I have on my desk a print-out of an editorial in the left-of-center New York Daily News where the editors, urging the president to pull the plug on his health care overhaul, point out:
Just one in four voters supports the reform bill as written; half want Congress to start over. Compare that with the popular support other major pieces of social legislation enjoyed before passage, like welfare reform (68%), Medicare (63%) and civil rights (60%).
Even if we buy the fanciful numbers of one of our perennial critics, we still don’t even have a majority for Obamacare, not even a plurality. Nearly every prior major reform enjoyed support of at least three-fifths of all Americans. And those reforms didn’t have the president shilling for them as regularly as this president has been shilling for an overhaul of our nation’s health care system.
In every election where health care has been an issue these past six months, it has played to the GOP’s advantage, even in states that voted overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008. The Democrats seem to recognize that their bill isn’t that popular as they have had to pay off various Senators for their votes and are busy crafting payoffs to secure the votes of waving Members of the House. Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.) said, “there is a lot of ‘arm-twisting’ to attract votes, adding that leadership officials are asking members what they want in the yet-to-be-released reconciliation package to secure their votes.”
Don’t think they’re doing that asking in front of C-SPAN cameras.
Democrats know they’ve lost on the merits, so the only way they can win is with back room deals.
They’ve lost this fight politically, but, alas, as I’ve said before, they could still win it legislatively.
Well, let’s suppose Obamacare passes. What then?
– How quickly will people get the unconstitutional aspects (like the whole bill being “deemed” to have passed, rather than actually passed) be thrown out?
– How will a Republican Congress in 2011, with Obama still the President, modify it?
It seems to me that if the Democrats can hold together and pass it, then they do “win”. Because the Republicans won’t be able to do anything about it until 2013 at the earliest… at which point, Obamacare will be the entrenched status quo. Anyway that’s the Dem calculation. I think it’s awful, I’m just pointing out that the Dems kind of have a point, in persisting.
Did I just see the New York Daily News cite rising healthcare costs as a reason not to push forward with reform efforts?
Also, pardon my French on this one:
BULLSHIT!
The ‘little-used parliamentary maneuver’ that has been used five times in the last decade? The very same maneuver that was used to get the 2003 tax cuts passed with all senate Democrats and three senate Republicans opposed? That one? The one the Republicans used multiple times to get their way and suddenly hate because now it’s the Democrats who don’t want to listen to them? Really?
Forgive me if I sound a little bitter, but it does seem like many people are using the fact that ‘budget reconciliation’ is not a very well known term as an excuse to make up any old shit they like about it. More than a little dishonest really.
A bit of perspective, please. For the sake of argument, let us say that Obamacare fits the reconciliation rule written by Robert Byrd, even though Senator Byrd says it does not.
The Senate is a legislation machine. In ten years the Senate pours out so much stuff that no mere mortal could carry the load, let alone recall or even understand even a small portion of it. Now, to object to referring to reconciliation as a ‘little-used parliamentary maneuver’ when the Senate resorted to it a scant five times in ten years is a bit disingenuous.
Somehow, those who dictate that we must have nationalized health care are so blinded to the concept of “We the People” that they will support any means that justify their perfect vision that the ignorant slubs do not know what is good for them.
Now we have the Obamacare cram down with huge numbers of “We the People” begging the government to start over and do the bill in the light of day with hearings and deliberations and in the manner Obama campaigned on in his bid to be post partisan and end the bickering and bring us together. But the answer is to do legislative smoke and mirrors and call it honest and above board.
Perhaps Serenity can do what no member of Congress can do. There is not one “Glenn Beck” facile member of Congress who can take whatever time is needed and stand up with the chalkboard, the Senate and House rules, and outline the process of how Obamacare fits the reconciliation parameters and how reconciliation can blend two entirely different pieces of legislation (the House version and the Senate version) without going through a joint conference committee to create one bill that goes back to each house for passage.
If an unprecedented takeover of 1/6 of the American economy is to be passed by reconciliation which is such a very normal and commonly used procedure for ramming through radical changes deeply opposed by the American people, then surely no leftist will object when, in a scant few years, Republicans repeal it by reconciliation. And restore the gold standard and add conservatives to the Supreme Court and ban abortion, as well.
WSJ/NBC will have a poll out this evening on healthcare reform. They put up a teaser this afternoon. Interesting result….
“Asked if their representative were to vote with Republicans to ditch the current health care overhaul bill, 31% said they would be more likely to vote for him or her in November while 34% said they’d be less likely and 34% said it wouldn’t matter.”
Got that folks? Vote to kill the bill, and the voters will be more likely to vote AGAINST you in November.
OK, don’t get to excited Tano…
“…[vote] with Democrats to pass the bill, and 28% said they’d be more likely to vote for him or her. On the other hand, 36% said they’d be less likely, and 34% said there would be no difference.”
Seems that the Congresscritters will face a net negative reaction no matter what they do.
The fact that there is about a 5 point further negative for support the bill is quite in line with other recent polls that show opposition beats support by roughly 5 points or less.
3 interesting questions are begged.
Will the WSJ actually ask the followup question in their poll? WHY are you opposed to the bill? I am predicting, from this teaser, that their poll will show slightly more opposed than supportive – but will they attempt to quantify how many are opposed because the bill doesn’t go far enough? The Kucinich voters? IF the margin is 5 points more who disapprove – that means that if you only have 3% of the people opposing the bill because it is not liberal enough, then it will be clear that a MAJORITY of Americans support Obamacare or something more liberal.
Second question: Will the now-Murdochian WSJ be able to write a straight story about this poll – one that would point out the dramatic movement from their last poll – that showed 15% more opposition than support? Will they tout their own poll as evidence for the rising support for the bill?
Third – there is an even more interesting finding in this poll. If you notice in the teaser questions, all of the assertive responses (will be more likely to vote, less likely to vote – on either side) – all of those numbers were in the low to mid thirties. That seems to clearly correspond to committed Dems and Reps. For both questions, 34% said their Congresspersons vote would make NO DIFFERENCE in how they viewed them come November.
That, my friends is the great American middle. Those are the people who decide elections. And apparently. according to this poll, they are not inclined to base their votes in November on how their rep votes on this bill.
“They’ve lost this fight politically, ”
Actually, all of the momentum is on the Dems side. Support for the bill has been rising for the past month, and is now nearly even with opposition.
“but, alas, as I’ve said before, they could still win it legislatively.””
Oh really? I thought that you confidently asserted, several times, that the bill was dead dead dead. How many times was it actually?
Ah, I love the smell of Obama Party delusion and cowardice in the morning.
If the bill were so popular, Tano, you wouldn’t need chicanery. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid could just call a vote and be done with it.
They can’t. Indeed, they are frightened that they can’t even get a simple majority when they control both houses. That’s why they are setting up this subterfuge so that their party members don’t actually have to vote on the bill.
Epic fail, Tano. You lose. Your party loses. And come the fall, criminals like yourself will be facing Congressional subpoenas for your use of government funds to propagandize on these websites. You have already admitted that you are a paid government contractor and that your sole goal in coming here is to propagandize for Barack Obama. The appropriate threads have been archived.
And want proof of that, silly Tano?
Even with full-bore Obama propaganda, only sharing the “benefits” of the bill and none of the costs or cuts with voters, you could barely make 51% support.
Obama Party members like you simply don’t live in the real world, Tano. Because you don’t pay taxes, you assume no one else does. People know that government “services” come with a bigger and bigger tax bite. They’re learning as they do their 2009 taxes that Obama’s vaunted “tax cut” was nothing more than a withholding change that they are now having to pay back — or in several cases, owe MORE because of it.
Again, Obama is a failure. He is a welfare child who was elected on the basis of his skin color and outright lies that he told the American public. He has now run up a massive deficit, demonstrated again and again that every single one of his “promises” has an expiration date, and is now pushing flatly-unconstitutional measures to take control of a huge portion of the US economy.
You need to come to grips with that, Tano. Perhaps if you can get past your liberal brainwashing that Obama’s skin color makes him your Messiah, you can rejoin the rest of us in the reality-based community. For your sake, you really should try.