Unfortunately, while necessary, earmarks are a tiny, miniscule portion of the budget. You could delete all of them and it wouldn't make a dent in the budget deficit.
These reforms are the biggest changes to the financial and health care systems we've had in generations. What, exactly, were people expecting? Regardless of your opinion of whether they are good or bad, even things like Social Security and Medicare weren't all built at once - they were done in stages over decades.
Can't say I'm surprised with your post, Major. Where did I say these reforms were bad? Point out in my post where I said anything that wasn't realistic. Please. I sometimes think you want a Stepford Democrat, which is ironic, given that you aren't a Democrat. Sorry, but we don't all walk in Lock-step and never have.
True, and we have set up the Senate so small states representing substantially less than 1/3 of the population can veto the will of the majority of the American people. This is a major structural defect in our democracy thta we would criticize in another country.
To be fair to Hayes, and also complimentary, to Hayes, he is largely only a con when it comes to being a neo-con. He is reasonably moderate and even liberal when it doesn't involve the chance to settle an issue for instance like the state of Iraqi feminism by armed force.
You said: I lean towards glynch's take on this issue and the other reform measures passed, which are far less effective and beneficial than they ought to be And: I just wish they had done more. That suggests you don't think these bills met your expectations. So I asked what exactly you expected. This is glynch's take that you agreed with: Now if he would just pass something reallly good instead of trying to protect the health care and financial industries. I don't know honestly whether it is better to pass watered down bills such as the stimulus, health care and financial "reform" or go for something better. His take was that these are watered down bills that protect the health care and financial industries. If you agree with that, you're clearly saying that they weren't good.
Read my post again, Major. I said I leaned towards his take on the issue. A quote: "I lean towards glynch's take on this issue and the other reform measures passed, which are far less effective and beneficial than they ought to be, given the stakes involved, but agree with mc mark and Hayes, as well. Good progress and a heck of a lot better than nothing. I just wish they had done more." Again, point out to me what wasn't realistic in my post.
Let us hope that this is the case wrt to our ability to amend them. I think social security and Medicare were closer to being good laws right out of the chute than these two bills. Hey. Obama has my vote again if it gets down to it provided it is not the primary and a progressive Dem is not running against him.
The clash of the moderates. Deckard and Major. I don't know who to root for. Maybe rocketjudoka sp? can break the tie.
Your post read as disappointment that they didn't do more. If I'm wrong about that, I apologize and ignore all of what I said. My point was that they accomplished things that many people felt were impossible and that Democrats have fought to do for decades. I'm just asking what your realistic expectations were if you wish they had done more than they did.
You consider me a moderate, which doesn't surprise me. I'm very liberal on a host of issues, but my opinions are my own, not fitting in a neat box in some category. At least I am a Democrat, unlike Major.
I wish they did a lot more wrt finreg. Pundits who like it consider it as one step in a long journey and not the final answer. But with s---loads of lobbyist money pouring from Wall Street, it'll be hailed as the fix-all cure.
I'd guess you wouldn't approve today of the SS bill as first conceived. For example, it had no cost-of-living increases. For the first 10-15 years, there was no increase in payments to account for inflation. It only provided payments to the worker - no support for family or disability. Federal employees weren't covered. The payments themselves were actually fairly small and there was no minimum benefit. And on and on. If we changed SS today to match the original bill, it would actually be much healthier and a substantially smaller piece of the budget. (It would also provide seniors much less income.)
That's exactly right. I'm disappointed that they didn't do more. If you want a laundry list of things where I feel there "wasn't more done", you're going to be disappointed. Healthcare made a great leap forward. It is too slow to completely come into effect and doesn't do enough. You tell me what you would have liked added to the healthcare bill. I have no doubt that you can type faster than I can. Hell, almost everyone can type faster than I can. The finance bill? Here's some quotes from your own source, who said he was in a heated discussion with Marcy Wheeler about this subject. This doesn't go as far as it should. There should be greater constraints on leverage. The prop trading and derivatives trading regs were weakened more than they should have been. Some critics think the big banks should have been forcibly broken up. This is half a loaf, but at this point the only credible alternative is doing nothing. There's not enough time to draft a new bill this year, and after November there's no chance of passing anything at all. Given the alternatives, anyone who cares about financial reform should support this bill. Golly, it sounds like he isn't satisfied, either. As he says, it is better than the alternative, doing nothing, and at least a good step in the right direction. I believe that we won't get these chances very often and would have preferred at tougher bill. I'm keenly aware of the influence of the special interests and their lackeys, the lobbyists. I just think there was an opportunity to get a better bill. I also think the Democratic leadership on this was not what it should have been. All the Democratic leadership. We spent months trying to be bipartisan, when any clown reading a newspaper left on a park bench could have told that leadership that the Republican Party was using and abusing them. Want more, about the healthcare bill? From firedoglake.com - I wish to single out one person, and that one person is sitting next to me. Her name is Liz Fowler. Liz Fowler is my chief health counsel. Liz Fowler has put my health care team together. Liz Fowler worked for me many years ago, left for the private sector, and then came back when she realized she could be there at the creation of health care reform because she wanted that to be, in a certain sense, her profession lifetime goal. She put together the White Paper last November–2008–the 87-page document which became the basis, the foundation, the blueprint from which almost all health care measures in all bills on both sides of the aisle came. She is an amazing person. She is a lawyer; she is a Ph.D. She is just so decent. She is always smiling, she is always working, always available to help any Senator, any staff. I thank Liz from the bottom of my heart. In many ways, she typifies, she represents all of the people who have worked so hard to make this bill such a great accomplishment. I will have printed in the Record the names of all my professional staff. There are more than I realized, so I can’t name them all. I ask unanimous consent to have that list printed in the Record and just regret that I cannot thank everybody personally. More, from Gregg Levine at the same source: There isn’t really much to add, but in the interest of super-full disclosure, perhaps Maudlin Max should have mentioned that during the time Ms. Fowler was away from his senatorial side, she served as VP for Public Policy and External Affairs at WellPoint—one of the nation’s largest for-profit insurance providers. It was the Fowler-authored Baucus plan that memorialized the secret deals that the White House cut with PhRMA, the AMA, the device manufacturers, the hospitals, and the insurance industry. We knew, even before Max’s Senate well confessional, that Fowler had written the bill because her name was mistakenly left on some pages of the electronic version of the document. Now WellPoint, and most of its Big Med cohort, stand to profit quite nicely from the Obama-Baucus-Fowler plan that was signed into law on Tuesday. No doubt their CEOs and shareholders also wish to thank Liz from the bottom of their hearts. The rest of us? We’ll be thanking her from the bottom of our wallets. http://firedoglake.com/2010/03/26/late-night-sister-max-baucus-explains-it-all-for-you/
I apologize Deckard. i am very sorry for being so offensive. I can completely understand being quite indignant to be called a moderate if you consider yourself a liberal. I guess I forgot Major was not a Dem since he is such an Obama supporter. If there were more Majors I would think that Obama's move to the right ,which alienates the Dem base, might be an ok political move. I think we see wishy washy independents fleeing Obama. He is alienating his base and not even contesting those hurting who are being deceived by the corporate Tea Party scene. I just don't think his whole mild mannered centrist thing is playing well in this climate. BTW did you see how Pelosi and the Dems are pissed at Obama for trying to throw them under the bus and distance himself from the November elections when Gibbs said the Dems might lose the House in November? It was annoying when Obama's aloofness is a leading cause of that possibility. He is trying to walk that back.
