Senate Democrats spent their first full day holding 60 votes just as they have spent the previous 2 1/2 years without such a supermajority: scrambling to find Republican support for their key initiatives in order to choke off potential filibusters.More at the link.
In short, Tuesday's seating of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) did little to change the balance of power in the chamber.
Democrats still have a large enough majority to pass bills without any GOP support, but they are grappling with internal divisions on key issues such as health care, climate change and union organizing. In addition, caucus leaders and President Obama would like at least some Republican backing on key measures so they can say they are enacting a bipartisan agenda, which then-Sen. Obama made a cornerstone of his 2008 campaign.
Some conservative Democrats who live in GOP-leaning states believe that getting Republican votes on controversial bills provides them with a line of defense against political attacks back home.
Moreover, two members of the Democratic caucus, Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.) and Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.), have not cast a vote in months. It is not clear whether the health of either elder statesman -- Kennedy, 77, has brain cancer and Byrd, 91, is battling the effects of a staph infection incurred during a hospitalization in May -- will allow him to participate in any key matter before the Senate.
In greeting Franken to Capitol Hill this week, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) sounded a conciliatory note.
"Democrats aren't looking at Senator Franken's election as an opportunity to ram legislation through the Senate," he said Monday. "In turn, Senate Republicans must understand that Senator-elect Franken's election does not abdicate them from the responsibility of governing. That is why we have and will continue to offer Senate Republicans a seat at the table. It is up to them to decide whether they will sit down and work for the common good or continue to be the 'Party of No.' "
But the arrival of a 60th Democratic vote has been accompanied by increasing pressure from liberal groups nationwide that have helped bankroll the party's electoral successes the past few years. They are now demanding Democrats follow through on their campaign promises, with or without Republican votes.
"When it comes to health care, energy and the economy, Democrats have no excuses not to deliver on the changes that voters wanted last November," said Justin Ruben, executive director of the liberal group MoveOn.org. "On health care and on energy . . . you have conservative Democrats saying we have to compromise. That dynamic has just changed. Really they don't" have to compromise.
See also, Megan McArdle, "A Public Plan and the Law of Unintended Consequences":
Hilzoy is mad at conservatives talking about rationing in the public plan. She says that no one's really rationing care with a public plan; anyone can buy what they want. It's just that the public plan will ration for those in its care in order to make coverage affordable.Megan wins that debate hands down, but read both posts (via Memeorandum).
Cartoon Credit: William Warren.
2 comments:
Well, the versions of the congressional health care, energy and the economy initiatives are pure Democrat. Period. This IS partisan politics, and the Republicans need to wash their hands of it.
The Democratic majority have the votes to pass anything. What if they are correct in their economic strategies? We will lose in 2012 because the economy soars to recovery, and jobs increase - a good conclusion. The country gets back on its feet.
Or, the economy continues to plummet and we get elected based on their failures, and we will be the ones saying “this is what we inherited.”
I can’t call that a good ending, but it may be the only one with which we are left, on the right, that is.
We should keep out of this and not put our stamp on these bills. No national of international economist or finance official (with the exception of the Obama administration) that I have read, knows how the Government is going pay for this. It is sounding a lot like California’s plight.
I always find it so ironic, that some of the biggest civil-liberties concern trolls in our society, who go all apoplectic over things like the PATRIOT ACT ... are among the most enthusiastic to sign over control of the health care to the government, which will be a far more egregious invasion of their privacy -- and have far greater potential for the authoritarian among us to use it as leverage against our liberty.
This needs to be pointed out more, right along with the economics ... and with the fact that once we go down this road, it will be VERY difficult to make a U-turn once we see what's happening.
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