"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." A Liberal-supporting, environmentalist blog. We blog according to our opinions, not those of the party or government. Free speech must win and that's why we have this blog. The views of two Montrealers and a Libertarian.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Final Run
Obama and the democrats in Washington have decided that they will do something called Reconciliations. What this means is that in order to pass the bill you do not need 60 out of the 100 votes to pass this bill. The problem with this way is that it takes longer time untill you can vote on it unlike the regular way. Time the president may not have considering a political up rise with the tea party movement and the criticism that he has spend to much time on health care. I personally believe that this is how it should work always a 51 majority rules bases. The funny thing is that in 2001 when democrats apposed the tax cuts of Bush. the republican use reconciliation to pass it, and democrats scowled at them for using "sneaky tricks", but the Republicans say that they believe that a 51 majority rules does work. Then on Obama Health care Democrats have changed their tunes and said they believe in majority rules, but Republicans are screaming at the president that he is "cheating the system". It all seems as politics as usual on Capitol Hill.
Labels:
Health care,
Obama,
Politics,
US
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Actually, it's not quite the same. Democrats may have grumbled about the reconciliation process being used to pass the Bush tax cuts. However, living there at the time, I don't even recall that so it would be interesting to see the source of that statement.
ReplyDeleteRegardless, the most important fact is they accepted the basic concept that a majority vote rules.
In this case, Republicans prevented a 60-vote margin to bring the measure for a vote. The Democrats could have undertaken a reconciliation-based bill from the beginning, but they were acting in good faith that a measure could reasonably be created that would allow for a traditional vote. The Republicans announded as early as summer that they would have none of that, but Obama and the Democrats spent months working down that path.
Now, shifting the process to get a Health Care bill completed. And now, the Republicans aren't just scowling. They are essentially screaming that their using reconciliation is tantamount to treason.
If you really thing the situations in 2001 and today are the same, then you're really buying into a big lie.
Republicans are applying once sparingly used filibuster rules to essentially shut down all normal legislative processes. It's a whole new world in Washington these days.
the democrats did go against reconciliation for the bush tax cuts and i am comparing how this was used in 2001 while the majority party (republicans) used it and the democrats went against it while now the democrats support it and the republicans are going against it
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