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It looks like Harry Reid is getting ready to sell out the labor unions, the progressive community, the Democratic base, and the majority of the American people. The vast majority of Americans want a public option as part of health care reform. Reid fully has it within his powers to get a health care bill passed with a public option. He could use reconciliation to pass a bill with a simple majority. He could even use the “nuclear option” to eliminate the silly filibuster, like Bill Frist threatened to do only a few years ago.
Reid will likely secure the 60 votes he needs to bring his bill to the floor, but today Blanche Lincoln and Mary Landrieu joined Joe Lieberman in threatening to filibuster the bill if it had a public option. If Reid thinks their threats are for real and actually plans to deliver on his promise to get a public option, he should not have brought the bill to the floor. Weeks of debate in regular order would be a waste of time. Reid should be using reconciliation right now.
There is only two possible conclusions:
- Reid thinks Joe Lieberman, Mary Landrieu, and Blanche Lincoln are bluffing. He believes that in the end when he stand up to them they will fold. (Given Reid’s track record I would not be holding my breath for that)
- Reid is planning to sell out the American people who overwhelming support the public option. He is planning cripple the public option with a trigger or remove it all together. He will do this all to win the vote of a handful of senators he does not need. They will be given not only veto power over health care reform, but over every issue the progressive community cares about.
If Reid is not willing to do everything in his power to stand up for the vast majority of American people who support the public option, why should the Democratic base do anything to stand up for Harry Reid?
Reid has been possibly laying the groundwork for this betrayal for a while now.
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*screaming*
Well, as painful as it may be, given the track record we have to use, Option 2 is the more likely by far.
(Never seen much indication that would lead me to couple the terms “Harry Reid and spine” or Harry Reid and standing up to…” in the same phrases (unless it were “Harry Reid standing up and screwing the Democratic Party”)
Harry’s #: 202-224-3452
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/thegaggle/archive/2009/11/21/reid-gets-his-60-votes-but-still-has-his-work-cut-out.aspx
Meanwhile, my senator is kicking ass:
Franken kicks ass #1
Franken kicks ass #2
Gotta love Al Franken.
I’ve been predicting exactly this outcome since the healthcare debate began. And, let’s remember that Reid wouldn’t be doing this unless he had the support of the White House. In the end, Obama and Emmanuel will go to the progressives in Congress and pressure them to give up on every principle they believe in just to get some kind of bill passed, no matter how lousy it may be. And they will fold, guaranteed. We’re going to end up with healthcare “reform” that sucks. The only good news is that it won’t be in effect until 2014.
Can I get a big whoopee for “Change?”
you’re quite possibly right.. I think the writing’s on the wall, and we need a strategy to do something about it.
However. I also believe that it is wrong to accuse the man of doing something before he’s done it. With respect, IMO you’re post’s headliner is a little deceptive and a bit amoral – in the faux news sense. You’ve surmised, through logical deduction that the leader intends to screw us – and it is not a bad deduction – but your choice of words in the post read like a rethug talking point. You have no quotes from the leader or his office, nothing concrete such as a quote from a key staffer.
Can’t we say “what should we do IF we get screwed” instead? I just don’t like it when we behave like Republicans.
Sorry.. getting off my soapbox now…
He bought off Landrieu and Lincoln once. He just needs to ask them what their price is. He now knows that they can be bought on procedural votes.
He doesn’t face that dilemma until probably a week from now.
Folks forget that LBJ twisted arms, but he also greased palms in order to get the votes for what he wanted.
The farther it goes, the harder it will be to kill. The important thing at the moment is the amendments that get passed. Then the vote to pass. Then the conference instructions. Then the bill out of conference.
But we need to gear up to start shoving on healthcare beginning in January. Watching the draft regulations. Identifying the holes in the final bill and demanding that they be closed. Pushing to have this as a litmus test in 2010 of the real healthcare reform that people want and getting that accelerated.
It’s not over as long as people are facing high premiums, co-pays, and deductibles.
I’ve already told my two senators (Murray and Cantwell) several times via email, that if the health care bill does not include a robust public option, than they will join my Republican representative McMorris-Rodgers, in the category of I like them personally, but will never, ever, vote for them again. Doubt I’m the only one that feels that way.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Lincoln and Landrieu are grubbing for some more pork for their states of Arkansas and Louisiana– they’ll trade their healthcare vote for a new bridge over a swamp or something.
Because the track has always been WHEN we get screwed.
If there had been any situations where it were otherwise, I might agree with you. But there haven’t been any of those with Reid as ML
If Reid had not said the other day he was talking Reconciliation off the table, I would not have taken such steps. Official quotes are worthless. I will judge a man by his deeds.
Counting on Sanders to kill this worthless bill, deny Rahm a BS ‘W’, and force Obama to at least do right unto the public on job creation and Wall Street reform.
I completely agree, this sounds of paranoia.
Speculating on “betrayal” by Reid is like the guy who dumps his girlfriend because “she’ll eventually leave me” — its the sign of either a loser, or one crazy paranoid person.
Reid has gotten the bill this far, and while everyone knows Reid is neither the most progressive Senator out there (understatement) or the most trustworthy, speculating on a future betrayal seems counterproductive.
For one thing, if Lincoln and Landrieu believe there are not 60 votes for a public option, then it can also be said that many Democrats would not vote for a bill without a public option, so there is much that can still occur between tonight’s vote and cloture.
This was clear to me a few weeks ago, when someone – the President? or someone in the Administration said “I sure hope Harry knows what he’s doing”. He did, and he does. It’s called selling out the base.
If you are not willing to look for connects until you already have the knife in your back you are never going to get anywhere.
You might be right, but he didn’t say when he was taking reconciliation off the table. After a long debate, if there is no cloture vote, he can pull the bill, rework it and resubmit it. At that point he could strip out some of the compromises and move to reconciliation. Which would mean a regular order bill for the most popular and least controversial regulations. And reconciliation for the revenue, spending, exchange, and public option portions.
Wow, wouldn’t it be great if a couple of LIBERAL Democrats in the Senate were the final holdouts? Imagine how great the bill could be made in these last-minute changes if the holdouts were Wyden (he’s at least gotten a vote on his employer-voucher-ticket-into-the-exchange and promises of Reid’s and Baucus’s support) Merkley, Boxer, Sanders, Feingold, Schumer, Gillibrand.
Think of the wonderful bill Reid would be crafting RIGHT NOW if liberals could ever learn to act like the petulant ConservaDems.
I suspect if it looks like even a gutted bill won’t have the votes he might put reconciliation back on the table (I assume that is permissible?).
Even if he does, I think it’s been clear for some time that Reid and most of his colleagues have no intention of including a strong PO, if any.
The margin by which the Democratic Party constitutes the lesser of evils is shrinking every day.
The Obama administration is Corporatism on steroids. They hate the PO, they want to privatize education and curb deficit spending (read: kill or privatize entitlements). So, to think that a center right Speaker will buck the Prez seems overly hopey.
Book Salon up at the Mothership with David Owen’s Green Metropolis: Why Living Smaller, Living Closer, and Driving Less Are the Keys to Sustainability hosted by Catherine Tumber
You forgot possibility 3: reconciliation for anything that can’t get 60 votes.
Reid can’t pass a bill without a public option – there are too many liberal Senators attached to it. That fact is what most analyses ignore – whether impassioned cynical lefty blog posts or ignorant credulous mainstream media pieces. If you think Reid thinks that he can spin failing on the public option as “I tried my best, now let’s all give up”, you’re drinking the kool-aid.
How would reconciliation benefit the chances of a PO? Wouldn’t that be crafted in Baucus’s committee?
We need a viable 3rd party. One for the single-payer, anti-war, anti-bailout, anti-patriot act, anti-torture, anti-corruption, publicly financed campaign crowd. Until we do that, we’ll keep getting screwed.
no, reconciliation would be crafted by the general wishes of 50 senators who want the public option, instead of the scattered wishes of a few holdouts who don’t know their head from their ass.
it’s not ideal – we could get a better public option if we could get cloture to end debate and then afford to give up 10 votes. but since that probably won’t happen, it has to go to reconciliation because health care is too big to fail
Reid’s track record is pretty much ‘out of the money’ every f8cking time.
He wanted a majority: we got him one, but that wasn’t good enough for him to do anything.
He wanted 60 votes. We got him 60 votes. He still can’t get anything done.
That’s evidence that he’s part of the problem, not part of the solution. A good leader should be able to win damned near every vote, with that kind of majority.
Wiser words have perhaps never appeared in this health care debate. If you want to learn from politics, fine. But, to quote Tom Waits, “if you’re living on hope, you’re dancing to a terrible tune.”
The ‘drive the train over them’ or ‘Highball!’ party.
More reasonably, something like the ‘Progressive Labor’ party.
50 senators who want a PO in name only. A cardboard cutout they can campaign on.
Reid didn’t take reconciliation off the table. That’s just the old stick it in your back pocket and hold up your hands and pretend it doesn’t exist routine. Merits many many grains of salt.
You’d also need a fourth party. It could only work if if something like a Palin/Beck party was simultaneously peeling off social conservatives from the GOP.
Ain’t ever gonna happen, though.
You are giving Reid way too much credit. Rope-a-dope is all he’s got and it doesn’t work, his opponents have been punching him for years without getting tired.
You’re right. It ain’t gonna happen so we’ll keep sitting here bitching about how bad things keep getting and gosh, what’s the matter with these politicians? This isn’t working.
Jane, you want to start the movement? We need a leader.
There are also too many liberal Senators attached to the idea of having Party endorsement at their next primary. I would not put it past the Party to back only “good dogs” in primaries.
well great, if Reid does this, the the Progressive caucus will work to deep-six the terrible Health Insurance Reform monstrosity and the Progressive Netroots will back them up all the way, right?
60 Votes
— By Kevin Drum | Tue August 18, 2009 8:36 AM PST
“I don’t know if Harry Reid can find 60 votes to break a filibuster of a bill that contains a public option provision. But if he can’t — something that seems pretty likely — and he has to try the reconciliation route, we’re in terra incognita. And once we get to that point, the shape of the bill won’t be a matter of negotiating skill, or liberal spine, or presidential leadership, or backroom deal cutting. It will be a matter of the Senate parliamentarian tossing out provisions randomly based on his good faith understanding of the rules.
Call me gutless, call me chicken, call me whatever. But that’s a process that won’t turn out well. It’s just not a realistic option to take a big, complex piece of legislation, toss out individual provisions here and there, and expect to have anything other than a complete hash of a bill that will end up so unworkable it can’t pass at all. Like it or not (and I don’t!), we need 60 votes to get healthcare through the Senate. The question is how best to do that.”
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2009/08/60-votes
Lets Get the Primary Fires Burning!! Is there a primary contender in his district? Progressives need to stick together again(how many are in the senate?). Start running more ads in his district. Start making threats and sticking to them. Too bad Obama never took the lead on this whole mess. If I only knew for sure he wouldn’t sign just any stack of papers marked “Health Care” regardless of what it looked like, I would feel alot more confident. Why didn’t Obama take the stance from the beginning that we can not sustain health care economically the way it is in the first place? boy, he really blew this whole deal.
“I’m not using reconciliation,” he told reporters
http://blogs.abcnews.com/george/2009/11/reid-rules-out-reconciliation-.html
Not necessarily. Consider the sell of something like a “Conservative People’s Party”. Truth in labeling — conserving the opportunities of the middle and lower classes against socialized risks and costs. Hijacking existing branding — many R voters have little sophistication on the matter beyond a Pavlovian “conservative good, liberal bad” and the culture war; there is beauty in the R machine having to reverse tens of years and billions of dollars in brand development and in crapping in the new Conservative Party’s punchbowl.
I know, that’s the back pocket trick. What would he say, I’m thinking about using reconciliation? That would automatically force the Gang of 4 to give up negotiations and force him to use reconciliation. I find Nelson’s recent fear of reconciliation much more credible.
Give up on the theory that 60 Democrats are going to sign onto a bill without a public option. It ain’t happening – not even 30. It’s really simple, there are only 2 choices left:
1. Reconciliation
2. Nothing
Not even the Democrats are confused enough to get that decision wrong.
I have a problem with the idea that Sen. Reid should not bring anything to the floor without 60 votes. This has been a frustration of mine with Sen. Reid for years. He needs to call their bluff and make them actually act out what they threaten; otherwise, the threat of a filibuster itself becomes too powerful.
Sen. Reid needs to bring forward the best bill he can, not a watered down, lowest common denominator bill. Then figure out how to get it to pass. It shouldn’t be the other way around, where only mediocre legislation is brought forward.
Then the filibuster option itself needs to be killed. It is anti-American, anti-democracy.
I have many more thoughts on this in my blog at blog.poormanslobbyist.org.
The Poor Man’s Lobbyist
http://www.poormanslobbyist.org
reid’s a douchebag. nobody should lift a finger or give a dime to help him.
That’s not fair to douchebags.
Just remember when the whole house of cards comes tumbling down the fat cats and aristocrats in the plutocracy will be just fine. They will have the funds to hire private armies, think Blackwater, to keep them well insulated from the “rabble.”
The Gators only got 62 and I had to wait through all 4 quarters.
Yep, they’ll have the mercs to protect them in their gated communities. We get the rest of the country. We can’t get in but they can’t get out. Works for me.
I think Reid is always planning for every eventuality. It’s called hedging. I would say his back and forth doesn’t mean much, but I didn’t realize he had taken reconciliation off the table. That stinks.
Well, that should go a long way toward debunking the idea that you’re paranoid. ;-)
Count me among those who find the endless “you’re going to be sold out” drumbeat to be unjustified — and, IMO, self-defeating.
Look at all the comments in this thread about a third party, etc. You may think your message is to fight harder for the PO, but what people seem to be hearing is “Give up — the process is stacked against you.”
Is that what you want?
Sold-out politicians don’t care about symbolism. They care about keeping their corporate backers in the money. Sad to say, the public option is little but symbolic at this point. As a reminder, for the filibuster threat to be credible, one has to believe…
-Lieberman is willing to give up Homeland Security
-Lincoln is willing to give up Agriculture
-Nelson and Landrieu are willing to give up billions in sweetheart deals
And kill their party’s #1 legislative priority?
And cause Reid to lose the election?
Because they don’t like the symbolism of a public option.
NO WAY.
Not unless the White House is secretly backing them.
Bennett reminds me of the original Nosferatu.
Are we all supposed to be surprised by this?
Color me absoeffenlutley unsurprised… The tap dance was done to mollify we, the people. The final legislation will be written by Big Ins/Pharma to the tune of costing taxpayers more & more & more, while resulting in more deaths by spreadsheet.
Nice going, Dimocrats! You can count on my vote & money during the next election cycle… NOT!
Reid is NOT interested in doing anything more than what he just did. Get used to it (no, not flaming you, but just saying…).
oh I know his track record. And we need to be prepared. I’m just taking issue with the way this likelihood is being presented here and elsewhere by progressives. We don’t attack people in anticipation of their selling out – even if that sellout is likely. That’s rethug behavior and we’re better than that. Attacking on conjecture is below us. We need to work to strengthen out leaders against the inevitable pressure to cave, by bombarding them with our support forthe bill and the PO… not preemptively attack them because we think they’ll probably go traitor. We’re not Fox News.
Surprise,surprise some will be.Why on earth ? boggles the mind.
The Republican base has their elected reps afraid to cross them. Progressives will never have any power until elected Democrats become equally terrified crossing their base.
Just jumping back in now . . . wow.
Nice points Jon. I remain clueless, and will seek comments to grok better.
Wow. Thanks Jon W. Great post, again.
i completely agree with you.. and calling him out for his many past failings is necessary.. so is warning him about what we will do if he crosses us again. But that’s not what we seem to be doing here. You see the distinction, right?
I am not sure the logic of this post is irrefutable. Seems to me you could argue this round or flat.
Beware of fear-mongering. Sadly I find this all to often here.
“The margin by which the Democratic Party constitutes the lesser of evils is shrinking every day.”
I can’t understand it anymore.
I don’t get it.
Your comment is all I get, and it’s stone fucking cold.
Thanks, hoss.
for progressives the challenge is as great as its been for the past 9 years: reid, obama, and pelosi must be replaced as soon as possible. Not a one of them is either capable or desirous of a progressive nation. Instead they are blockers of a progressive agenda, they are beholden to the corporate interests through and through.
Put barricades in front of their gates, the kind that are steel posts set deep in the ground, so they can’t drive through, but only walk or bike. (They have riffraff living in those gated-and-guarded too, but they’re well-off riffraff, and thus socially-acceptable.)
We may be better than the GOoPers, but our congresscritters and most of the official spokespersons aren’t selling this stuff at all well. (I think they’d have a hard time selling air conditioners in Arizona.)
We need people who can do PR as well as the GOoPers do it, and we need leaders in Congress who can herd their caucuses as well as the GOoPers do it. So far, we don’t have many who can do that, and they get stomped on when they speak up, because they’re not sufficiently polite and servile when they talk to the media.
F*ck that. I want leaders with guts and hearts, as well as brains.
How’s WeeBalrog?
It is completely amazing that this and other left wing sites continue to bring up public option polls and then completely ignore the fact that EVERY SINGLE POLL shows that Americans don’t want this bill. If polls are so damn important, then you would be urging a vote against this bill. But, as usual, you ignore all the polls that are incovenient.
I see a lot to Jon’s hunch. Here’s why.
A major difference between the Senate and House bills is that the Senate bill will lead more employers to dump their workers (it’ll just cost them $750 a year to do so, far more than the House bill would).
That will make the exchange available to the workers, and once you get access to the exchange, you can exercise the public option. So the Senate bill poses a serious threat to private interests, far more than the one in than in the House (I’ve noted this previously and won’t discuss it here). In fact if the Senate bill became law, the option could approximate the stalking horse for single payer that insurance companies fear (though keep in mind they’ll have four years to take it back and stand to grow powerful in the interim). It will have, for one thing, a larger constituency.
Lieberman and other opponents will therefore get a lot of industry dollars for refusing to vote for a Senate bill with an option, however weak. The White House and the Democrats know this and are into the same calculus. If they tried to seel the “compromise,” it would be par for the course, as no one here needs to have explained.
So don’t be surprised if Reid caves with heavenly choirs singing loudly in the background in an attempt to drown out the ching-a-ching of cash registers.
Bye Bye public option. Harry tried but some members up for reelection in 2010 didn’t want to walk the plank, including himself. Be happy he got it this far. These hacks can read the polls.
yup – how about blaming the politically pathetic spineless sacks of shit who will fucking whine and snivel and cower and pout and sniff
BUT
who will stay in charge of losing, and who will stay in the front of the trough, instead of resigning from the reality that they’re political pathetic sacks of shit.
rmm