I would have preferred a martini provision, but this is close enough (from TPM):
John Podesta says passing the senate bill with a “sidecar” reconciliation bill is now the “consensus” position among Washington Dems.
Seriously, though, while it’s easy to give in to the gloom and doom, your calls are making a difference. We’re (I usually don’t like using “we” in these situations but I think it’s appropriate here) going to get this done.
clone12
But is it a slap in the face or a knife in the back when we throw the circular firing squad under the bus?
beltane
I am almost 100% sure both my senators (Leahy & Sanders) will go along with this. I guess I’ll call later today to give them a thumbs-up.
Punchy
Which state does Senator Podesta represent again?
jcricket
I’m sure if this fails it will be our fault for bothering the reps, natch.
But if Democrats manage to pass the Senate bill color me very, very impressed. I still wish we hadn’t given up, cried and wailed in public right after Brown’s win, b/c it reinforces “Dems in disarray” and “Dems are weak”. But still. Glimmer of hope and all that.
I hope for the fixes, but there are many years to fix this thing, and I look positively at the history of Medicare and Social Security in that regard. The key would be getting people to understand it’s not “one and done”. Even if the “sidecar” thing fails this year, it’ll succeed some future year (like S-CHIP expansion, or closing the Medicare Part D donut hole).
geg6
I agree, Doug. I am beginning to think it may happen. Thanks to everyone here and at Benen’s place, because it would never have gotten this far otherwise. Even a skeptic like me has gotten aboard.
beltane
@clone12: It will be a slap in the face when you are forced to eat the shit sandwich while trapped in the veal pen under the wheels of the bus.
rootless_e
“So, if the proposal isn’t really going to change much, why is this disappointing? Because it fully embraces the conservative narrative, instead of using the power of the bully pulpit to explain why conservatives have it wrong.”
I disagree. The government does waste a lot of money and people are right to be pissed off about it. The idea that the “liberal” narrative should be about how great Agribusiness subsidies are, or why it’s ok for the DOD to lose track of trillions is an idea that I find mystifying.
rootless_e
@beltane:
You’ve really captured it – in a sort of poetry. But you forgot to say “fuck Rahm”.
Mike E
From your lips to FSM’s noodley ear thingy.
inkadu
@jcricket: Maybe we’re getting this done because of our post-Brown caterwauling.
As I’ve said before, this is the first time we’ve been able, as activist phone callers, to have an impact. We couldn’t have much input into the writing of the health care bill — too abstruse, opaque, and part of backroom horse trading. In the senate, there were way too many asshole holdouts who (a) weren’t in our state and (b) didn’t care what we thought. Here we are able to move a large number of people a little bit, which is a strength of an activated base.
Plus Reps are more vulnerable–they’re always running–so I’d rather mess with their heads than with the Senate’s.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@beltane:
Hippies will be punched to the ground
Progressive will be slapped in the face
Then the wheels of the bus will go ’round and ’round
All over the base
JohnR
“We’re .. going to get this done”
It’ll never work; not in a million years. We’re doomed. /glum
Alfie
Dougj, you and John are doing a true mitzvah for all Americans. Great work.
Zifnab
Shit. It wouldn’t be an epic piece of legislation without an epic degree of drama. I’ll give the entire Congress points for at least keeping me on the edge of my seat.
The Grand Panjandrum
Josh writes “sidecar” bill, but what his reporters actually wrote is:
Sidecar legislation is different than letting the Senate fix it later. Sidecar, in this context, means the Senate would act in tandem with the House voting on the original legislation passed on Christmas Eve. If the quote is correct the only thing Podesta seems to be saying is that the Senate would later fix the bill. But what does later mean? Later, as in next week. Or later, as in, later this spring, summer, year? What? I don’t think we have a real sense of what the “consensus” is. Who is part of the consensus? The pundits? Think tanks? Congress? White House? Too much room for tap dancing on this one to know exactly what Podesta is tacitly approving.
Zifnab
@inkadu:
I think one way or another when it was this far into the field, the House was probably going to pass the bill. It’s this or nothing, after all.
I would have much preferred the reconciliation process, followed by a final vote in House and Senate. Now we’re forced to do a hashed up patch job, rather than finishing the bill right. And it puts the House in a much weaker position having to negotiate this way.
I think we’re applying tipping-point pressure to move the bill that last step forward. But when the bill was all but a given just last month, this is more like one step forward after two steps back. :-p
rootless_e
i remember when
stuck in the veal pen
rahm slapped our face
heard that noise
but lost the race
even though we made a fuss
still went
under the bus
the obamats didn’t listen
and I guess they never will
but all along
we knew
we’d be better off with Hil
oh oh
woe is me
[repeat, ad infinitum]
GregB
I was pushing the envelope of Godwin’s Law when I fell out of the Overton Window.
-G
soonergrunt
I don’t have anyone to call. I live in Oklahoma’s 4th Congressional District with Tom Cole.
So I have troglodytes for representatives, and the Dems in this state are hardly better, witness that jackass Dan Boren. People like me are not listened to by the people who ‘represent’ me.
What this comes to is that if you are lucky enough to have someone to call, you need to call them, and get your friends and neighbors to call them to get health care reform passed. And while you’re on the phone, could you maybe throw in a little something about getting the VA and Tricare Reserve Select for Retirees fixed?
I’m counting on you.
R-Jud
@Alfie:
And Tim F, don’t forget Tim!
Persia
@soonergrunt: Call them anyway. At least you’ll keep the office busy.
Oh, and thanks to everyone for calling and continuing to call attention to this!
The Main Gauche of Mild Reason
@soonergrunt:
That doesn’t stop the teabaggers in SF from calling Nancy Pelosi, I can tell you. I imagine it’d at least throw your Rep/his staff off balance a little bit.
Alex S.
The international monetary fund is out with extremely optimistic economic analysis. More than 4% growth in 2010. The dems need just a few more months to be in good shape again – unless they self-destruct before that – so I really, really, really hope they pass this goddamn bill and negotiate the improvements while the economy recovers. In the fall, mustering 50 votes for some popular measures will be easy.
It is just so damn tragic that the 60th vote was lost in this stupid fashion.
beltane
@rootless_e: Needs a chorus of “Wake up, sheeple!”
inkadu
@Zifnab: I don’t know. We may have misinterpreted Pelosi’s hedging after Brown’s victory; it would naturally take a few days to pow-wow and figure out the best way forward, but they sure didn’t inspire confidence that their first mission was to get this bill passed.
beltane
@The Main Gauche of Mild Reason: Why is it that no one feels they’re allowed to scream at Republicans? I say call Tom Cole up and accuse him of helping the insurance companies run a baby killing factory. If they can dish it out, they should be able to take it.
Keith G
Which DC Dems? Hopefully the ones that get to ride in that nifty ‘lil train that runs under the Capitol. If not, big deal.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@soonergrunt: I’ve posted a few times on GOS that if someone calls their Reps to support passage to tell the Reps that I will contribute to those campaigns. I’m represented by Hutchinson, Cornyn, and Ralph Hall, so I know how you feel.
kay
@Alex S.:
Really good news. That’s the whole thing, IMO. If the economy gets better, the President gets credit. I know the connection is not that direct, but it’s a fact, as far as perception.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@beltane: By all means, scream at him. I personally don’t feel like yelling, but maybe that’s my flaw.
inkadu
@beltane: Actually, if you look at infant mortality rates, the United States is a baby killing machine.
Zifnab
@inkadu:
They don’t have a choice. The Senate has backed them into a corner.
If the House wants to take a stand, I wouldn’t mind seeing them draw a line on this whole “Bills that allocate money must originate in the House” thing, and vow to vote down any bill that is gutted and renamed coming out of the Senate.
As it stands, the only reason the Senate got to write a first draft to begin with was through some legal trickery that uses the barest letter of the Constitution to justify itself. The only reason it’s adopted like this is because a House bill sent to the Senate would have just had the guts amended out of it to begin with. So this really just makes an already glacial process a little faster.
Still, the House needed to draw a line against the Senate way back at the start of this whole mess (preferably, way back in 2006, when Pelosi first got the reins). The Dems have been making noises like they’re all on the same team. Clearly they are not.
soonergrunt
What I meant was that yeah, I can call my Congressman and Senators and vent my spleen, or be reasonable or whatever but the only thing I will have accomplished is to have spent the proverbial dime. There is no hope of moving one of these people (using that word loosely) in the direction we need.
agorabum
Has all the doom and gloom over the last few days simply been due to the 24 hr news cycle and the fact that a few dems out there (not Reid or Pelosi, though) talked about a hiatus?
I thought we all knew that moving the democratic caucus is like herding cats; it takes a lot of whipping from the leadership to get the cats going in the right direction.
Of course, if it really dies, then by all means wallow in despair at our ungovernable polity.
Notorious P.A.T.
What is a “sidecar”?
Mike E
@Notorious P.A.T.:
It’s a “clowncar”, after reconcilliation.
gex
@Notorious P.A.T.: A slight upgrade from our usual clown car.
Edit: I see I was beaten to the punchline. Must refresh more frequently.
inkadu
@Zifnab: This is revealing splits between the Hizzy and the Seznat that I was heretofore unfamiliar. I’d like to see the House draw a line in the sand by drawing up an ammendment to dissolve the Senate.
@Notorious P.A.T.: Sidecar.
Lolis
When health care passes, I will be gloriously happy.
I hope House Dems are able to pass a millionaire’s tax to increase the subsidy levels in reconciliation. Although won’t this have to be voted on again in five years due to the rules that were outlined by Kent Conrad many months ago?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Zifnab: Pelosi gets a lot of undeserved shit, IMHO. As I see it, she’s one of the most effective people in the Dem leadership. It was almost all Senators who panicked about the MASSacre.
TooManyJens
Pelosi got, and IMO deserved, a lot of shit for refusing to entertain any notion of impeachment or even significant investigation into the crimes of the Bush Administration.
That said, she’s done great on HCR. Credit where credit’s due, and all that. I guess this is what she was keeping the powder dry for.
(I don’t actually intend to minimize the truly good work she’s done on HCR; I’m just bitter.)
Neutron Flux
@soonergrunt: I hear ya. I live about 250 miles north and east of you.
Mike E
@gex:
Hey, brilliant minds, yada yada.
Anybody else notice that the Great Orange Shitfest is beginning to resemble the last season of BSG?
Phoenix Woman
Reconciliation was the only way health care reform was ever going to get passed. The Senate bill was wrecked in order to chase after the 60 votes that were never there and weren’t needed, leaving a nightmare that the DCCC’s Chris Van Hollen has already said is hurting Democratic candidates in both the House and Senate. (Remember, Van Hollen’s job is to elect more Congressional Democrats and to keep the ones we already have — and he’s essentially saying that the Senate bill as is makes his job a whole lot harder.)
kindness
It’ll have to be a ‘sidecar’, not a fix later bill or the House will never pass the Senate bill.
just sayin’….No one in the House trusts the Senate & with good reason.
Alex S.
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Her favorability was in neutral territory for a long time, actually, and that’s pretty good for a congress(wo)man….. but then this CIA-terror briefing story broke. And her ratings sank almost down to Harry Reid’s level. It’s really a shame. In the end, Pelosi’s point of view was the correct one but her favorability rating is still negative.
kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is why I like her:
“The idea that at any given time the Senate would have 60 votes was not what we would call the most ironclad assumption,” the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, said at a news conference on Thursday. “We have always thought, what if? You know, what if the policy decisions are such that they can’t get 60 votes for it?”
I love that (completely calculating) idle musing that she does.
She takes a backhanded shot at the waffling Senate nearly every day, now, too, so good for her.
General Winfield Stuck
@Phoenix Woman:
I have been saying this since the HCR debate began back in the summer./ At least for a PO, or any government expansion in providing insurance past what already exists.
I would love to be proven right. Just this once. for a change
digits crossed
madmatt
Yes, because the senate has proved SO helpful and willing to go against their corporate paymasters!
Myself and the rest of the uninsured ill would like to take this time to thank you FOR NOTHING.
Why are you so anxious for insurance companies to rake in money with no actual requirement for them to actually help anyone?
Comrade javafascist
@Notorious P.A.T.:
What’s a sidecar? A truly sublime cocktail:
1 part cognac
.75 parts Gran Marnier
.75 parts lemon juice
Shaken. Served in a cold sugar rimmed martini glass. (Although I prefer it w/o the sugar.)
Comrade javafascist
@beltane: We should probably call Welch’s office to, just in case.
-fellow green plater
bcinaz
and that champion of bipartisanship, Judd Gregg, has declared that Republicans are going to do everything imaginable in the Senate to make the process unbelievably difficult – so it’s looking like ‘sidecar reconciliation’ is the Republican consesus also, too.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Mike E:
Progressive icon
Now spews incoherent rage
Great Orange Shitfest
Church Lady
I want some of whatever DougJ is smoking this morning.
neff
The Republicans have a plan, though:
The GOP Senate leadership has privately settled on a strategy to derail health reform if Dems try to pass the Senate bill with a fix through reconciliation, aides say: Unleash an endless stream of amendments designed to stall for time and to force Dems to take untenable votes.
The aide described the planned GOP strategy as a “free for all of amendments,” vowing Dems would face “a mountain of amendments so politically toxic they’ll make the first health debate look like a post office naming.”
fraught
@Notorious P.A.T.:
Sidecar
1/2 oz. cognac
3/4 oz. Cointreau
3/4 oz. lemon juice
Shake, sugar the rim
JenJen
Earlier today on Twitter, KagroX suggested
Legalize
I called Sherrod Brown’s office again and his staffer was slightly more committal on the idea of reconciliation after the House passes the Senate bill, than last week when I called. She confirmed that the Senator doesn’t love the Senate bill but that he thinks it should be passed and is open to fixing it later – but didn’t get into specific fixes. She said that calls like ours definitely helped and that we should keep calling. When I finally explained to her that support for Democrats will evaporate if Dems fail to get this done, she seemed taken aback. This seemed odd to me. But maybe my tone was too ominous or something.
Violet
FWIW, the intern at my Rep’s office said they were getting tons of calls about health care. I have a Dem rep. Intern said all the calls were in support of health care.
Calls do make a difference. Keep calling people. How are they going to know we’re out here if we don’t let them know?
beltane
@Comrade javafascist: Called on Friday. I got a lengthy response back extolling the virtues of the House bill in great detail, which did not exactly answer my question. Maybe you will have better luck.
AkaDad
The problem with the “sidecar” is the thermonuclear device inside set to blow up any chance of having a single-payer health care system.
beltane
@neff: This can only happen if Harry Reid allows it. Really, he has been the weak link through all of this.
kay
@neff:
Psychopaths.
fourlegsgood
@soonergrunt:
You can call my Rep. Lloyd Doggett
Use zip code 78746
madmatt
Apparently you only need 50 votes in the senate to seat a scumbag like bernanke…FU Harry!
The Republic of Stupidity
Since we’re talking telephones here again, I’d like to point out the distinct possibility that the so-called ‘Teabaggers calling in large numbers’ just might be part and parcel of the manufactured phenomenon bankrolled by Koch Industries and over-hyped by Fox… too, also.
This isn’t to say that ‘our side’ calling in numbers isn’t important or working, or that a certain percentage of the Baggers calling aren’t doing it on their own.
I just… get… that funny feeling… somebody’s been trying to dupe us all again. Just as the name ‘Teaparty’ was registered by shadowy corporate interests BEFORE the… ahem… ‘indigenous, grass-roots uprising’ broke out, and the massive public demonstrations were orchestrated by Fox and protesters were bussed by Koch, I think there’s a really good chance that a certain percentage of the calls have been and are being made by professional phone banks PRETENDING to be ‘just simple folk’.
Don’t put it pass ’em folks… there’s NOTHING on the up and up w/ Fox, FreedomWorks, or Koch… as evinced by Sarah Palin getting $100K for her patented work salad nonsense at a grotesquely overpriced convention.
I just CAIN’T shake that Wizard of Oz feeling about this whole thingy… that ‘pay no attention to the man behind the curtain’ feeling…
Keep calling, by all means… and while you’re at it… reflect upon this situation… and ask yourself… WTF is REALLY going on here?
‘Cause, sooner or later, we’re gonna have to figure the REAL cause and effect out if we’re going to beat it back…
(Excuse me for the use of The Royal We™… occasionally, it must be done…)
aimai
soonergrunt,
I am a real believer in calling these people, if they are your reps. I think its impossible to believe how isolated all the reps have become from their constituents. Its very easy for any rep to get into power and then just forget about their voters, or rely on the notion (sometimes true) that they are in a solidly red area, or whatever. But they don’t know for sure how various initiatives are going over. And they also don’t know for sure which issue is going to burn them when it becomes a madly single issue voter type thing–and turns out everyone and their aunt without the top brass having the slightest idea its going to go that way. I know from watching the dems run around like headless chickens that they are scared shitless by exciteable tea baggers, do you really think that the republicans ought to be totally isolated from the realization that an ex-military guy in their own district might not be a lockstep right winger? Call up and tell your rep you are a vet, and you vote, and you are pissed off about X, Y, and Z. I can assure you they won’t dismiss you as a perennial “democratic” sorehead, they’ll worry that you might be a bellwether. Its worth doing.
aimai
Lurker
@madmatt: I’ve been rejected twice by two different health insurers because of a preexisting condition. The Senate bill, however flawed, does a lot to help people like me.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@AkaDad: As long as the majority of Americans have health insurance, the only way to single payer is incremental. The sidecar provision gets us closer to single payer than having no health care legislation.
Most Americans will keep paying higher premiums as long as it gives them the illusion of having health care.
Mike E
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
FireDogLake, angry
Ponies are not forthcoming
Veg now eating meat
The Republic of Stupidity
@neff:
SOP for the GOP… I’d say, Well then make ’em do it and make sure the public KNOWS what’s happening… and then I remember… we’re dealing w/ DEMS here… they’ll just roll over and beg the GOOPers to stop hitting them…
Luthe
@Notorious P.A.T.:
A refreshing alcoholic beverage, like the one we all need to deal with this shit.
Luthe
Curses, beaten to the (alcoholic) punch! And the edit function dislikes IE7, apparently.
DougJ
Instead of calling it a spending “freeze,” maybe it would be helpful to call it a spending “smoothie.”
Ha!
NonWonderDog
Isn’t that what the Republicans have done on nearly every bill to come to the Senate so far? I thought they had a sheet of 5000 or so amendments that they attached to each bill before forcing a cloture vote on each amendment — meaning that each individual amendment would have to be debated for 30 hours unless the Senate voted to end the amendment process (or until the Republicans withdrew their amendments).
Have they just been threatening to do that, then? Because I thought they were already doing it.
thomas Levenson
@Comrade javafascist: Sidecars evoke emories from sipping at the dregs of the pitcher my father would make for cocktail parties (an ancient ritual involving applied chemistry and, if you were John Updike, thoughts of other people’s spouses).
Not to go off topic or nuthin — the Sidecar is a fabulous drink, and if more of Washington embraced it, we’d be better off.
damn good mr. jam
@fraught: That’s a kid’s drink. Try these proportions:
2 oz. cognac
1 oz. lemon juice
1 oz. Cointreau
Michael D.
My Senators are Johnny Isaakson and Saxby Chambliss. I called, but it was more than futile, I expect.
Chat Noir
@NonWonderDog: Rhetorical question here, so bear with me.
WTF, then, are the Republicans going to run on this year when all they’ve been doing, in both houses of Congress, is obstructing and posturing rather than helping to legislate, at least in good faith? I understand that a lot of Americans aren’t that bright and don’t pay attention to what’s going on in this country (or, as Bill Maher always says, “Americans are stupid.”), but come on! By and large, Republican policies were what drove this country into the ditch for which Democrats are trying to dig us out.
I don’t think the Democrats, especially Obama, should let anyone forget the horrible legislation that passed during Bush’s first term in office ($1.5 trillion tax cut, Medicare Part D, starting two wars, all of which were put on the country’s credit card). It only took a term for Bush to trash the surplus Clinton left and turn it into a huge deficit. And it will take some time to turn it around. I certainly don’t hold Obama or the Democrats responsible for me being laid off after nearly 20 years at the same company.
Americans need to understand that if the Republicans get back in the majority in either house of Congress, that we’re going right back from which we came. And that didn’t work out too well for a whole lot of folks.
/end rant
JenJen
@DougJ: Well? At least we wouldn’t be adopting Republican framing that way. ;-)
AkaDad
That could be avoided if Hillary’s supporters would stop trying to destroy Obama.
[munches popcorn]
flukebucket
@Michael D.:
I would say a little more like pissing in the wind. No way in hell I will call either one of them. I am surprised the guy who took the call did not put you on speaker phone and ask you to say it again so everybody in the office could get a good laugh.
Michael D.
@flukebucket: Still, better to call and register my opinion than not to. If Democrats could mobilize and overwhelm those offices with calls and show that the majority of Georgia supports healthcare reform (which I believe they do) then maybe we could get support…
I always believe in remote possibilities.
Notorious P.A.T.
What a bunch of smart-alecks. and I wouldnt’ change it )
Mike E
@Chat Noir:
It’s easier to digest if you view the Dems as Ziegfried and Roy, and the Repubs as the big white cat–Roy needs a little ‘rescuing’, if you know what I mean.
Mnemosyne
@Chat Noir:
“If you don’t vote for us, your grandma is going to be sent to a death panel by the fascist Democrats.”
Seriously, that’s what they’re going to run on, and their voters will turn out for it.
Uriel
@Chat Noir: Standing athwart history yelling stop. Same as always.
Jeff
If I was a Dem running against a Repub Senator, I would run a boatload of ads showing the three women raped by contractors in Afghanistan, then the Senator: “Mr ____ aids and abets rapists. That’s his ‘values'”.