No - all deals are a quid pro quo. An offer defines both sides of the potential exchange (I give this and you give that). This is fundamental to all negotiations. We can't have a reasonable conversation so long as you fail to understand basics.
Again, what are the Republicans offering to give to the Democrats in return for getting their way on the ACA? It's not the avoidance of a shutdown, since both sides wanted that.
So what are they offering?
A) It is an offer. YOU get an increase in the debt ceiling and in exchange ACA gets a delay and no device tax and ... Quid pro quo.
A) The debt ceiling is not even being discussed here, and B) if the Republicans actually want the US to default on its debt then they're even more dangerously insane than I thought.
B) You shouldn't make up "facts". There have been no Senate votes since Sept 30, and that was to table a motion for a CR. No markup was sent back to the House.
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/vote_menu_113_1.htm
Your link shows exactly what I said: the House sent a poisoned CR to the Senate, which passed an amended version which yanked out the poison bits. The crazy-wing of the House Republicans refused to pass that amended version, and killed the attempt of the sane House Republicans to pass a new CR that didn't have those poison bits, and instead passed a new poisoned CR.
The Senate responded by effectively telling the House Republicans to stop screwing around.
You are guilty of exactly the same polarizing ad hominem and demonization as Obama.
If you say so.
If you are so intolerant of opposing positions that your opponent are "the crazy wing" then you cannot participate in a reasonable negotiation.
There is no negotiation here. I'm all for opposing positions, and have said numerous times that the Republicans are welcome to propose a bill containing everything they want and put it up for a vote.
Instead, they've held the economy hostage and demanded that the legislative process be bypassed so they can get their way.
If your position is that people who oppose the ACA are 'ideological crusaders attempting to harm the ill and ruin the economy', then you are the problem. Stop imputing bad motives to others.
It stops being "imputing" and starts being
blatantly obvious that they have bad motives when they shut down the government because they couldn't get their way.
From the "effective negotiations" class i took long ago - it looks like this impasse is b/c this has come down to one issue (ACA). That's very bad for progress. Normally you want several factors that the two parties value distinctly. If the Dems wanted a good compromise they should counter with an additional factor (like delay ACA for 6 months AND we cut oil subsidies by 50%). That's not a serious example, but they should put the Reps goodies on the table for chopping too.
No, they shouldn't, because that will legitimize the Republican's attempt at bypassing the legislative process, effectively wrecking the way our government works.
60 to 40 is a comfortable supermajority.
And did you see the part of your second link where it talks about how the overwhelming majority of Americans favor the things the ACA actually does (The headline is even "The US healthcare paradox: we like the Affordable Care Act but fear Obamacare"!)? Or where it notes that a lot of the people polled have been fooled by Republican lies about the ACA, such as the "Death Panels" nonsense?
Apparently Tom Cruz and others were not soundly defeated.
The Republicans campaigned strongly on the repeal of the ACA, and still lost Senate seats, House seats, the Presidential election, and the overall vote total.
Their agenda regarding the ACA was
rejected by America.
We've been over this ;and so should your HS civics teacher. The Senate + WH can & have rejected changes (Harry Reid said he won't bring any mod bills to the floor) so now the House is trying to use the "power of the purse" tactic - right ? What's wrong with that ?
See the part of Federalist # 58 you left out of your quote for an answer to that. You know, the part that reads:
But will not the house of representatives be as much interested as the senate in maintaining the government in its proper functions, and will they not therefore be unwilling to stake its existence of its reputation on the pliancy of the senate? Or if such a trial of firmness between the two branches were hazarded, would not the one be as likely first to yield as the other? These questions will create no difficulty with those who reflect, that in all cases the smaller the number and the more permanent and conspicuous the station of men in power, the stronger must be the interest which they will individually feel in whatever concerns the government. Those who represent the dignity of their country in the eyes of other nations, will be particularly sensible to every prospect of public danger, or of a dishonorable stagnation in public affairs.
Madison was okay with the House having "the power of the purse" because he didn't believe that they would be stupid or crazy enough to seriously risk, much less force, a government shutdown.
Unfortunately for us, Madison was wrong about that, and it turns out that the Tea Partiers in the House are, in fact, that stupid and crazy.
Did you imagine that everything passed by Dem Congress would last once they lost some control ?
I expected it to be subject to the proper legislative process for modification and/or repeal.
That's a failed analogy in several important ways. Your roomates changed in 2012, and your old DemHouse roomate was replaced by a RepHouse roomate. It isn't just rent - but you both pay for all expenses from a joint account. You and your new roomate disagree on several topics of expense & policy that your old roomate agreed on. You both want to stay in this joint account agreement but not w/o some compromise on the issues of disagreement. Your assumption that you get things 100% as they were with the old roomate is living in the past.
Actually, it's more like a house with, say, seven roommates. Periodically, you all have meetings to vote on what expenses to share and pay from a joint account. A few years ago, one of the roommates suggested signing up for a satellite TV subscription. It was voted down, but now another one of the roommates proposes the same thing. This time, it passes by a vote of 5 to 2 (bizarrely, one of the "no" votes is the same roommate who proposed it years ago), so the house is signed up for a subscription to Direct TV.
A year later, one of the roommates who voted for the satellite TV moves out, and is replaced by a new roommate. This roommate doesn't like the idea of TV in general, and tells everyone she doesn't want the house to have the satellite TV subscription. At the next meeting, there's a vote to see if the subscription should be canceled, and the vote is 4 to 3 in favor of keeping it. At the next meeting, the same thing happens, with the same vote. And at the next meeting. And the next. And the
next. This happens
forty-three times, and each time the majority of the roommates vote to keep the satellite TV subscription.
One day, everyone sits down to pay the monthly bills from the joint account that everyone has to sign off on. The roommate who doesn't want to have satellite TV, though, refuses to sign to pay
anything: no rent, no electricity, no water, no gas, no
nothing, unless everyone agrees to cancel the satellite TV subscription.
Not paying all the bills is bad for everyone in the house, including that truculent roommate, because it will hurt their credit rating, there are late fee penalties, and if it goes on long enough they could all be sent to collections or even evicted. So, the roommate modifies her demand - instead of canceling entirely, she says that the subscription should be changed from the Deluxe package to the Basic package, and unless everyone agrees to that, she still won't allow any of the household bills to be paid.
"No," the others say. "We've already voted as a household over 40 times to keep the Satellite TV subscription as-is, and we really need to pay our bills because otherwise everyone will be hurt by nonpayment. Including you!"
"Well, if that happens," she replies, "it'll be all
your fault for not even making a counteroffer to negotiate with me!"
"There's nothing to negotiate!" they say. "We voted, we re-voted, and we
re-re-voted. And we really need to pay all our bills before bad consequences start happening!"
"Well, then you'd better hurry up and call DirectTV and tell them about the changes we're making to the subscription before that happens," she says smugly. "And then at the next meeting, we can talk about what
else I want in return for my agreement on the household bills. So much for your
voting, huh?"
New roomate is not asking for some added TV/laptop expense, but demanding that you both slow down and reconsider the current policy as they can result in common expenses that neither should want (I am not suggesting that Reps have always been so reasonable). The new roomate would prefer that you eliminate certain expenses altogether.
They're still not reasonable. The Republicans aren't doing this because they have real concerns about a law that they hope to improve, they want to get rid of the ACA whether or not it works. In fact, they want to get rid of it before it has a chance to work because they're
afraid that it will work!
]SCOTUS ruled on one small aspect of ACA (personal mandate). They did NOT give some blanket approval as you imply.
So? The part that was tested, the single most contentious part no less, passed Constitutional muster by the highest court in the land.
Yes ACA passed, but apparently they did not (and could not) pass perpetually continuing budget allocation.
Which is entirely unrelated to the passage of the ACA, since the ACA is right now being funded despite the Republican tantrum and the government shutdown.
For than matter Harry Reid has prevented any omnibus budget for ~4 years. The power of the purse was used to shutdown the Vietnam War in 1974, to put a timeline on Iraq ....
Neither of which were specific pieces of legislation passed by proper vote and declared Constitutional by SCOTUS.