I was watching Chris Matthews about an hour ago, and he was talking to two former moderate Senators. Cohen (R) and Breaux (D). At the end, to summerize, he said both sides should accept a half loaf of bread. Yet, Democrats want a whole loaf, and Republicans want no loaf.
People on both sides will disagree with this, but both parties are part of the problem. To both sides: I don't care if you think you're being reasonable and trying to cooperate (to Republicans) or too moderate (to Democrats) if you're not getting things through and solving problems, you're parties are clearly not being reasonable enough, cooperative enough, nor moderate enough.
We can only hope some reasonable third party puts one of those two dinosaurs to rest.[/rant]
This is such utter nonsense. And no, I don't want to hear any of your "Oh but Marokai your disagreement just proves my point!!" bullsh
it.
The real scenario is one party is willing to get a half-loaf and the other party wants no loaf at all. Democrats have not been trying to go "all or nothing" on any of this stuff and it just blows my mind how you could even suggest that's the case. I'm being deadly serious when I say you must be
totally f-ing blind to suggest Democrats are failing at getting things passed because
they're not willing to compromise enough.Let's just take healthcare as an example, given that it's the most present political issue at this time.
No political issue has been compromise more than this by the Democrats. To start with,
Baucus and the Senate never even considered Single Payer in the first place, advocated by many of the Progressives in the Democratic Party. It was taken off the table immediately. It didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing the broader legislative up-or-downs, but
it wasn't even considered to begin with.And so we moved onto the public option, of varying strength. It was such a pitiful public health insurance program that it was estimated by the CBO to only carry about 6 million people, and not everyone would be able to purchase into it in the first place. But still, it was some small start. Nope, that wouldn't fly either,
so the public option, tiny as it was, was removed from consideration of the bill in an effort by the Democrats to get it passed.And so we moved to the compromise to the compromise; the Medicare Buy-in. We all know how this went. Because of one Senator holding the process hostage,
a premium-funded expansion of Medicare died shortly after it was considered, and before it was even scored.
Other things in the bill we lost to be more "moderate"? A tax hike on the wealthy, a sensible and efficient way of raising the revenue, was lost in the Senate bill. We lost a repeal of anti-trust exemptions for health-insurance companies. Efforts to force companies to spend more of their income on actually providing money for care were watered down. Subsidies were cut, and subsequently so was the maximum number of estimated newly insured.
All of this produced no Republican votes. None. Democrats gave up on their whole loaf from the start, and lost their half-loaf ages ago. We're struggling to keep some
crumbs after all is said and done.
What's more baffling is an entry I read from Ezra Klein around a week ago or so.
Republican ideas and imput have been incorporated into this bill from the get-go! Although a couple of the proposals from the Democrats don't go as far as a couple of the demands, they are significant efforts made by people who shouldn't even have to make these offerings in the first place, and many of the ideas are included flat-out.
Purchasing healthcare from across state lines; In. Allowing states to circumvent federal standards and regulations if they make better efforts than Congress; In. Making efforts to reduce supposed junk lawsuits; In. Allowing people to pool together in the way federal employees an unions do; In, in fact, the very point of the national exchanges to begin with! All of these and more were Republican demands Ezra notes that we have all caved to!
And still, zero votes.
We've made our effort. I'm so tired of your "oh if only the two sides could come together" erotic fantasies. Democrats have made countless, countless,
countless efforts to give into Republican ideas and proposals and curtail our own, and it has produced nothing in terms of votes or even an attitude adjustment. Fanatical opposition has remained a constant, without regard for what we've adjusted in the bills, since last Summer.
It's happened everywhere else, too. Republicans supported a bipartisan deficit commission. Obama backed this idea, the Senate had a majority vote in favor of the idea,
but Republicans opposed their own idea, blocked it, so it failed.
John McCain campaigned in support of cap and trade and climate change legislation in general.
He has since bashed the (moderated) House cap and trade bill going against his own former position.Republicans bawked about PAYGO being necessary to rein in the deficit. I happen to agree, and so did Obama and the Democrats.
They promptly brought up the pay as you go rules for a vote, and ALL FORTY REPUBLICANS IN THE SENATE VOTED AGAINST IT.Don't let any of this get in your way though. You just keep dreaming your facts-optional moderate hero dream.
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