Just one problem — that video was from 2005. Today, Gregg has a slightly different take.
Now, I know this is all standard politics. In fact, I realize that for Gregg to have to be defending reconciliation, that means Democrats were attacking it back in 2005. That back-and-forth is all pretty standard political fare. What’s important is that we recognize it for exactly that — normal, meaningless political bickering. The claims — on both sides — that reconciliation is an unacceptable tool are simply ridiculous.
I’m not disagreeing that reconciliation is a rule of the Senate, and you can use reconciliation on budget bills. A rule is a rule is a rule. Majority vote can pass alot. It is for the rulebook to decide.
That doesn’t mean that I think the Democrats’ would be using sound judgment in passing such sweeping policy through a budget reconciliation rule. Whether that was good politics or not, that would be for the voters to decide.
Democrats can do whatever they want. Then we can all determine if they deserve to stay in power.
To illustrate my point, Judd Gregg made this speech in 2005. In 2005, the GOP was feeling a little cocky, full of hubris, and the winner takes all majority rule philosophy was being defended by guys like Gregg. “We won, we get to make the policy” was the prevailing attitude.
In 2006, they got beat badly.
In 2008, they got their assess handed to them.
2010? 2012? Ball is in the Dems court.
You’re equating tax cuts for the ultra wealthy with health insurance for millions of Americans. It is a terrible comparison…but that’s your M.O. so I am not surprised.
How about an unrelated personal anecdote to round out the thread? Perhaps something about a slice of pie for the trifecta?
Given that 60% of Americans want health care reform, 60% support the public option, and only 30% support the current senate bill, I think the Democrats in congress ought to go to bat for what the American people both want and need. Public option/medicare buy-in using reconciliation.
I’m not seeing your numbers anywhere, lojasmo. Here are some figures current published on reputable pollster’s websites today, 2/28:
Gallup (www.gallup.com)
- 52% Oppose using reconciliation to pass health care bill
- 55% say we should suspend current bill, and start over using other policy alternatives
Rasmussen (www.rasmussenreports.com)
- 56% Oppose Obama’s health plan (not the Senate bill, Obama’s)
- 51% fear Govt more than private insurers
- 47% oppose Public Option
Zogby (www.zogby.com)
- 52% prefer starting the health care bill over vs. amending Obama’s plan for passage
- When given the Obama plan or the GOP health plan as choices, voters are split 40% to 40%
Lojasmo and Ron, while these numbers are all close, the Public Option and Obama’s health plan are hardly reflective of a wave of public opinion. It is no wonder so many moderate Dems are lukewarm on it. If 50-55% oppose it, then by definition many of our majority parties constituents don’t align with the majority party’s view on this one.
Not to belabor the point or cry over spilled milk, but public support for a public option, which peaked in the 70’s last summer has waned for a number of reasons. The main factors influencing this being the constant barrage of lies and misinformation coming from opponents of reform and the fact that the Democrats have been squishy about it and bargained away many of the key elements that progressives would have liked to see. I wouldn’t support any of these current plans if I had better choices. I think that an employer based system is abusive to small business, I would like to see tort reform, and I think that single payor, whether state or federal, should be the base plan.
Because starting over is a red herring being floated by opponents to kill the process, I don’t see that as an option. The lack of an expansion of public options will only slow progress as long as universal access is guaranteed or mandated. Ultimately, a single payor system will be adopted because economic realities will require it.
“I’m not seeing your numbers anywhere, lojasmo. Here are some figures current published on reputable pollster’s websites today, 2/28:”
Only one of the polls, the Rasmussen one, directly asks about the Public Option. The Rasmussen poll is an outlier when compared to pretty much every other nationwide poll on the Public Option from a wide variety of sources. Your choice is to either accept the outlier as the final word on public sentiment, or take the aggregate of multiple polls’ findings to more accurately reflect public sentiment. Aggregating various polls shows majority support for the public option.
Fair enough. I see a Newsweek poll from Feb 20 that shows 50% support the Public Option, and 42% oppose.
Other than those two, do you know of any other polls from 2010 that specifically ask about Public Option? I would expect that, if it is good policy, it would gain popularity as more people learn more about it. If anything, the more people learn about it the lower the support levels get.
Still, hard to ignore the other numbers as well.
“Other than those two, do you know of any other polls from 2010 that specifically ask about Public Option?”
I do not- the only other polls I have been able to find have been from 2009.
“If anything, the more people learn about it the lower the support levels get.”
That completely negates the power of politics, and who is better able to play the political game. What “facts” do you think people are being exposed to that would dampen their support of the public option? Death panels? Coverage of illegal immigrants? I’m sorry, but stoking fears in a time when people are already afraid has long been a potent political weapon.
I would point out, however, that I wholly own that the paragraph immediately above is my opinion, just as it is your opinion that greater information rather than political manuevering has resulted in lowering support of the public option. In point of FACT, however, the bulk of the most recent polls (of which there are admittedly few in 2010) show moderate to strong majorities in support of the public option.
To me, that by definition would make the public option not a far- but a moderate- or center-left policy. By definition, far left or right, I think it is fair to say, cannot command a majority of voters. One might argue if far left or right might mean the 30% or 40% of the voters at either extreme, but I don’t think it a valid argument to say that far left or right can be a majority.
I haven’t heard anyone take the deaht panel threat seriously for months. I think the essence of the issue is this:
No clear path has been drawn from this health reform to any kind of cost savings.
Costs and deficits are two different things, mind you. Deficits can be reduced by raising taxes. Health reform raises taxes in 10 years by a slightly faster clip than it spends money. Therefore it is deficit reducing.
But if the very case for health reform was made by saying we spend 16% of our GDP on healthcare, more than any other country, and then people come to realize this doesn’t reduce that number, it is a bait and switch.
If this health reform reduced our health care costs instead of increasing them, it would have passed into law before the Thanksgiving break.
“If this health reform reduced our health care costs instead of increasing them, it would have passed into law before the Thanksgiving break.”
Initially costs will be higher because we will be covering more people. Cost reduction will occur over time as a result of shifting care from more expensive venues like the ER to less expensive venues like the doctors office and provideing maintainace care as opposed to acute care. Further cost control will be achieved by enabling electronic medical records which will make cost data more transparent and more easily available as outcomes registries are established. The ability to control costs rationally in this way will replace the rationing of care that is currently practiced by insurance companies who see cost control as a profit management mechanism.
Do you have memory problems? Yeterday you agreed that bill has already passed fairly already with 60 votes, now you are raising the same debunked point again, about how it would be unwise for dems to pass such sweeping policy through budget reconciliation.
btw, here is an interesting opinion poll you missed, that explains how nearly all major provisions of HCR have majority support.
http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/upload/8051-F.pdf
Interesting take. I actually beleve my points are pretty consistent.
The Senate health reform bill passed with 60 votes. That much is a done deal. Reconciliation is technically a legal way to get most aspects of the Senate bill into law, even with some modifications. It is a technique that has been used in the past by both parties. Those are the rules, and it looks like they are being followed.
And just because you are able to keep it within the rules doesn’t mean it is always the politically right thing to do.
Getting a certain # of votes for passage and reconciliation is a science. Doing it all in a way that sits well with the constituency — well, that part is an art. It is the Democrats time to be artful, like the GOP wasn’t before they lost their majorities.
Thanks for the link SMD. This is not a poll that opponents of reform would want to cite. It is one that proponents should heed however, because there will be a greater price paid for obstructing reform than their will be for facilitating it by whatever reasonable means.
What Judd Gregg said in 2005 was true then and is still true today. The Republicans didn’t lose in 2006 and 2008 because they used the power of their majority position, it is because they used the power of their majority position to pursue bad policy.
The Democrats were not bold enough in asserting their mandate. They should have pursued a universal mandate and a strong public payor plan as a basis for negotiations. The “option” should have been to allow the private payors to compete with a publicly managed payor system. They should have included reasonable concessions like tort reform and aggressive cost control through fraud and abuse regulations to address the concerns of the minority. Reconcilliation as an option should have been promoted from the start.
The key to both a political victory and real reform is to mandate universal coverage. If we are all insured, the majority will vote to protect that. While a single payor system is the most cost effective, it will happen eventually if universal coverage is achieved because cost control will be necessary to maintain universal coverage.
Listen to Lojasmo DTM, you could learn something.
Both filibuster and reconciliation rules are of greater benefit to GOP and their agenda. Once again from Ezra Klein (slightly paraphrased):
“Which gets to another issue with the filibuster: Republicans are focused on tax cuts, which can run through reconciliation without much trouble, and they’re less interested in preserving the rules, which means they’re better at finding their way around the filibuster…
(recall how dems caved to the threat of the nuclear option over GWB judicial appointments.)
When dems are in the minority, the benefits they derive from the filibuster are/will be substantially less than the benefits the GOP derives from the filibuster.”
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/02/the_filibusters_conservative_t.html
If/when the GOP regains the majority, they will certainly use or change the rules to pass whatever they can whip up 51 votes for. Lack of majority support was the main hold up to parts of Bush agenda (ie. privatizing social security.)
But the best reason to change the the filibuster rule is that it is very undemocratic, a strong case can be made that it is even unconstitutional.
“When dems are in the minority, the benefits they derive from the filibuster are/will be substantially less than the benefits the GOP derives from the filibuster.”
There is a reason why liberals are called bleeding hearts. They could stand to toughen up a little.
Agreed. Democrats are incredibly unwilling to play the game of politics. As much as we’d love for Obama to make our dream come true and change the playbook, politics as usual is very ingrained and the American electorate hardly understands politics as usual. As much as they/we bitch about it, we only make the politics as usual system stronger with our immense amount of ignorance about politics and the political system.
If the filibuster is still around when the GOP has the majority, I’ll be livid if we dont filibuster every piece of legislation they try to pump out. I dont care if it is forty years from now, pay back is a bitch, period. And it is very clear that when you use archane senate rules to block progress, the American electorate doesnt understand why, it understands that the party they put in power isnt doing their job. The American electorate hardly has an appetite for policy, expecting them/us to understand policy is simply asking way too much.
Granted, the filibuster will always be a much more useful tool for the GOP as they are much more likely to pick-up the extra conservadems to get the extra votes they need for the legislation. Man the Senate is programmed to fuck us progressives over…..
Publius - show the Democrats arguing AGAINST reconcilation. They are all hypocrites.
I guarantee if you asked 100 people what the hell reconciliation is, 20 would know what it is. Of the 20 people who actually know what it is, 2 would actually remember any bill that passed that way. Once a bill is passed, no one cares how.
The most interesting scenario politically, as a fascinated bystander, was summarized by Jonah Goldberg.
Pass HCR with reconciliation, majority vote. Then, have the GOP run this year on a pledge to repeal HCR if given a legislative majority. That makes November a question of HCR, and the answer would be very clear.
Is this what Moderates find fascinating DTM? Wishful fantasy notions about the defeat of their supposed political enemies? There is a clear disconnect between your proclamations of independence and your predictable fall back to right wing ideology. Do you suppose that the musings of the author of “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning” are apolitical, objective or well intended?
Publishers Weekly describes his book this way:
“Much of this will be music to conservatives’ ears, but other readers may be stopped cold by the parallels Goldberg draws between Nazi Germany and the New Deal. The book’s tone suffers as it oscillates between revisionist historical analyses and the application of fascist themes to American popular culture”
Goldberg demonizes the left. It is how he makes a living. What is interesting about this is not what Jonah Goldberg has to say but that you relate to what he has to say to the degree that you can be a tool for him to spread his fantasy scenario. Often repeated fantasies can become self fulfilling prophesies. You are fond of saying that people like me overestimate the gullibility of the American people. I think folks like you underestimate the ability of tightly controlled marketing to influence public perception and opinion; even your own.
This isn’t a game to be won or lost by the righties or lefties. The contest here, at its most basic, is between the welfare of people and the wealth of corporations. It is a moot point who wins this current debate or the 2010 elections, etc. The inexorable shift of wealth away from the middle class is unsustainable in a democracy so we will have no choice but to change or fall from our very high pedestal. If we need to hit rock bottom for people to understand this and for you to no longer find Jonah Goldberg’s musings fascinating, then so be it.