An interesting specific scenario, but not really applicable to the case here. The problem with big, long-reaching programs like a health care reform practice in general and a new health care entitlement in specific is that it’s going to take a long time to ramp up. A tax is a little bit different subject, and oddly enough, budgetary matters like that are governed by simple majority. The filibuster is only an obstacle to establishing new entities.
I can simplify my argument this-wise: If the problem in politics right now is that too many people play it like a game, making it easier to score points is NOT going to solve the issue. If anything, it makes it worse.
jeffd
1762
Can you show examples of this happening in, say, Canada? Japan? France? The UK?
Can you also show examples of the filibuster preventing this from happening to Medicare, Social Security, etc when the GOP has held both the Executive and Legislative branches?
The Dems squandered their dominant position for the last 12 months. Having the Pres, the House, and the Senate supermajorities happens very rarely in history. Why is it so rare to have this situation? Because the framers understood that passing a law that effects the entirety of the country should be a difficult thing to do in a federalist system. Legislation such as this should be hard to pass, and should make enough sense, and yes, ideas from all parties in it.
After all, if you can’t get anything passed with the Dems being in charge of the whole of the government, the bill just isn’t that good.
And blaming the Republicans for not having a bill passed into law is laughable. The Dems had the wind at their backs and public opinion on their side for most of the year along with the honeymoon period of a new, likable president. At first, the bill couldn’t even get the blue dogs’ support. If the bill wasn’t so flawed they wouldn’t have so much trouble getting Nelson, Landreu, Lieberman in their camp. And yes even Snow and Collins on the other side. And no, exempting these senators home states or sending a big multimillion dollar porkbarrel is not going to play well to the public. It’s going to reflect poorly on the senator on the receiving end. Look at Nelson now.
The Dems did a poor job selling this to the citizens in the center that make up the largest group from an ideology standpoint. Lots of fair minded people have questions about how this bill is going to be funded during and past the10 year analysis that the CBO did. I’m sure even Social Security and Medicare may have looked like plans that could stay solvent for 10 years at the time they were passed. How is the government going to prevent waste and fraud that these new provisions can be exposed to? The government is going to have slow down and be more deliberate with their analysis. And yes maybe even study some of the Repub’s ideas such as eliminating the barriers across state lines, forming co-ops, and even tort reform. While you’re at it, put it on CSPAN as promised, the public isn’t liking the backroom dealings that have gotten us this far.
Even better - in the U.S. Witness the Bush Tax Cuts vanishing like a fart in the wind.
Medicare and Social Security had the advantage of actually existing by the time a significant super-majority assumed power. Once an entitlement actually exists, it’s virtually impossible to take away. The problem is, I don’t think that anybody is going to hold long enough in the current political climate to affect a similar situation, and even if they could, do you really want to live in that political climate?
jeffd
1765
OK, I think I’ve discovered the root of why you’re posting all this nonsense.
The founders had no such boner. Rather, the founders had quite the boner for majority rule in the Senate. So much so that they wrote it into the Constitution. There are only a few areas where the Founders deviated from this majority rule principle - treaty adoption being the biggest one. When they did that, not only was it written explicitly into the Constitution, it was justified at great length in the Federalist Papers.
The filibuster was never part of the Senate, as envisioned. It wasn’t until about 1815, when the Senate redid its parliamentary rules that it arose. Furthermore, it was never meant to be used to impose a higher bar on controversial legislation. That’s how it’s being used today, but that’s just the GOP exploiting a loophole. Yes, it’s by the rules but it’s very much against their spirit.
Let me ask you a ridiculous question. According to the rules as written today, President Obama can send Rahm Emanuel onto the floor of the Senate with a loaded assault rifle and a few spare clips. Rahm can gun down every last Republican, after which the President can pardon him for those 41 murders. The Senate would then be able to do anything it wanted - it would have a quorum, and there would be no minority to sustain a filibuster. This is entirely within the rules. If this happened, would you defend the President’s actions as being “according to the rules?”
jeffd
1766
Please don’t take this the wrong way: You don’t know what you’re talking about. At all.
The Bush Tax Cuts are not vanishing because the Democrats are repealing them. They’re vanishing because they had a sunset provision built into them. This was a political strategy to keep the long term CBO score down. CBO scores bills over various time horizons, in order to be able to say “we’re not totally destroying the budget,” they put a sunset provision into the tax cuts in the expectation of having a perpetual majority. This has nothing to do with the scenario you’re describing.
The later tax cuts will vanish because they were passed via reconciliation (to avoid a Democratic filibuster). Everything passed via reconciliation sunsets after a decade; that’s just how reconciliation works. Again, nothing to do with majority changing.
Medicare and Social Security had the advantage of actually existing by the time a significant super-majority assumed power. Once an entitlement actually exists, it’s virtually impossible to take away. The problem is, I don’t think that anybody is going to hold long enough in the current political climate to affect a similar situation, and even if they could, do you really want to live in that political climate?
Honestly I think you’re just making things up. There’s literally no evidence anywhere to support your theory that every time Congress and the Presidency changed hands we’d see a massive repeal of legislation from the previous sessions - in fact there’s quite a bit of evidence to the contrary. You’ve come up with a theoretical without any evidence to support it, I’m just going to dismiss it until you provide some.
I won’t take this as a serious question, but in that scenario Obama would probably be impeached for a high crime. The dead senators would be replaced by whoever their home state’s governor appoints, or a special election depending on the state.
I doubt the senate session would be able to continue until a large amount of seats were filled again.
Legally, it could – they only need 51 to conduct business.
jeffd
1769
You just took it as a serious question. ;)
Of course it’s not meant to be serious. The point is to demonstrate how ridiculous the whole “but it’s the rules…” argument is. There are all sorts of things that are allowed by the rules that we don’t do, because they’re against the spirit of the rules. Using the filibuster as a tool of minority obstruction is one of them.
jeffd
1770
In other news (and I never thought I’d be saying this): fuck you, President Obama. We’re done.
Impeached by whom? The survivors staring down the barrel of Rahm Emanuel’s assault rifle? I don’t think so.
I doubt the senate session would be able to continue until a large amount of seats were filled again.
Oh, the seats are already filled. With bodies.
There are all kinds of tools in the congressional toolbox that are available. The house could rally behind the senate bill and rubber stamp it, and send it to the senate for a vote and the president this week for signing before Brown is seated.
The senate could use the budget reconciliation provision requiring only 51 votes.
Both of these tools have been threatened by house and senate members. Obama, bless him, came out saying no, that would be dirty pool. They’re going to wait for Brown to be seated, and they’re not going to use reconciliation.
Those are the rules of the game, you can choose to invoke them, at the peril of the court of public opinion.
Even if this bill, or a bill like it gets passed, there will be legal challenges based on states rights that at a minimum will drag this out into new election cycles.
Where’s that Hummel picture at?
Allow me to blow your mind. You ready? Because I’m going to do it. Braced? Okay. The founding of the nation didn’t end with the endorsement of The Constitution. More work totally happened. The philosophy outlined in the Federalist papers that defended the requirement of supermajority was extrapolated out over the question of founding the Bank of the United States - very much a foundational issue - and it was hashed out by a bunch of dudes that you would be hard pressed not to qualify as members of the founders’ club. I’m just baffled at how you can claim that this rule that is consistent with the spirit of the rules as evidenced by this material here conflicts with the spirit of the rules that it was set up in line with without your head exploding like something out of a bad 70s sci-fi flick.
So, then, if McCain and the Republicans had won the election, you don’t think that the tax cuts would have been extended? Or if they had held a significant enough majority to pass the legislation without having to resort to the reconciliation process, you don’t think that they wouldn’t have made them a little bit stickier? It’s a perfectly good example - the only difference is that there’s a timer built into these changes that the Democrats can allow to quietly expire instead of having to pass an actual bill and inaction is easier to pull off than direct action.
More to the point, I think that the Republicans are doing a pretty damned good job of killing social security and medicare in much the same fashion.
And that would be supremely stupid. You’re asking for evidence of something potentially happening if a potential change were potentially affected in a potential universe that could potentially exist if we undertook potential action J through fiat. No, I cannot provide explicit evidence that in the imagination scenario THAT YOU PROPOSED (you know, changing the cloture rules) that a specific thing has specifically happened because it’s imaginary. There is no perfect evidence for either side of this debate and you can’t solve a political science problem like a regular science problem. Political science, like economics, is almost entirely descriptive. We can develop ideas about what could happen, but we can’t accurately predict pretty much anything at all. What’s really hilarious is that you are asking, with a straight face, I assume, that I mathematically prove that a unicorn can actually ride over a rainbow in the fantasy starworld that you concocted in the first place. We don’t see a lot of supermajority turnover. We do, however, see a lot of plain majority turnover, particularly in recent years.
You don’t fix a game by making it easier to score - you just amplify the problems. If you want to make a real difference, I suggest you start searching for an alternate career for Bill O’Reilly and Rachel Maddow.
Haha. This is getting weirder. I like this board. It’s the House that starts the impeachment process, and the senate is responsible for conducting the trial along with the chief justice of the Supreme Court.
We’re talking a much bigger body count for Rahm to prevail this time.
I can just see Rahm running around shouting “say hello to my little friend!”
Brian, you’re being ridiculous; your defense of the filibuster relies entirely on hypothetical conjectures which are directly contradicted by the evidence from other democracies. The hand-waving about how the filibuster’s history isn’t much better; you’re not fooling anyone.
jeffd
1778
Which of the Senators in the 1830s qualify as founders? I’m dying to know. There are some great ones in there - but I don’t think any historian will grant you that they enjoy “founding father” status.
More to the point: King’s filibuster had nothing to do with extrapolating out the principle of a supermajority. It was a crass exploitation of a parliamentary loophole, plain and simple. Same as it is today.
Again: The filibuster is a parliamentary tool meant to ensure adequate floor debate. It was never meant to be used to obstruct majority rule in the Senate. That it was occasionally used to do so here and there throughout history, and then constantly over the past few years doesn’t mean that it’s based on some sound principle, any more than the the fact that the president can pardon people enshrines the principle of political murder into our system. It just doesn’t follow.
So, then, if McCain and the Republicans had won the election, you don’t think that the tax cuts would have been extended? Or if they had held a significant enough majority to pass the legislation without having to resort to the reconciliation process, you don’t think that they wouldn’t have made them a little bit stickier? It’s a perfectly good example - the only difference is that there’s a timer built into these changes that the Democrats can allow to quietly expire instead of having to pass an actual bill and inaction is easier to pull off than direct action.
If McCain and the GOP had won, they’d have been extended. Hell most have been extended anyways - the only cuts that are being allowed to sunset are the ones on the top bracket; which is going up a few percent. Again, your example demonstrates exactly the opposite thing that you’re trying to prove. At first I thought that was out of ignorance. Then you posted this:
And that would be supremely stupid. You’re asking for evidence of something potentially happening if a potential change were potentially affected in a potential universe that could potentially exist if we undertook potential action J through fiat. No, I cannot provide explicit evidence that in the imagination scenario THAT YOU PROPOSED (you know, changing the cloture rules) that a specific thing has specifically happened because it’s imaginary. There is no perfect evidence for either side of this debate and you can’t solve a political science problem like a regular science problem. Political science, like economics, is almost entirely descriptive. We can develop ideas about what could happen, but we can’t accurately predict pretty much anything at all. What’s really hilarious is that you are asking, with a straight face, I assume, that I mathematically prove that a unicorn can actually ride over a rainbow in the fantasy starworld that you concocted in the first place. We don’t see a lot of supermajority turnover. We do, however, see a lot of plain majority turnover, particularly in recent years.
Now I think it’s less that you’re ignorant and more that you’re just outright crazy.
- You’re the one who proposes that repealing the filibuster will lead to subsequent Congresses repealing one another’s legislation left and right as the majority changes, followed by cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria, and eventually disunion. Not me.
- I’ve pointed out that lots of other countries exhibit majority legislative rule without these problems. Hell, the US had de facto majority legislative rule on just about everything but Civil Rights and slavery up until a few years ago. Major piece of legislation were passed without having to overcome a filibuster, and they were never repealed.
I’ve asked you for any examples to demonstrate that the theoretical you’re proposing has any merit. You’re not able to provide them. The few examples you have provided show exactly the opposite of what you’re claiming.
Yet I’m the one who’s living in a world of unicorns and fantasy? Huh?
JeffL
1779
So, for all the hand wringing about the loss of the 60, and how this is why they needed to pass the bill quickly because any bill is better than no bill, here’s the question.
The Democrats are still in control. The problem isn’t that the Republicans can block them. The problem is Democrats agreeing with each other.
The bill passed in the Senate. There is no need for another Senate vote. All that needs to happen is the House - Democratically controlled - saying OK to the current bill. The one people are saying is better than nothing, and the one that people say “if we don’t pass this we’ll never get another bill until the Democrats get 70 seats or something they can actually make work.”
So - Democrats. Why not just pass the bill that the Senate approved?
jeffd
1780
That’d be a great outcome, but it’s not one that the House seems particularly excited about. Liberals hate the Senate bill (doesn’t go far enough) and labor unions hate the tax on expensive plans.
Honestly, at this point - my read is that they don’t actually want to pass the bill and are grateful to have the excuse not to. The party’s just failing on every fucking level. The biggest priority for Democrats for the past sixty years, and they’re going to give the ball up at the one yard line.
For what it’s worth, I called my Congressman and told some staffer that if he didn’t do his part to get this bill through the House, I’d be voting Republican in November. I can’t stand those fuckers, but if they’re going to ruin the country I’d rather them get it done with sooner rather than later.
