks likely to have passed, what with Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mary Landrieu of Lousiana having come on board Friday, and Blanche Lincoln looking like an 11th-hour "yes" vote.
But this entire debacle was really a test of whether Barack Obama can throw a punch. And on that, the verdict is still out.
The idea that anyone calling themselves a Democrat could have thought twice about whether the Senate should move ahead on the party’s biggest priority should have been grounds for public presidential reprimand, if not excommunication.
Fresh from the president’s humility tour with our Chinese bankers, it’s a fair question. Everyone knows Obama is intelligent, visionary and articulate. But no one fears him. The shocking “maybe I will, maybe I won’t” behavior of Nelson, Lincoln and Landrieu this week underscores this perception that bucking the president has no consequences.
Apart from economic recovery, health care reform is the biggest domestic initiative of Obama’s presidency. It’s been a defining Democratic Party goal for decades. It’s now closer than ever to being realized. Yes, the emerging bills are imperfect—but Washington will be biting at the health care apple every year for the next decade as the nation wrestles to bring costs under control while boosting coverage and quality. Given this obvious reality, how could the White House have permitted Democratic senators to publicly waver with impunity—and not on the question of whether they’ll actually support the final bill, but on whether they’d even allow the debate to proceed?
The idea that anyone calling themselves a Democrat could have thought twice about whether the Senate should move ahead on the party’s biggest priority should have been grounds for public presidential reprimand, if not excommunication. Instead, Rahm Emanuel and other aides were dispatched to see how many bridges, highways and judgeships for pals these dithering pols required to grease the skids. As one Democratic insider lamented to me this week, this horse trading over the mere ability to have the debate risks making the rest of the Democratic caucus feel like suckers. Maybe they should be holding out for more goodies at every little turn if that’s how Team Obama is willing to play it.
Maybe the president has gotten past this week’s health care squeaker, but there’s still a long way to go. Obama better start punishing unacceptable behavior or he’ll never push his ambitious agenda through the Washington maze. And don’t think the world isn’t watching. If Lincoln, Landrieu and Nelson aren’t worried about crossing the president, why should Vladimir Putin or Hamid Karzai be?
Matt Miller is a management consultant, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, and the host of public radio’s popular political week-in-review, Left, Right & Center. His new book is The Tyranny of Dead Ideas.
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Paul Schrodt is a writer living in New York City. He has contributed to New York magazine, Radar, and Esquire.com.
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ACR1493
LOSING THREE democratic senators isnt losing control of your party. The argument, disposition you put forward is hyperbolic at best. Every democratic president runs into a block in the road from congressmen on imporant legislation its only 4 he needs to get control of, and not bad for legislation on the historic preportion as this. In the end Obama will win his health care battle, and giving him the greatest progressive victory one that many of our greatest presidents failed to do. Redundant, hyperbolic, bombastic, callow an article that surmises a result disproportioned when in relation to reality surrounding the matter of discussion.
PinkoLefty
ACR,
I wish that you were right. However, I think the writing is on the wall. Short of using reconciliation, there is no way that the public option is going to get passed in the Senate. If the Democrats don't pass anything, or pass a bill that delivers us to the insurance companies without benefit of a public option, then I'm afraid that we're looking at the one and only term of President Barack Obama.
America absolutely loathes weakness of any sort, and the Democratic Party will be punished severely at the polls should they fail to pass an acceptable reform package. We will lose five senators in the fall and quite possibly the presidency in 2012. Just ask Jimmy Carter. He didn't lose the election in 1980 because the economy was in the toilet. He lost because he didn't invade Tehran. Even though I was too young to vote at the time, I remember being embarrassed and confused by our lack of action. He appeared weak, and in the United States, that warrants a political death sentence.
Bill Clinton only escaped a similar fate by co-opting the Republican agenda as his own. That's not an option this time around. The Republicans are bereft of ideas that would even be remotely palatable to the left. They are fully aware that they don't have to bring anything other than "No!" to the table.
As I see it, there are only three possibilities for explaining the current situation. The first is that Harry Reid is a milquetoast. The man could be mugged through the mail, can't count, and doesn't know the difference between a carrot and a stick.
The second possibility is that Harry knows that the public option won't pass and his only motivation is to appear as if he is making a valiant effort to pass it, but will ultimately allow it to be amended out of the final bill. This, to me, is the most craven and cowardly course of action.
The third is that he fully intends to use reconciliation after failing to reach cloture.
The last option is my personal favorite. It's the only way to maintain power. In this country, if you don't rule from strength then you won't rule for long.
AlanD2
Don't give up just yet, PinkoLefty. Health care reform has been written off so many times in the last 8 months that I can't keep count. It's still here.
The public option has often been declared dead too, but it's still alive.
For some reason I still feel hope: "Yes we can!"
easton
sorry, I am with AlanD2. If it passes, even without a public option, it will be a great victory. The public option is only a small part of it (and an option for a very small portion of the populace, the part that should be covered under Medicaid already).
In either case, it will be a terrible loss for the Republicans. If there is no Public option, they will have even less to run against in 2010 (they can't even claim they stopped it, since they had nothing to do with the bill). And if it does pass they will try to run against it, but will sound like sore losers.
You seem to forget the tremendous upsides of the Democrats passing the bill, one that will cover millions of uninsured. And if the public option doesn't pass, don't be surprised to see the blue states creating their own.
dana64
For a Leftie PINKO you are very commonsensical........
well, I think that the public Option is going to be triggered...........
The Health insurance companies have already HIKED up their premiums.
I think t would have been better to do HEALTH INSURANCE REGULATIONS............first so they would become NON-PROFIT which they should be..........
camfield
I'm a really old Democrat and can vouch that it's been the same for as long as I can remember. We all have the Pogo gene--"we have met the enemy, and he is us."
However, I guess that's what a Democracy is all about, the inter-play of individual opinions. And that beats the heck out of the blindly-obedient type of dictatorship adhered to by Republicans, as they march in lock--step, attempting to force others to bend to their will.
dana64
ACR1493
No, Bush did not run against any opposition from his party because the Republican party is prone to DICTATORSHIP and was happy to be rubber stamp to Bush.
OBAMA is TOO DEMOCRATIC.............and being YOUNG and the FIRST BLACK President.......he seems to be shy to Crack the WHIP at mostly OLDER WHITE SOUTHERN MEN in the Republican party, and when it comes to his DEMs the blue DOGS........well
THAT IS the DEMOCRATIC party...............they do not fall in line
it is really democratic..................even though the Republicans love to say the DEMOCRAT party.
Matt Miller ....is correct in saying what A PRESIDENT should do, but Obama is not A presiden........he is a YOUNG and FIRST BLACK president.......that is psychology for you folks
Soonchurcher
Now, if only Obama would run away with them!!!!!!!!!
Johnnyappleseed
And take the czars with him, now there's a change we could handle.
tolatetocry
isn't time for "date night" or "samba night" or hula hoops or something! Its fun watching the dems (they are starting to panic!)
diamondgirl
I hate to say it people, but this WH will pay any amount possible to buy these Dems Vote. They will pass this tonight with 60 votes. They will pass healthcare by the end of the year no matter how much it cost us Tax payers to buy those votes... That the Chicago way
sophia5
Will Landrieu prove once again that Washington is about power and money,
and if the price is right (at taxpayers expense) . . . to hell with having convictions ?
Johnnyappleseed
sophia Chicago has convictions, lots of them, and their in jail to prove it.
AlanD2
I hate to mention this, diamondgirl, but the White House doesn't have much to say yet. Everything is being done in the Senate at this point.
And you must have missed the CBO report, which says this health care reform bill will save taxpayers money.
Of course, you conservatives are out to destroy health care reform even if it costs you more. I have often noted that France has the best health care in the world but pays only half as much per person as we do.
tolatetocry
AlanD2
thinks the healthcare bill is gonna save us money! LMAO ya, Alan, there is a sucker born every minute. Just like that stimulus was gonna get America working and Joe Biden was guarding the money. Did you believe that too?
AlanD2
tolatetocry: Without health care reform, health insurance premiums are projected to double in the next 10 years, as they did in the last 10.
I suppose you think this qualifies as "saving money"?
rapierwits
One of the problems with having an OVERWHELMING majority is the fact that it is made up of individuals with self-interests. These folks have to get something for the folks back home. We've seen Landreiu will take some extra money for her constituents. I reckon Barack has more soft power that Mr' Miller has given him credit for.
crypto
I like the expression "crack the whip". He had better leave those senators alone. These people are "OLD" politicians. He starts screwing around with them and he's definitely going to fall in a hole. Could it be that somebody up there discovered that Obama isn't the Chosen One after all??
Johnnyappleseed
The big "O" he da man!
dailyplanet
The "big O" is not "da man" for this job, nor as he has demonstrated, the man to tackle any of the vital issues crying out for the leadership of a President.
The man we elected with such faith in our hearts doesn't have the guts or savvy to get in the political trenches and fight the fight required to steer America out of crisis.
A whip is not in Obama's arsenal; and if it was, he wouldn't know how to use it effectively. He doesn't have the kind of "wiring" a president needs.
crypto
France does have it better than some of the other european countries. But their care is not as good as ours, not even close. But even if this Obamason plan does pass we won't come close to having it as good as France simply because of the crooked jerks we will have running it. There's money to be made with this plan and you can believe these #$#%#^!! democrat politicians are gonna make the best of it. The republicans would if they could. But this one is democrat to the bone.
OldCrow
Time for another trip overseas or another distraction from the failed economy. Obama = FAIL
herbgart
OldCrow = FOOL
AlanD2
And what will you be saying when health care reform passes, OldCrow?
neverlate
I love the constant line - "Yes, the emerging health care bills aren't perfect." As if proposals that will bankrupt the country and ensure escalating health care costs and decreased quality can be categorized as anything but tragic.
AlanD2
You must have missed the CBO report too, neverlate. You do want to save taxpayer money don't you?
While no bill is perfect - and this one is far from it - its flaws and shortcomings will be addressed in future bills, as happened with Social Security and Medicare.
herbgart
I guess you haven't been paying attention to the news. First of all, what makes you think that health care costs aren't going to escalate anyway? As far as that goes, the public option and some of the regulations are supposed to SLOW DOWN the escalation. Second, you're behind the times by thinking that the health care reforms will bankrupt the country. They will SAVE us billions of dollars according to the OMB and most other sources. You can choose to not believe that but that is definitely one of the things that Congress is striving for. As to quality of healthcare, the Veterans Administration Health Care system is one of the best in the world (after you get through the red tape). Also the emphasis on health care in the bill is for preventive medicine which has never happened before - a distinct improvement in health care coverage. As to tragic, it is tragic that there are people like you who like the insurance companies telling what you can do and don't care about the 40 million people without insurance and the 30 million who are screwed in their contracts and are denied coverage they thought they paid for year after year. "The health care bill isn't perfect" - that's just honesty. Also it would be a lot better if our Republican friends weren't so interested in causing Obama political problems instead of concern for the people who sent them to Washington. I hope you have time to get more information and change your mind.
dana64
all countries who give health care to their people are DROWING in COSTS...................that is NATURAL................until we the old and sick demand EUTHENASIA.
THat is the sacrifice that oler citizens who have had their golden years ...can leave for their BELOVED GRANDKIDS @@@@
periscope
The morons on the right continue their bloviating about a healthcare bill that will bankrupt the country, even as the CBO says it will SAVE $800 billion from being added to the deficit over the next 20 years!
And they perpetuate the lie that the status quo healthcare system we have WON'T BANKRUPT the country, when it's on track to do that very thing - thanks to the greed and depravity of the private Insurance Companies and Big Pharma.
But truth and logic is never part of the right-wing's thinking. How could they be? They're as false as they are mindless.
crypto
When you pull $500 billion dollars from medicare,that has sustained the elderly for lifetimes, that's stupid and mindless. And to do it for no reason but to redistribute the medical care in the nation. That's insane. Repair only the system that's broken. That's fair and understandable.
estcruzer
What's broken is the Healthcare INDUSTRY. It should be called the Illness industry since that is what keeps them in business - so hypochondria, excess, ignorance of prevention are all in the best interests of this INDUSTRY. To fix this industry you have to change their goals, from profit to health and wellness - this won't happen anytime soon and I'm not sure what would motivate them to change their goals but there you have it.
there is another article on the Beast today (11/21/2009) by Senator John Barrasso and it's dead on. Now I'm not a fan of Republican support for their BIG BUSINESS electorate but this article speaks to the problem, so more power to the Senator. Now, why didn't the Republicans promote this concept during the long struggle to get a healthcare reform bill together?
herbgart
I guess you don't read or learn the truth. You are making the worst kind of assumptions about the health care reform bill. First of all, any Republican worth his salt knows there is an enormous amount of fraud in Medicare and Medicaid. Any Republican worth his salt knows that there are a lot of procedures and tests done for the profit rather than the needs of the patient, even to the point of doctors owning the testing facilities. I assume as a Republican you agree with what I just said. Removing fraud and greed from Medicare will not hurt seniors, but will help them. $500 billion dollars worth of fraud and abuse NOT medical care for our seniors. I hope you can wrap your mind around that. You use the word "redistribute" as if it was a catchy word that you don't understand. "Redistribute" means to you that millions of our fellow Americans without any coverage will have some and millions more who have bad coverage will see it improved. You think that is a bad thing? And saving $80 billion at the same time? If you are a true Republican who believes in economy you want to save $60 billion and you want to get people out of the emergency room where it is more expensive for you and me. But maybe you're not a real Republican. Maybe you're too selfish and uninformed to know when your self-interest is being served.
AlanD2
crypto: Alll of the money being pulled from Medicare was going to insurance companies, who provided little in return - another Republican giveaway to businesses.
The services to our elderly will not be at all affected by it.
hammer
All major legislation for creation and expansion of the safety network and voting rights has received at least some bipartisanship support. The debacle of the previous eight years of Bush will be remember in history as creation of an equal an opposite polarization of America with equally disastrous results. It is time for Americans to pass a balanced budget amendment so government will play a smaller role in out life and won't spend us into bankruptcy.
estcruzer
I'm afraid that Big Business has already taken us to Bankruptcy, with the help of the NeoCons and Republicans as they defanged and deballed the government regulation and restriction of the Financial industry and gave over our military to the oil industry to invade and occupy recalcitrant oil producing countries.
And on the healthcare front they made it possible for big agribusinesses to take over our faming industry and what do they produce now? Whatever will make us eat more - thats how they make their profit, not worrying about the health effects of obesity - that takes several decades to have an effect. In the mean time they will reap the profits off of fat americans. Resulting in bankruptcy's caused by outrageous hospital and prescription drug costs.
No, Bankruptcy is here and it's not the Government spending that caused it.
dana64
GOVERNMENT just rescued Capitalism..............
Goverment has shown NOBLESSE OBLIGE/
I LIKE a GOV with LARGESSE/
why ARE PEOPLE AFRAID OF THE DEFICIT ?
People have a MICRO-economic mentality and should not meddle in Macro-economics.
TEA party crazies are silly fools .........
periscope
America has been swindled for years and the top three offenders have been the energy industry, the healthcare industry and the financial industry.
The first thing the Bushboy administration did upon usurping office in 2001 was to have their chief criminal, Cheney, meet in secret with all the energy CEOs (including Ken Lay of Enron) to ask them what the government could do for them. This led to the rape of California and other states as energy prices skyrocketed, while Bushboy and Cheney did nothing but smile and count their donations from Big Oil, Gas, Coal, etc.
Then there's the Big Pharma fraud perpetrated by the usual suspects (Bushboy and the Republican Party) as they pushed through the "donut hole" Medicare bill, which forced Medicare to accept whatever price Big Pharma companies wanted to charge them for drugs instead of subjecting them to open bids. This insured that the American people would pay far higher prices for the same drugs which Canadians and Europeans buy much cheaper. Of course, the Bushboy regime also looked the other way as the Healthcare Insurance industry gouged it's premium payers with double digit increases, and denied claims with phony "pre-existing condition" claims.
And finally there's the financial industry that brought America to its knees with their fraudulent investment schemes as they squandered the life-savings of many Americans and then asked for bail-outs so they could survive to collect more undeserved billions $$$ in bonuses.
America has been swindled out of trillions of $$$ by the industries mentioned above, and they couldn't have done it without the aid and complicity of the Republican Party and the depraved incompetents in the WH from Raygun to Bushdaddy to Bushboy.
Johnnyappleseed
Get Timmy on the phone, no more bonesus for those bank guys.
byersl
If Lincoln goes against us, primary her. The Lt. Gov is really smart, attractive, and liberal. He'll beat her in a Dem primary. She's trying to out 'right' the right! Be a Dem Blanche, or go home. You can be a conservadem if you want, but Dem principles include health care for all--which you agreed to!!
melissamsouza
The problem is the way this government is structured, that's all. The system is not working, or if it eventually does work it's going at a pace far slower than glaciers in this era of global warming. This filibuster rule, demanding 60% majorities simply to move legislation forward, let alone to pass it, is preposterous, pure and simple. It is this rule that is giving these adolescent so-called "centrist" Democrats the power they have; if the Senate could move legislation with a simple 50 1 majority, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation and these senators would be irrelevant. As the matter of fact, the Bill would already be in Conference by now, if not already passed.
We must understand that the Founding Fathers, when they rightly obsessed over containing any concentration of power, were devising their rules in a white-property-owning male-only, sparsely populated, basically rural society occupying a sliver of the east coast, and rooted in the snail's pace of the 18th century. They could NEVER have imagined the juggernaut that emerged from their deliberations, this highly-industrialized, intensily interlinked, rocket-paced, technological society of 300 million, with practically ALL members of society being represented in government--women, African-Americans, Latinos, tree-huggers, coal miners--with each of these groups divided within themselves and each with intense, entrenched lobbying groups in Congress. I bet that there is even an association of roach lovers in this country, with an organized lobbying effort on behalf of those unfortunate arthropods.
Concentration of power, leading to authoritarianism, is horrible; but equally as bad, at the other extreme, is too much diffusion of power. I sincerely believe that if the Founders could come back to life today and see the chaos that has become of their system of government, they would be the first clamoring for reform.
The Senate has become one of the main obstacles to governance--not just because of this insane filibuster, but because its members are following the steps of Supreme Court nominees to become lifetime members of the Body. Just take a glimpse at that chamber and you won't see America--you'll see, basically, a bunch of old, rich, cynical, jaded, insulated white men. It is probably, visually, the only Body the Founding Fathers would identify with, reminding them of their good old 18th century.
Furthermore, does anyone in their right mind think it is fair for Idaho, with half-a-dozen people and lots of potatoes, to have the same degree of representation as the eigth largest economy in the world, California? The Founders were very concerned about protecting minority rights, but protection is one thing, and they never imagined this degree of difference between two states: one literally carries the weight of the country's, and of the world's for that matter, economy on its shoulders, whereas the other is (sorry to Idahoans) barely noticeable.
I never thought I would be saying this, but I actually agree with Dick Cheney on one thing: there needs to be more executive power, or mechanisms to ease governance. The Reconciliation rule started by the Bush Administration, incredibly, was a step in the right direction. I am not going to argue with Cheney's abuse of power, but the thrust of creating mechanisms to strengthen the executive, in this incredibly fast-paced world, in which the country is facing myriad crises demanding expedited responses, and in a globalized world in which foreign partners depend on our responses to a host of issues, is relevant.
The Senate, especially, needs reform. It is working, at this point, against the country. If was because of its rules and configuration that the Stimulus had to be far smaller than necessary, hurting the country; it was because of this Body that health care will have taken a year to pass, creating a backlog in virtually every other crucial item on the President's (and the world's) agenda.
For the sake of the country and its standing in the world, somethin's gotta give, for goodness sake.
periscope
If you want "government of the people, by the people and for the people," we have to get serious about campaign finance reform and how we allow the Special Interests in America to propagandize their selfish demands in our media.
I have said before that until we have a public financing of elections and the public refuses to vote for anyone who takes "private donations," we will have the best government money can buy - which is what we have now.
We also have to re-introduce "the fairness doctrine" to the media. It makes no sense to have media-whores at Fake News lying 24/7 on behalf of the Big Oil, Big Pharma or Wall St., if their broadcasting license doesn't require them to give opposing (true) points of view. Fake News and Hate-Talk Radio then become the cancers on society that they are.
So the answer to America's problems? Campaign finance reform and the fairness doctrine.
dana64
PERISCOPE..............Yes let us start with DEMANDING campaign finance Reform and proportional election with a runn off like we want for IRAQIS and AFGHANS !!!!
AlanD2
periscope: As I have mentioned before, this will take a Constitutional amendment, which might as well forbid personal and corporate campaign contributions at the same time as it requires government-paid campaigns.
Of course, all the beneficiaries of the current system will be against reform, like we see with health care reform today.
khepri
The diffusion of power that you deplore may be more attributable to Obama's ambivalent, sometimes passive aggressive "leadership" than to structural defects within the system devised by the founders. By most accounts he has squandered or needlessly abandoned opportunities to make a great difference during his first year. This is not the fault of the constitution.
periscope
Obama's "ambivalence' may also be his "learning curve" as was the case with every other president, including FDR, JFK and others during their first year in office.
As to the Constitution, it is not at fault. What is at fault is rampant bribery in our nation's capital, as politicians are bought and sell out the electorate, like the floor of the stock trading exchange.
Until or unless we can block or counter the influence of money, the American people will be the victims of their government, instead of the beneficiaries. Our history shows this conclusively.
khepri
Rahm Emanuel's carefully engineered sabotage of a meaningful public option doesn't have anything to do with a learning curve. OB's stupid capitulation to the terror industrial complex re. Afghanistan doesn't either.
melissamsouza
That is precisely my point: it isn't Obama who has "squandered" opportunities to make a difference; he has, as promised, been pushing a very ambitious, transformational agenda. The problem is that he has very limited power--Congress, with its 500 heads and myriad, highly monied interest groups, is a co-partner in governing. Obama simply can not enact any major legislation without it emmanating from and passing through Congress, that is the fact of the matter. And who is holding up his agenda? Congress--mainly the Senate. Like I said, if the rule for passing legislation in that Body were simply 50 1, then we would already have had Health Care Reform by now, and possibly other items on Obama's agenda would have moved forward as well. Don't get me wrong, I am not at all against Balance-of-Powers. I only sense that, if the Founders could have seen the future, they would have gone with their original plan, and stayed with only ONE legislative chamber, the House of Representatives. The Senate as is is becoming a major obstacle to governance.
khepri
Melissa: I still have to come back to his weak, weak advocacy for meaningful change. Instead of a speech alerting Americans to the ways that the war on terror has done irreparable harm to America, he describes Afghanistan as "necessary"; instead of advocating strongly for single payer (and then perhaps falling back to a strong public option as a concession) he murmurs that the public option is merely the "suspenders" and so on. I just don't think this is a structural problem; I think it is a failure of leadership. We can respectfully disagree of course.
melissamsouza
To khepri: K, I think Obama is providing extraordinary leadership. He has courageously moved forward on a series of political mega-minefields--health care reform being the major one. Many in his Cabinet, including VP Biden, thought he shouldn't have moved this political atom bomb in his first year at all, with the economy being what it is and all of the other myriad problems he was facing. It was Obama's decision, and his alone, to honor his promise to his Progressive Base (you, I assume, being among it), and risk enormous amounts of political capital in his first year in office taking on this hundred-year-old issue. Let's remember how much this issue has cost him--before the debate began, and before the crazy right-wing wacko machine took on the issue, Obama's approval ratings were in the 60's. Health care reform has cost him considerably. But he has guided the process on, even after it stalled, before and after the summer recess, he gave a speech, applied considerable behind-the-scenes pressure and moved it on. There are a number of liberals, including Paul Begala, Mike Lux, even Paul Krugman, and others who have said that the public option can not be made to be the holy grail of health care reform. We must all think of this as the first step in a long process of reform; what is important is to take the first step. Whatever Bill emerges, it will surely be a vast, enormous improvement on what exists today and will provide relief to millions of people. Just keep that in mind--think of the millions who will finally get help. If the public option doesn't make it this time, nothing is to say that it won't make it the next time around, when the Bill begins its many ammendment steps. Let's not act like the Tea Party nutcases and cut off our noses to spite our faces--sabotaging Obama because of the public option, and relinquishing support for the Democrats in the next elections, which will only give power back to Glen Beck and his followers. Are you sure it's worth it?
AlanD2
melissamsouza: Well said! I hope everyone (or at least liberals) considers your comments.
dana64
Excecutive POWER of the type of CHeney;s liking was the dictatorial way W Bush ruled and led us to war.
No PEOPLE should support progressive representatives,,,,,,,,,,,DEMAND CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM...............
why does this bill go into effect in 2o14??
AlanD2
dana64: Deferring start up costs was the only way Democrats could make the bill deficit-neutral.
LiberalTeacher
"The idea that anyone calling themselves a Democrat could have thought twice about whether the Senate should move ahead on the party's biggest priority should have been grounds for public presidential reprimand, if not excommunication." Yeah, I'm frustrated that this process has taken so long, even though my health care (military dependent) is awesome 99% of the time, and this bill barely affects my life. The idea that all Dems are supposed to fall in lock step and not think or act for themselves or their constituents is ludicrous at best. I agree with ACR1493's and
rapierwits' assessments of the tone of Mr Miller's article.
crypto
Lot of things here I can agree with. The one that stops the show is the senate part. Give us an honest congress and I can agree with that part also. But Pelosi is interested in nothing but power. She will be reelected because she is California's cash cow. Franks, Dodd, Rangle, and the rest are crooks. So without the senate everything just gets pushed on through. If Reid had his way the senate would just echo the congress, no debate, just ram it through. So much of these writings I do agree with. But somebody tell me HOW does the taxpayer stop it. Elections are "fixed" and decided by court action so there is no relief there. Rightr now the president can do anything he wants with out fear of reprisal and he knows that congress is in his pocket. The attorney general has done what he wants without any administration comment to the contrary. I don't care who is in office up there. they do as they please and the voters fight among themselves about who is the best and who is screwing us the least. Happening on here right now. How do we fix it?? What can the american voter/taxpayer do??
tumbleweed
Personally, I would rather have a President that doesn't have the reins of power tight in his grip like Bush did. Where Senator's and Representatives were not able to control their own vote rather someone at the national level controlling the way they voted. That was one of the many reasons I quit voting Republican over 20 years ago. That's been going on in their party for 30 at least. I don't like the idea of a Representative who isn't independent enough to control their own decision. One who HAS to vote the way his President wants him to or he is in deep trouble. That's one of the many reasons I started voting Democratic. Controlling votes the way the Republican's do comes off to me as being a despotic. When you vote for them you are handing your say over to some far off person who is going to have them vote they way THEY want them to vote. No thanks! I will stick with the unruly Democrats.
AlanD2
I tend to agree, tumbleweed. George W. Bush certainly pushed the powers of the presidency beyond what our founders ever intended, and beyond what most Americans were comfortable with.
That said, the whole purpose of a political party is to accomplish common goals, and health care reform is certainly the most important common goal of the Democratic Party. So I have mixed feelings about what is happening in the Senate on this issue.
ChicagoBeast
Bottom line is that they have the 60 votes tonight (apparently). All that other talk about "being afraid" of Obama doesn't seem to get the results. The results are speaking for themselves. Maybe in some areas, his way of working IS working. Let's not forget... for the most part: so far, so good.
opedanderson
"Hes better than Bush!" "He inherited a mess!" "His administration is still young!" "It's not his fault"
Tired, old excuses.......
Johnnyappleseed
Is Obama taller than Bush?
AlanD2
But nonetheless true, opedanderson.
Thank you.
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