great speech. I strongly support the President's agenda. Barack Obama never fails to amaze me as to how smart he is. He will go down in American history as a great President. He is a lot like having your high school history teacher as President. Not to mention being the basketball coach. Good things will happen to America under his leadership. The Republicans look like a herd of deer in the headlights. Now the only thing missing is that the Democrats need to grow some balls.
This sums up my feelings on the speech. My favorite parts have to be when the repubs sat there like the dickheads they are while the rest of the chamber was applauding the president. I believe the country is tired of the GOP's do-nothing attitude and I hope enough to punish them this November. Do we really need more of them in Washington??
This article was in my email yesterday....
HOUSE PROGRESSIVES PUSH REID TO PUT PUBLIC OPTION BACK ON THE TABLE Published on Wednesday, January 27, 2010 by The Huffington Post
by Ryan Grim
House progressives organizing to rescue health care reform are pressuring their Senate counterparts to go back to the provision that has most energized the party and a majority of Americans throughout the debate: The public option.
The effort was discussed during a closed-door meeting on Tuesday night, with a faction arguing that the best way to salvage reform is to persuade the Senate to pass the public health insurance option using the budget reconciliation process that needs only a majority vote.
They argued that the current bill before the House, which passed the Senate, lacks the votes needed to pass because pro-life Democrats don't believe the abortion restrictions go far enough and progressive Democrats don't like the lack of a public option, the weak affordability measures or the tax on private insurance. And nobody likes the Cornhusker Kickback, a provision won by Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson that would cover the state's Medicaid bills in perpetuity. Not even Nelson likes it anymore.
So, in order to move health care through the House, Democrats either need to pick up progressives or conservatives. And the budget reconciliation process does not lend itself to altering abortion language reform, because that wouldn't have a direct, substantial impact on the budget.
That leaves progressives as the bloc available to pick up. Their demands -- changes related to the tax on insurance, a Medicaid or Medicare expansion, and a public option -- would likely be allowable using reconciliation. (The Senate parliamentarian would have the final say.)
Two House freshmen, Reps. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine) and Jared Polis (D-Colo.), circulated a letter, looking for signatures, that will be delivered to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday on behalf of the plan, Polis told HuffPost.
Reid is not generally receptive to advice from the lower chamber, but health care reform has stumbled into territory where there is no map.
If Reid and President Obama decide that the House Democrats have a workable plan -- perhaps the only viable plan left, after the New York Times declared that the brakes had been slammed -- they may be able to accomplish it.
Pingree told HuffPost that the pair's proposal was met with excitement from some quarters and skepticism from others. "There are plenty of people who say there's no way we're going to bring it back, but there's nothing predictable about this political year," she said. "Never say never."
House and Senate negotiators were working out the final details of health care reform when the Massachusetts special election deprived the Democratic caucus of the 60 votes it needed to break a GOP filibuster and pass the final bill.
That could lead Democrats to use reconciliation, which requires only 50 votes. Once that decision has been made, deciding to go for the public option is less of a leap.
"It is very likely that the public option could have passed the Senate, if brought up under majority-vote 'budget reconciliation' rules," reads the letter. "While there were valid reasons stated for not using reconciliation before, especially given that some important provisions of health care reform wouldn't qualify under the reconciliation rules, those reasons no longer exist."
The major obstacle to reconciliation has always been the fear that popular insurance reforms would be carved out and ruled unrelated to the budget. But the Senate has already passed those particular reforms. The House could pass them and send them on to the president, then pass the package of reforms that moves through reconciliation.
It's a long-shot, but not impossible. And it's just the kind of aggressive action that voters showed they want in Massachusetts, said Pingree, and have long been supporting in surveys. It's a matter of political survival: "People will lose their seats because they want Congress to deliver what it promises," said Pingree.
Polis said that the response has been "very exciting."
"There's enthusiasm that if a majority of senators are on board with it, then we should go for it," he said. "I think the inclusion of the public option would make that route much more attractive to House Democrats."
Health care reform became less popular, Polis argued, when the public option was taken out but the requirement to buy private insurance or pay a fine remained.
"I think the fading of the public option from the Senate bill really hurt the Democrats' prospects in the Senate [race], because they were seen as following the typical pattern of tax and spend and caving to insurance companies," he said.
Pingree and Polis both noted that Obama's focus on fiscal discipline and cutting spending makes the public option -- which the Congressional Budget Office estimates could trim more than $100 billion from the deficit in ten years -- that much more appealing.
It would also give Democrats something else to run on in 2010.
The night of the Massachusetts election, three liberal groups -- Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Democracy for America and MoveOn.org -- paid for a poll of a thousand people who voted for Obama in 2008 and either switched to support Republican Scott Brown for Senate or didn't vote. It was conducted by Research 2000.
More than 80 percent of both groups favored a public option.
The poll also upended the conventional understanding of health care's role in the election. A plurality of people who switched to Brown -- 48 -- or didn't vote -- 43 -- said that they opposed the Senate health care bill. But the poll dug deeper and asked people why they opposed it. Among those Brown voters, 23 percent thought it went "too far" -- but 36 percent thought it didn't go far enough and 41 percent said they weren't sure why they opposed it.
Among voters who stayed home and opposed health care, a full 53 percent said they opposed the Senate bill because it didn't go far enough; 39 percent weren't sure and only eight percent thought it went too far.
"The public option," said Polis, "is not dead.
17 comments:
Just as the dems sat there like stones year after year when Reagan, Bush, and Bush were giving their State of the Union...I think you would be expecting too much for the republicans to applaud and cheer what they feel to be the destruction of their country. I know, I didn't find much to cheer, either.
About the third time he blamed Bush, I tuned him out altogether. I'm tired of his "I didn't do it" attitude...like a little third grader trying to get out of trouble.
you guys just can't accept the truth, your party sucks at governing and it is Bushs fault. You have to set the stage for change, and change needs to come because of Bushs failures. Sure dems sat on their hands with Bush, but this presidency is different, we have MANY things to accomplish that affect all Americans and the rupubs don't have the guts to get involved for fear of their wingnut base turning on them. Its all about the votes and I hope the country realizes just how incompetent the GOP is!
It didn't start with Bush, it started with Reagan.. It has been 30 years of hell under Rethuglican rule and finally we have a President who is able to bring us out of it.. IF people will start to realize it and support him.
Reagan is the one who started the poor and homeless in this country, Reagan is the one who started the trade for arms with Central America, Iran/Contra anyone, and the list goes on, Bush 41 learned from him and just passed it on.
We had 8 years between the two when things were good again, while Clinton was in office, and then Wham.. people didn't realize how good we had it and put Bush 43, or W in office..
Now after 8 years of disaster we have a great President again.. Hopefully people will start to appreciate him and not put him down every turn of the clock and keep comparing him to the idiot who is gone, or saying we need to primary him in 2012.
Realize how good we have it and thank our lucky stars he is there and not McCant and Caribou Barbie
that's exactly right Annette, I just went back to the Shrub because that's who the right always brings up.
I don't get it, the voters have no recollection of the country under rethug rule? They can't remember how great we had it under Clinton? All they remember is a dirty blue dress. How pathetic and self-righteous is that!! I say fuck the right and forge ahead Obama and team!!!
When you have nothing else to say and can't refute facts, you just attack a person's appearance and show your ignorance.
He is the president, he can have an attitude with the GOP. What have they done to deserve better? They are irrelevant.
Hello? It started with Carter. Obama just gave his same campaign speeches last night. When will he act?
OBAMA: "Starting in 2011, we are prepared to freeze government spending for three years. Spending related to our national security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will not be affected. But all other discretionary government programs will. Like any cash-strapped family, we will work within a budget to invest in what we need and sacrifice what we don't."
THE FACTS: The anticipated savings from this proposal would amount to less than 1 percent of the deficit _ and that's if the president can persuade Congress to go along.
Obama is a convert to the cause of broad spending freezes. In the presidential campaign, he criticized Republican opponent John McCain for suggesting one. "The problem with a spending freeze is you're using a hatchet where you need a scalpel," he said a month before the election. Now, Obama wants domestic spending held steady in most areas where the government can control year-to-year costs. The proposal is similar to McCain's.
OBAMA: "I've called for a bipartisan fiscal commission, modeled on a proposal by Republican Judd Gregg and Democrat Kent Conrad. This can't be one of those Washington gimmicks that lets us pretend we solved a problem. The commission will have to provide a specific set of solutions by a certain deadline. Yesterday, the Senate blocked a bill that would have created this commission. So I will issue an executive order that will allow us to go forward, because I refuse to pass this problem on to another generation of Americans."
THE FACTS: Any commission that Obama creates would be a weak substitute for what he really wanted _ a commission created by Congress that could force lawmakers to consider unpopular remedies to reduce the debt, including curbing politically sensitive entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. That idea crashed in the Senate this week, defeated by equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans. Any commission set up by Obama alone would lack authority to force its recommendations before Congress, and would stand almost no chance of success.
OBAMA: He called for action by the White House and Congress "to do our work openly, and to give our people the government they deserve."
THE FACTS: Obama skipped past a broken promise from his campaign _ to have the negotiations for health care legislation broadcast on C-SPAN "so that people can see who is making arguments on behalf of their constituents, and who are making arguments on behalf of the drug companies or the insurance companies." Instead, Democrats in the White House and Congress have conducted the usual private negotiations, making multibillion-dollar deals with hospitals, pharmaceutical companies and other stakeholders behind closed doors. Nor has Obama lived up consistently to his pledge to ensure that legislation is posted online for five days before it's acted upon.
Oooooo I am impressed someone can copy and paste from AP .. better watch out.. that can cost you big bucks when you don't give them credit ... Guess that's why they didn't put a name on it... Of course what the AP and this fraidy cat who hides his name, forgets to mention is that McCant wanted to put a freeze across the board... and the president is talking about a targeted freeze... and moving money around.. from this program that doesn't work, to this one that does. That is like comparing apples to oranges... but then facts never matter when you are trying to discredit someone.. and AP is good at that.
I love how it is always the idiots who made Clinton great... Yeah right....lol
They didn't do the budget .. Clinton did... did you forget that in your little fantasy world.. lol
Waaah, how come President Obama doesn't accept the blame for our evil Republican Actions??? Waaah! How come he won't be the fall guy for our blatant thievery???? Waaaah, quit saying it was Bush's fault!
I as a Liberal shall rally to President Obama instead of sniping at him fro his "failure" to correct the egregious evils of the Republicans and Conservatives!
Lisa: Seems the only thing you can use to support your arguments are videos. Can't you do a little better than that?
Be careful about Biden, He's my buddy. But I share your observations about Pelosi. I don't know what her deal is. Too much lipstick I guess.
I do not blame all of this on the current administration, nor do I consider it fair to assign blame completely on the Bush administration. Our economy has suffered due to over thirty years of bad economic policy, beginning with the irresponsible policy enacted during the Carter administration known as the Community Reinvestment Act, which was the beginning of what ultimately has come to be known as the busting of the housing bubble.
ya know what nameless, GW Bush and Reagan both talked about previous administrations in their State of the Union speeches. So the subject is a dead one. The right wants to talk about anything BUT what they can contribute to help the country. They are irrelevant and it's their choice.
Sue wrote: "the Democrats need to grow some balls."
That takes care of the guys, but what about the gals?
actually Leslie I didn't say that, it came from fivethirtyeight. BUT... if the rethugs are dickheads, and the dems ARE growing their balls finally, then what are the gals?? I'm not going there...
Obama showed the Republicans in the chamber to be the fools they are. And, he did it with grace, finesse and facts.
Republicans blame Obama for the economy and the deficit. Short-term memory loss. The facts are in the SOTU.
They raise hell about KSM being tried in civil courts. Short-term memory loss. Check who was president when the shoe bomber, Moussaoui and other terrorist suspects were tried in civil courts.
They think America flourishes under Republican rule. Short-term memory loss. “Happy days are hera again” occurs under Democratic administrations.
The hypocrisy is staggering.
BJ
they think we have no recollections of what happened even a few months ago! They don't realize we have videos today, we have the printed word. They are delusional hypocrites to the highest degree!! WHY can't their FOLLOWERS see it??? How can the people put more of the same type of hypocritical idiot in OUR seats in November?? Just looking at them sit there and smirk Wed. night was enough to make me puke!
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