In the first place, the Democrats were able to pass health care reform within the existing rules.  The blame for the difficulty involved lies far more on the Democrat’s own shoulders than it does on those of the Republicans.  True, the Republicans did everything they could think of to stall and obstruct, but the Democrats had the votes any time they decided to get their act together.

In the second place, changing the rules is shortsighted.  Eventually, the Republicans will again have majorities in congress.  I do not think it likely that when that time comes the GOP will begin by reinstating the filibuster.

Finally, there is Massachusetts.  The Democrats changed the rules there when they were afraid a Republican governor would be appointing a replacement for Senator Kerry.  This was completely unnecessary since Kerry went on to lose the presidency and keep the senate seat.  And it bit the Democrats in the ass when Ted Kennedy was dying and they had to hurriedly change the rules back so the Democratic governor could appoint a replacement.  I wonder how much this playing with the rules influenced the election of Brown.

There are times in life when rules need to be ignored.  There are times when rules simply do not work anymore and need to be changed.

But this is not one of those times.

Seems like a common theme I was hearing in recent weeks was how Obama’s presidency was a failure (from conservatives).  Now I hear that the Obama presidency is an historic success (from liberals).  In both cases it is a bit soon to judge.   It is still too soon to judge George W. Bush’s presidency.

This was not rammed through against the wishes of the American people.  It was passed by normal legislative procedures against the wishes of a minority of the American people.   53% of voters voted for Obama.  Anyone who voted for Obama and did not know he or she was voting for health care reform was not paying attention.   Although there were recent polls showing that a majority were against the health care reform bill, those polls actually showed that a lot of people were against what they believed the health care bill to be, not what it was.  And a few were against it because it was not liberal enough.

Don’t believe it when Republicans claim they had no choice but to oppose the bill at all costs since the Democrats refused to negotiate in good faith.  It was the other way around.  In particular, Senator Baucus spent weeks trying to get a compromise that would garner some Republican support.  Later, the Democrats stuggled to find the ground that would get both the conservative and the liberal Democrats to vote for the bill.  If there were some moderate Republicans there to stand in for the loss of the liberal Democrats…..

This is not the salvation of the Democratic Pary (though it does and will stand as an important achievement).  There are still seats to lose in November.

This is not the Waterloo of the Republican Party.  The Party is not now exiled onto St. Helena to die six years hence.   There are seats to win in November.

Now the lawsuits begin.  Under the heading of  “be careful what you wish for”, if this bill gets thrown out as unconstitutional due to the individual mandate, then the next time around the bill that will be passed will be single payer.  Yes, it might take a few years to get us back to such a point, but it will happen if this gets tossed.

There are plenty of issues to occupy Washington after health care, but my vote for most important issue is the deficit.

To the end (not that this necessarily constitutes the end), Bayh has been less than helpful to the Democratic Party.  He drops out of the race with a couple of days left to file to run in the primary.   This isn’t enough time for someone to jump in and gather the necessary signatures to get on the primary ballot, so the candidate for the fall would be picked by the Democratic Party.

Except there was one person already out gathering signatures to run in the primary against Bayh.  Tamyra d’Ippolito, a cafe owner in Bloomington, claims to be 1000 signatures away from the number needed to get on the ballot.

I’m not confident she will make it,  but it might have been better if Bayh had waited a day or two.  It is likely that Bayh’s absence really energized d’Ippolito.

If Tamyra d’Ippolito gets the signatures she will be the only senate candidate on the primary ballot.  So she will be the Democratic candidate in the fall.  Judging by her web page, she has no political experience and she has an uphill battle to win.

I think the Democrat’s chances for winning in the fall would be much higher if the party could pick the candidate.

With luck d’Ippolito fails to get the signatures and it will make no difference.  In any event, thank-you Evan Bayh.

Hat tip to TPM.

The public does not differentiate between the house bill and the senate bill.

You already voted for the house bill.

Your republican opponent in the fall is going to pin that vote on you incessantly.

And those who support reform are not going to be all that enthusiastic because you did not pass it.

So you have the worst of both worlds:  blame for the vote, and no credit for passage.

The republicans had one goal:  prevent the passage of health care.

They have almost succeeded.

The only bills (of any consequence) that will pass between now and January 2011 (if not later) are bills through reconciliation.  The republicans have zero incentive to cooperate with anything.  Obstruction has served them very well in the polls.

Health care reform cannot be done solely through reconciliation.

Pass the senate bill and then fix what can be fixed through reconciliation.

That is all.

Reid’s response was to stand up and admit he said what he said.  And he apologized.

Palin’s response was to simply state that the book was full of lies.

One might look at the two responses and draw conclusions about who is leadership material.

On the other hand, both of them responded in the way that their politics required of them.  Politics required Reid to man up and apologize.  Politics requires Palin to just declare the book to be lies.   (Maybe they are lies.  I don’t know).

With 63% of precincts reporting, the Republican Brown is defeating the Democrat Coakley in the Massachusetts senate race 53% to 46%.  It is not looking good.

Now the Democrats are faced with the question of what to do with health care reform.  Are they leaders or are they craven cowards to the political breeze.

TPM alerts us to the early leap by Indiana’s Bayh to cowardice.

The irony is that if the Dems listen to the lesson of Massachusetts and fail to pass health care, they will lose a lot more this fall then they will if they stand tall and pass the bill.  They already voted for it.

If Coakley does indeed lose, it probably means the end of Cap and Trade.   With luck the global warming deniers are correct.

Will we get leadership or politicians?

The Republicans, understanding that Sotomayor’s confirmation is a forgone conclusion, have their only hope of preventing her confirmation by catching her in an error.  They return to the same subjects over and over waiting for Sotomayor to make a mistake.  Sotomayor has handled all the questions with aplomb.

Sotomayor was correct to walk away from her “wise Latina woman” comment, but she walked too far away.  It is not true that a wise Latina woman will make a better decision than a white male.  It is true that a wise Latina woman might make a different decision that is just as good as the white males.  And it somehow never gets mentioned that for 180 years all of the Supreme Court Justices were white males and in the next forty years all but four Justices have been white males.

To watch the hearings is to enter a fantasy world where white males are the standard for objectivity.  Where white males are never influenced by their life experience as a white male.  But, of course, a Latina woman is going to always be influenced by her life experience as a Latina woman (even though she has a lengthy record of not favoring minorites).

The truth is that any justice is going to be influenced by his or her life experience.  That’s the way it is, the way it has always been, and the way it will always be.

It is also the way it should be.

It is also that case that every judge should be able to empathize with the people who will be affected by decisions.  This repeated mantra of “fidelity to the law” is not meaningless.  Fidelity to the law should be the guiding principle, but the law is not complete.  If it were, there would be no need for judges.  Conservatives are happy to have empathetic judges, just as long as the judge is a conservative.  Google “Alito empathy”.

Finally, an “activist judge” is a judge with whom the speaker does not agree.

Confirmation hearings should turn on one question only:  Is the nominee qualified to sit on the Supreme Court.  This is determined by asking the nominee about various issues that the Court has dealt with and likely will deal with.  If the nominee can intelligently discuss the subtleties of the various issues, then the nominee is qualified.

Sotomayor is clearly qualified.

This mantra out there ‘live within our means,’ while it sounds really nice, while it sounds really simple and it sounds really responsible, it’s meaningless.

My first thought is that Mr. Coupal, of The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, did not give enough context for the quote.  I found a You Tube video of Evans’ comments.  She added to the quote above:

Our means are completely within our control…In good times we routinely give away taxes and in lean times we never replace those tax deductions or close those loopholes. We continuously borrow, which is an enormous cost that we shift on into future years and we find ourselves now with a deficit, an ongoing structural deficit that we simply can’t close.

It is not clear who put the video together, but it is clear it was not done by someone in agreement with Evans.  I give credit to whoever did it for providing a fuller context.

OK.  That appears to be what was said.  In my book, given the context, Evans is correct (but also wrong).  Since the government controls what the means are, to live within one’s means is, at best, a slippery concept.  The problem here is that it is still necessary to live within the means, whether it is by increasing the means or decreasing the living.

My grasp of what is happening in California is slim at best and mostly grounded in Jay Leno jokes (and I have not watched Leno in several months).  So from here on out I am talking in the context of the federal government.

No one in government will use the control of the means so that we live within our means.

No one.  Not the Democrats and not the Republicans.*  I want so much to write:

The Democrats vote to maintain/add programs and raise taxes while the Republicans want to cut programs and cut taxes and somehow this results in lots of programs and low taxes.

But that would not be true.  Republicans say they want to cut programs and cut taxes, but the emphasis is cutting taxes and the reality is cutting taxes.  Cutting programs just gets lip service. It is my understanding that even Reagan managed to eliminate only one program in eight years.

Democrats cannot raise taxes sufficiently to pay for all the programs because Republicans will raise hell and, we the people vote the Democrats out and the Republicans in and the taxes get cut but not the programs.  Generally, the Republicans are happy to run with deficits as long as taxes are low and the deficits are not caused by any new programs.

The Democrats run on the issue of needed new programs and we the people agree and vote them in.  Programs get added, some taxes get raised (but not enough and deficits continue) and Republicans run on cutting taxes…..

Note that the commonality in both sides of the problem is we the people.

We the people like our programs.  We the people would of course rather have lower taxes than higher taxes if given the choice.  What’s a congressman and senator to do?

Two hundred and thirty three years ago, fifty six men, representing the thirteen colonies, signed the Declaration of Independence.  Their signatures appear just below the last sentence:

And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.

Their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.

Our congressman and senators today are not willing to put their own reelection on the line, let alone their lives, fortunes and sacred honor.  And there you go.  We the people want programs without taxes and our elected officials are not willing to disillusion us for fear we will not reelect them.

Three days ago I posted A Sea of Red Ink.  My hope expressed there is that by running the deficit/debt up to unprecedented levels, our reps will then have no choice but to show some backbone, risk reelection, and fix the problem.

In the meantime, if you complain your taxes are too high, be sure you include in your complaint what program you would also have cut.

My best to California. I hope they figure something out.

*Yes, Ron Paul would probably cut everything, but one man is not enough (and people would want him lynched after their favorite program got cut).