Obama and Dems to go it alone on health-care reform, if GOP refuses to compromise

[daenku32]

And that it is going to look as if the Dems used a obscure parliamentary maneuver to force a bill this important down the American's people's throat had no meaning to you.
Talk about Partisan Blinders.

Eh. The filibuster is a "obscure parliamentary maneuver". Without it Public Option would have already passed.

 

[dudalb]

Eh. The filibuster is a "obscure parliamentary maneuver". Without it Public Option would have already passed.

Don't have much of a grip of reality, don't you?

 

[thaiboxerken]

um...none. no Congressional rules will be broken. no new precedent will be set.

Yep. Bush and his cronies used reconciliation 6 times and there wasn't a big stink about it.

 

[daenku32]

Don't have much of a grip of reality, don't you?

The Public Option WAS in the bill, and was taken out to get 60 votes in the Senate.

It could have easily gained a Majority of votes if it had received a straight up or down vote. The public is strongly in favor of it. Especially with the Anthem rate increases.

PS. School House Rock never talked about the filibuster.
http://thefreshxpress.com/2009/12/11928/

 

[dudalb]

Yep. Bush and his cronies used reconciliation 6 times and there wasn't a big stink about it.

But it was not on so high profile a issue or something as big as Health Care.
Politics is about largely about appearence, and using Reconciliation is going to look like crap for the Dems. This time there WILL be a big stink about it.
But then, the Hard Line Partisans have never been real good at seeing things as those not so partisan might see them.
This, "By God, We Will Shove Health Care Down The People's Throats By Whatever Means Necessary, And They Will Like It!" attiude might cost the Dems the congress come November.

 

[Shalamar]

Do you think this would be the first time that's happened, that a major American automobile manufacturer has gone bankrupt? Do you think it would be the last?

This nation has survived many such events. It will survive many more. If a company is so horrendously mismanaged as General Motors was, then it needs to die, for the good of the economy as a whole. Yes, it will hurt, but some illnesses don't have easy, comfortable cures. I had a tooth pulled a few weeks ago. It hurt, but the tooth was sick, it was damaging my health as a whole, and so it had to go. Perhaps the same is true of General Motors.

The answer is not to turn this nation into a clone of the failed Союз Советских Социалистических Республик by putting government in charge of industry. It didn't work for the Союз Советских Социалистических Республик, and it won't work here either.

This is a very strange statement to me, and makes little sense. But I will try to make sense of it.

A company approaches a bank for a loan.
The bank agrees, but has conditions.
The company agrees to the conditions.
The company defaults on the loan, and is subject to the conditions.

This is a very capitalistic viewpoint. The bank would have preferred to have the money paid back, with interest, of course, but will settle to the agreement due to the default.

Banks asked for help from the government, received money, and paid it back, with interest.

General Motors asked for help from the government.
The government agreed, with conditions: Collateral in the form of majority stock in GM.
GM defaulted on the loan, thus giving the Government majority shareholder status.

This is a very capitalist thing to do. The government, of course, does not WANT a car company, but they have one now, and plan to get rid of it in the form of a stock sale in the future. With a little luck, and planning (for nothing is certain) they may even make a profit.

So, since I have made sense of this, I have to ask a question.


Bob, why do you hate capitalism?

 

[novice skeptic]

This is a very strange statement to me, and makes little sense. But I will try to make sense of it.

A company approaches a bank for a loan.
The bank agrees, but has conditions.
The company agrees to the conditions.
The company defaults on the loan, and is subject to the conditions.

This is a very capitalistic viewpoint. The bank would have preferred to have the money paid back, with interest, of course, but will settle to the agreement due to the default.

Banks asked for help from the government, received money, and paid it back, with interest.

General Motors asked for help from the government.
The government agreed, with conditions: Collateral in the form of majority stock in GM.
GM defaulted on the loan, thus giving the Government majority shareholder status.

This is a very capitalist thing to do. The government, of course, does not WANT a car company, but they have one now, and plan to get rid of it in the form of a stock sale in the future. With a little luck, and planning (for nothing is certain) they may even make a profit.

So, since I have made sense of this, I have to ask a question.


Bob, why do you hate capitalism?

What you described isn't capitalism and approaches the definition of fascism (just talking the economics of fascism not the racist social policies).

 

[Shalamar]

What you described isn't capitalism and approaches the definition of fascism (just talking the economics of fascism not the racist social policies).

Banks are fascist? So I can borrow money from a bank, not pay it back, and claim fascism when they try to hold me to the contract?

I don't recall anyone holding a gun to GM's head. They didn't pay back the loan. This meant they had to follow through on the contract. They didn't have to do it. Ford didn't like it, and didn't take it, seem to be fine.

Seems to me that the government tried to keep GMafloat, and make some money on the deal. It also may end up being a stupid thing to do, but it sure as hell isn't socialism, or fascism.

 

[tyr_13]

I guess we can't keep on topic. Somehow it's about GM now, and again about the same faulty, long debunked 'socialism' claim.

 

[Thunder]

Yep. Bush and his cronies used reconciliation 6 times and there wasn't a big stink about it.

indeed. it is a perfectly legal and appropriate way to get around the silly and arbitrary 60 vote super-majority anti-filibuster rule.

majority rule should be majority rule. that's the essence of a democratic legislature.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

PS. School House Rock never talked about the filibuster.

So because you never heard about it between "Superfriends" and "Gilligans Planet", it shouldn't exist?

 

[Bob Blaylock]

This is a very strange statement to me, and makes little sense. But I will try to make sense of it.

A company approaches a bank for a loan.
The bank agrees, but has conditions.
The company agrees to the conditions.
The company defaults on the loan, and is subject to the conditions.

This is a very capitalistic viewpoint. The bank would have preferred to have the money paid back, with interest, of course, but will settle to the agreement due to the default.

Banks asked for help from the government, received money, and paid it back, with interest.

General Motors asked for help from the government.
The government agreed, with conditions: Collateral in the form of majority stock in GM.
GM defaulted on the loan, thus giving the Government majority shareholder status.

This is a very capitalist thing to do. The government, of course, does not WANT a car company, but they have one now, and plan to get rid of it in the form of a stock sale in the future. With a little luck, and planning (for nothing is certain) they may even make a profit.

So, since I have made sense of this, I have to ask a question.


Bob, why do you hate capitalism?

You're using the term “capitalism” to describe conduct that is not capitalistic, and which has no place in a capitalist society. It isn't government's place to loan money to private businesses in this manner. This is what banks, and other financial institutions are for. In a capitalist society, it simply isn't government's place to involve itself in this manner in the affairs of private businesses. Government trying to run business and industry is what brought down the Союз Советских Социалистических Республик. We certainly do not need to be allowing our government to do the same to this nation.

 

[Bob Blaylock]

I don't recall anyone holding a gun to GM's head. They didn't pay back the loan. This meant they had to follow through on the contract. They didn't have to do it. Ford didn't like it, and didn't take it, seem to be fine.

Seems to me that the government tried to keep GMafloat, and make some money on the deal. It also may end up being a stupid thing to do, but it sure as hell isn't socialism, or fascism.

The money used to prop up General Motors, and ultimately to take ownership of it, belongs to us, the taxpayers. The government had no authority to squander and gamble it in this manner.

I suppose, ultimately, this points up the core of the problem that we have here. We've got a government that considers itself to be our master, rather than our servant, and which considers itself to be entitled to the fruits of our labor, to use as it will; and we've got a population that, for the most part, tolerates this.

 

[joobz]

The money used to prop up General Motors, and ultimately to take ownership of it, belongs to us, the taxpayers. The government had no authority to squander and gamble it in this manner.

Umm. no.
reality is that we had a failing auto company at the same time as a looming banking collapse. Instead of simply letting everything go to hell, we intervened.

I suppose, ultimately, this points up the core of the problem that we have here. We've got a government that considers itself to be our master, rather than our servant, and which considers itself to be entitled to the fruits of our labor, to use as it will; and we've got a population that, for the most part, tolerates this.

this is just claptrap libertarian nonsense.

 

[joobz]

You're using the term “capitalism” to describe conduct that is not capitalistic, and which has no place in a capitalist society. It isn't government's place to loan money to private businesses in this manner. This is what banks, and other financial institutions are for. In a capitalist society, it simply isn't government's place to involve itself in this manner in the affairs of private businesses. Government trying to run business and industry is what brought down the Союз Советских Социалистических Республик. We certainly do not need to be allowing our government to do the same to this nation.

Do you honestly believe government has no say in business interactions?

Do you also believe government has no say in public safety?

 

[daenku32]

So because you never heard about it between "Superfriends" and "Gilligans Planet", it shouldn't exist?

As much as reconciliation.

 

[novice skeptic]

Banks are fascist? So I can borrow money from a bank, not pay it back, and claim fascism when they try to hold me to the contract?
.

Since banks aren't the government, no they are not fascist. Part of the economic policy of fascism was the belief in a marriage between government and corporations. From wiki: "In the economic sphere, many fascist leaders have claimed to support a "Third Way" in economic policy, which they believed superior to both the rampant individualism of unrestrained capitalism and the severe control of state socialism.[18][19] This was to be achieved by establishing significant government control over business and labour "

Your analogy between you and your bank and government and a corporation is flawed. GM is not you and the government is not a private bank. Thus your question posed to Bob about not liking capitalism was flawed. Whether one supported the policy of bailing out GM (and I'm not opposed to it), to hold it up as an example of capitalism is absurd, since it most assuredly is not.

As I said, it "approaches" some of the economic policies of fascism. I tried to distinguish that from any of the other implications of fascism but apparently that message didn't get through.

 

[tyr_13]

Wow, this derail is just stupid. No, owning the companies does not mean controlling them and in this case the government, while not being a bank, it filling that role, and that role alone. To call it fascism is truly insulting to people who have suffered under actual fascism, and an insult to history.

But that isn't the topic of the damn thread. The Republicans are being offered exactly what they demanded and calling it a trap. The Dems say they are going to 'go it alone' which is probably just posturing as they have been unwilling to do so thus far. That's about all I have to say on this topic. Go on whatever Obama, Dem, Republican bashing derails you all like. I'm done.

 

[McHrozni]

What world do you live in? Unemployment has NOT gone down, the economy is NOT recovering yet. Health care will be passed against the will of the American people. Is that the kind of government you want? Wait, I'll bet it is. You're a government worker. Here are some polls, tell me which one favors government run health care.


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/obama_and_democrats_health_care_plan-1130.html

There are a total of 13 which show a favor for the poll. The last one was conducted in January. The only time there was actual support for the bill was in June last year with a small bout in September last year.
Other than that, yeah, you're right, the opposition to this bill is quite strong.

Hm. I wonder if Obama/Dems can indeed run on "We passed the health reform bill that you didn't want, but that's a whole lot better than doing nothing" somehow.

McHrozni

 

[daenku32]

Hm. I wonder if Obama/Dems can indeed run on "We passed the health reform bill that you didn't want, but that's a whole lot better than doing nothing" somehow.

McHrozni

A bill WITH the Public Option would make it more desirable for the American people. The bill lost of a lot of support when it began to resemble simply a big handout to corporations.

What I'm hoping for with the reconciliation is that they will also remove some of the corporate lobbyist induced provisions, because not only would it make the bill better, people would like it more as well.