the threat of a fillibuster is serving its purpose: to prevent a bad bill from becoming law.
You really aren't looking at the bigger picture, aren't you?
The filibuster is doing more than preventing a bill you don't agree with (for whatever reason) from passing. It's preventing ANY legislation from getting passed.
70% of legislation that has been presented to Congress over the last decade has been filibustered. And considering that it wasn't until last year that ANY party had a "super majority", you can see that the problem is MUCH larger than your grievances over "Obamacare". Look beyond what is in front of you once in a while.
And this is where we disagree. I don't trust government to run health care, you do.
Medicare & Medicaid are government run health care plans and still have much support. Besides, where did I say that I trusted government to run health care? Stop thinking in binary, and don't put words in my mouth.
When it comes to making such a drastic change you need to get everyone on board. You can argue percentages all you want 60/40 55/45 or whatever, but the fact is too many Americans don't want it so it shouldn't pass.
You're wrong again. Most people do want Health Care Reform and it has been proven time and time again with every poll.
The problem is that two bills that have been presented, but you're only paying attention to one of them. The Senate bill gets all of the attention because that's the one that needed to pass before we went to the next step. There is also a House bill that has lots of things it it that the Senate bill does not. Now that both bills have passed, the president will either select one of the bills and sign it, or bring both bills to reconciliation and combine the two into one. There's a lot of speculation as to what will happen next, especially if reconciliation is the next step. But to say that people don't want Health Care Reform is incorrect.
there will be times in the future where the reps will have a majority and want to pass a bill into law that liberals will stop in the same manor. And you'll be thank your lucky stars for the fillibuster then.
And why would I be thankful for that?
You act as if everyone here are either firmly on one side or the other. I don't blindly support bills just because they're presented by a Democrat or a Republican. Besides, Democrats at one time were in the minority and they too abused the filibuster to some degree. At the end of the day, I want to see the country progress forward. Even if tend to vote liberal, my beliefs are not so intertwined to one side that I cannot recognize a good idea or a good bill when it presents itself.
BTW- dems had 60-40 super majority for a whole year. And they couldn't get their own house to approve it.
That's proof that you're mixed up. Pay attention.
The House did pass a bill. There are 435 people that make up this branch in the Legislative process and there is no threat of a filibuster in the House. The Senate, a completely different branch, makes up 100 people. That's where the 60/40 split existed. The filibuster is a procedure that only exists in this branch of government. Because some Democrats were not in total agreement with some of the provisions, powered with a solid block by the minority party, the Democrats had to focus on getting 60 votes to pass the bill instead of the usual 51 that is necessary to pass it. By blaming only the Democrats, you exonerate the Republicans who have done nothing but oppose legislation even though calls for bipartisanship were being made by Obama (who represents the third branch in the Legislative process), and for attempts to make the bill more acceptable for Conservatives by the Senate Majority Leader. You also expose your own partisan views by assuming that a person who belongs to one party automatically has to adhere to everything that someone on their "team" presents.
This is politics... not a game of football. People have a right to think for themselves, even if those thoughts are rather slighted.
All the proof you should need to realize that this health care bill was just bad to the core.
Actually, it doesn't. And one day, once you put all of the puzzle pieces together you'll see that there's a lot more to this story.
