i thought cutting was the goal?

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

why didn't obama and his party take more steps when they had the majorities in congress and held the executive?

Because they didn't hold a supermajority in the Senate, so they had extreme difficulty getting routine things passed. Remember? The most obstructionist Senate ever?

And the current House is the least working (two weeks on, one week off), and least bills passed, in modern times. And 1/3 of the bills they passed were simply naming things.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Riot

Because they didn't hold a supermajority in the Senate, so they had extreme difficulty getting routine things passed. Remember? The most obstructionist Senate ever?

And the current House is the least working (two weeks on, one week off), and least bills passed, in modern times. And 1/3 of the bills they passed were simply naming things.

i feel that if they were able to get obamacare passed, they left plenty undone. i wonder if that was the deal? the reps allowed that to pass, at the expense of other things the dems wanted. wouldn't surprise me a bit to know that backdoor deals like that happen.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i feel that if they were able to get obamacare passed, they left plenty undone. i wonder if that was the deal? the reps allowed that to pass, at the expense of other things the dems wanted. wouldn't surprise me a bit to know that backdoor deals like that happen.

Remember that in the House, all Republicans and 34 Dems voted against it (but it still passed); but in the Senate, a 60 vote supermajority was needed, and all 40 Republicans voting against it, and the Independents joining the Dems to pass it with the 60 supermajority (a supermajority isn't needed for regular bills in normal times, but the Republicans were obstructing every senate vote)

Joe Leibermann at the last minute voted for it, passing it.

[Antitrust32]

Originally Posted by Riot

Remember that in the House, all Republicans and 34 Dems voted against it (but it still passed); but in the Senate, a 60 vote supermajority was needed, and all 40 Republicans voting against it, and the Independents joining the Dems to pass it with the 60 supermajority (a supermajority isn't needed for regular bills in normal times, but the Republicans were obstructing every senate vote)

Joe Leibermann at the last minute voted for it, passing it.

its was actually the unprecedented use of the Slaughter rule that got obamacare passed. very very shady

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Antitrust32

its was actually the unprecedented use of the Slaughter rule that got obamacare passed. very very shady

No. It was not "deemed passed". It was voted upon in a regular up and down vote in the House, and passed 219-212.

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Riot

Remember that in the House, all Republicans and 34 Dems voted against it (but it still passed); but in the Senate, a 60 vote supermajority was needed, and all 40 Republicans voting against it, and the Independents joining the Dems to pass it with the 60 supermajority (a supermajority isn't needed for regular bills in normal times, but the Republicans were obstructing every senate vote)

Joe Leibermann at the last minute voted for it, passing it.

and like i said above, if that bill that so many were against could pass, so could other democrat measures. that's one of the reasons many in his own party are unhappy with obama; he had an opportunity to do more, and he squandered it. because he didn't want to do too much, and possibly lose seats he tried to play it safe and it cost him.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

and like i said above, if that bill that so many were against could pass, so could other democrat measures. that's one of the reasons many in his own party are unhappy with obama; he had an opportunity to do more, and he squandered it. because he didn't want to do too much, and possibly lose seats he tried to play it safe and it cost him.

Except for the 154 times the Senate Republican minority prevented passage of Democratic bills due to invoking a supermajority. I don't know what you expected the Dems "could have done" when they needed 60 votes for routine matters due to the GOP forcing a supermajority need, and they only had 58 Senators?

Yes, the progressive wing of the Democratic party is unhappy with Obama, because he's not a "left liberal socialist". He's quite centrist.

"Do more" for them would have been to pass single payer healthcare: like that would have happened, when all they could barely pass were the basic insurance reforms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act! ("Obamacare")

[Danzig]

Originally Posted by Riot

Except for the 154 times the Senate Republican minority prevented passage of Democratic bills due to invoking a supermajority. I don't know what you expected the Dems "could have done" when they needed 60 votes for routine matters due to the GOP forcing a supermajority need, and they only had 58 Senators?

Yes, the progressive wing of the Democratic party is unhappy with Obama, because he's not a "left liberal socialist". He's quite centrist.

"Do more" for them would have been to pass single payer healthcare: like that would have happened, when all they could barely pass were the basic insurance reforms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act! ("Obamacare")

i just know that i've heard plenty of 'he could have done more' talk-tavis smiley immediately comes to mind. seems like there was a lot of excitement about them having both houses and the exec, and there's a lot of feeling that opportunities were squandered.

[Riot]

Originally Posted by Danzig

i just know that i've heard plenty of 'he could have done more' talk-tavis smiley immediately comes to mind. seems like there was a lot of excitement about them having both houses and the exec, and there's a lot of feeling that opportunities were squandered.

The real far left progressives wanted single payer healthcare, immediate withdrawal from all wars, immediate closure of Guantanamo, immediately end DADT, etc.

And a pony.

A bit unrealistic. Turns out the President wasn't willing to say, "Screw you, Republicans, we'll just completely ignore you and shove what we want down your throat" and yeah, there was a faction of his party were mad about that.

Those same folks just held a two-day blogosphere "Obamahatefest" about what they thought was going on within the deficit ceiling talks. They all shut up starting Tuesday afternoon, Wednesday.