JustAManOnAToiletNancy Pelosi: Democrat and ex-Speaker, 83, to seek re-election
She is widely credited with marshalling the passage of former President Barack Obama’s signature healthcare legislation, as well as bills to address infrastructure and climate change under incumbent President Joe Biden.
Her big claim to fame…
Getting republicans to vote for a more conservative healthcare plan than what the Republican candidate for president wanted to pass if he had won.
It’s fucking disgusting moderates still act like that was the finish line over a decade later and oppose any more improvement to it, while demanding we call them progressive for it.
Although, once you’re in your 70s, a decade probably feels like two weeks. Time flies when age related mental decline stops you from noticing the passage of time.
Hey, they had to get rid of the public option part and gut the bill to get some republican support! Ignore the fact that it was still passed entirely from a down party lines vote with zero republican support. They had to make it a shitty gutted bill for some reason. It was such an accomplishment forcing everyone to get healthcare from multi billion dollar companies with fat profit margins.
They had to get rid of the public option to get enough Democrats to vote for it.
It was not a party line vote, 34 Democrats joined all the Republicans in voting No. It squeaked through the House, 219-212.
So, what you are saying, is that Democrats are extremely bad at getting their own party members to vote in line with what their voters want them to accomplish? Sounds about right.
What I’m saying is that there was no national consensus on health care reform in 2008. No plan had a lot of popular support, including single payer (especially single payer!).
“Getting their own party members” to vote for something highly unpopular with their constituents is not as easy at all. Democrats could have ignored the problem or tried to cobble together something that could pass. They chose the latter, at the expense of losing the House in 2010.
harkThis could perhaps be excused if it was a one-off freak happenstance, but with Manchin and Sinema, it’s obvious that the ol’ switcharoo is intentional.
Manchin, Sinema, Boebert, McCain, Lieberman, and many others all serve to demonstrate that you shouldn’t expect party members to vote together all of the time. Even if everyone in that list voted with their party >90% of the time.
It’s not a “switcharoo”, it’s baked into a system in which representatives are ultimately chosen by constituents, not by party leaders. If anything, Congress was originally intended not to have longstanding parties or factions. It was originally intended for everyone to be like Manchin and Sinema.
Yet the republican party has no trouble keeping their dogs in line.
Are you kidding?
McCarthy is constantly trying to keep Gaetz, Boebert et al from forcing him out as Speaker. He wishes his caucus was as unified as the Democrats.
Reid kept his caucus together to pass the ACA, McConnell couldn’t keep his together to repeat it.
Party squabbles mean little when ultimately they’re getting their way. If anything, those squabbles push the republican party even more to the right and gets them even more of what they want. Passing the ACA was the best that the democrats could do with a super majority and even then it was a watered down bill.
But they aren’t getting the legislation they want.
They failed to privatize Social Security, failed to repeal the ACA, failed to build a southern wall, etc.
In contrast, Democrats passed the ACA, passed Dodd-Frank, passed ARPA, passed the IRA, passed CHIPS, etc.
Republicans only look successful because they had to drastically lower their bar for success. They don’t want to pass laws any more, so they naturally get what they want.
It’s pretty obvious where the country is heading. You can pick and choose legislation, but the trajectory is clear. Also, things like ACA and Dodd-Frank were watered down trash. CHIPS was bipartisan because it was meant to stick it to China, but you’re trying to rebrand it as a democratic victory.
Politics always involves compromise. ACA and Dodd-Frank were improvements on the status quo, which is usually the best you can hope for. They do not need to be perfect to be good.
CHIPS was a typo. I meant to cite CHIP, which provides health care to children, not CHIPS.
Democrats compromise far more than republicans. ACA and Dodd-Frank are bandaids. You still see many suffer under the healthcare system in this country, meanwhile insurance companies post record profits. As for Dodd-Frank… you’ll see another “once-in-a-lifetime” economic meltdown soon, which will show how effective that legislation was.
Politics is the art of the possible.
Democrats do compromise more than Republicans, which is exactly why they get more legislation passed than Republicans.
The ACA and Dodd-Frank didn’t solve every problem, but they did solve some. We are better off with them than without them. Even if they don’t stop the next catastrophe.
Getting more legislation passed doesn’t matter when that legislation does far less than the fewer pieces of legislation that the republicans can pass. Just look at the state of the country and tell me which party is winning.
Name two pieces of legislation that the GOP passed through Congress in the past 20 years that did more than the ACA and the IRA.