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News & ArtsMonday, December 14, 2009
Health / News The Best Lack All Conviction
Posted by Dan Savage on Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 9:01 AM
First, some analysis from Matthew Yglesias:
Looks like Joe Lieberman decided to try for the old double-cross and say he now opposes the Medicare expansion compromise he’d hinted he would support. Lieberman wants no public option, no trigger that might create a public option, and no expansion of existing programs as a substitute for a public option. And he doesn’t care about expressing that view in misleading ways, timed to cause embarrassment to the Democratic leadership.... [But] the real story here is that the Senate leadership has, at every step of this process, underscored that a “reconciliation” path to a health care bill is off the table. That means Lieberman has unlimited control over what happens, and no incentive to compromise, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he’s being uncompromising.
Voters in Connecticut support the public option by wide margins. We don't need any more pansy-assed liberal "vigils." What we need, Connecticut voters, are a few Florida-in-2000/teabaggers-at-the-gates style riots. Connecticut voters—the folks who inflicted Joe Lieberman on us in the first place—should head to Lieberman's offices in Connecticut and Washington D.C. and shut 'em down. And the Democratic leadership needs to fucking strip Lieberman of his chairmanship already. Consequences, consequences.
1
Part of the issue is also that Democratic leaders seem more concerned with conciliation and appearing bipartisan than, you know, actually accomplishing anything. Lieberman wields such disproportionate sway over the Senate in large part because the Dems are ALLOWING him to do so.
3
Connecticut . . . ugh. Half the state is Yankees fans; the other half is Red Sox fans. If they can't even agree on something as important as that, how the hell do you expect them to get this straight?
4
Why would Connecticut voters want to throw him out? He's protecting their rich, insurance-working asses. They're too comfortable to riot, and anyway the slush would ruin their Tod's.
7
Dan, good to see you posting to Matthew Yglesias. He's got a great blog--sharp, clear-eyed, progressive stuff. No obeisance to the sacred cows of liberalism.
Y'know, I think Yglesias has really cut to the kernel of the problem. To get 60 votes to prevent a filibuster, you need either Joe Lieberman or Olympia Snowe--which effectively means the health insurance industry has veto power over health insurance reform. So don't you have to resort to reconciliation, where you only need 50 votes + Biden?
Bush and the Republican Congress managed to get the tax cuts for the rich and the multi-trillion-dollar Medicare prescription drug handout through on reconciliation. If they can use that hammer to destroy the federal govt's balance sheet, why can't we use it to start to repair the federal govt's balance sheet? Now, I know there are certain limits on what can be passed through with reconciliation and what can't. But at this point, wouldn't reconciliation-constrained health reform be far better than Lieberman-constrained health reform?
Y'know, I think Yglesias has really cut to the kernel of the problem. To get 60 votes to prevent a filibuster, you need either Joe Lieberman or Olympia Snowe--which effectively means the health insurance industry has veto power over health insurance reform. So don't you have to resort to reconciliation, where you only need 50 votes + Biden?
Bush and the Republican Congress managed to get the tax cuts for the rich and the multi-trillion-dollar Medicare prescription drug handout through on reconciliation. If they can use that hammer to destroy the federal govt's balance sheet, why can't we use it to start to repair the federal govt's balance sheet? Now, I know there are certain limits on what can be passed through with reconciliation and what can't. But at this point, wouldn't reconciliation-constrained health reform be far better than Lieberman-constrained health reform?
9
why is it when the repubs had a majority, but not sixty, they were able, successfully to paint the dems as obstructionist if they used the sixty threshold to prevent a vote, but now that the dems have a majority for issues, but not sixty, they don't REMIND the country that the repubs used to insist on, and GET simple majority votes on bills, that, with a simple republican majority were then passed and became law?????
10
I'm desperately curious to see the two following things:
(1) the straw that FINALLY breaks the camel's metaphorical back and causes the Dems to FINALLY kick goddamned Joe motherfucking Lieberman to the curb. The man is totally useless and he empowers the Right by his mere presence.
(2) Joe's whiny kvetching over being kicked to the curb. That's gonna be great. He's gonna put on the hurt face and talk about how the Dems betrayed him.
Maybe he can be Sarah Palin's running mate in 2012?
(1) the straw that FINALLY breaks the camel's metaphorical back and causes the Dems to FINALLY kick goddamned Joe motherfucking Lieberman to the curb. The man is totally useless and he empowers the Right by his mere presence.
(2) Joe's whiny kvetching over being kicked to the curb. That's gonna be great. He's gonna put on the hurt face and talk about how the Dems betrayed him.
Maybe he can be Sarah Palin's running mate in 2012?
11
I disagree with you analysis. He can vote any way he wants on this measure, so long as he sticks with the Democrats on the cloture votes. Since they just had a vote allowing things to progress, I assume he is doing that.
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