Pelosi Wants Excise Tax Stripped From Senate Health Care Bill

He doesn't need to argue with Clinton. The FACTS argue with Clinton! Good grief! The left took out after Clinton hammer and tongs from the start! The left forced Clinton to take on gays in the military when he wasn't ready and turned that into a disaster.

So Clinton got plenty of criticism from the left. Plenty. That's a fact. Clinton is just lying now or, using Clinton-speak.

And Democrats strongly supported those measures. But don't confuse EastWest with the facts. Bush got those "really, really tough" measures through because he was a kick ass tough leader.

This is a great example of the danger of falling in love with an argument. Occupational hazard in my business. It's easy to get so much ego invested in what you thought was cleverness that you can't see that your cleverness has led you into saying things that are, well, stupid. Been there and done that myself a few times.

Bush got the lagest tax cut - aimed primarily at the top 5% of income brackets - in US history.

And he did it through reconciliation because he didn't have 60 votes. That would be why this crown jewel of Republican ideology is expiring this year. And it's one reason why all the people screaming to do health care through reconciliation were misguided. You don't know who will control Congress when the ten year limit on reconciliation laws runs. Bush just assumed that tax cuts were so intrinsically popular that Congress wouldn't dare let them expire. Kind of like "progressives" were assuming that the attenuated HCR that could have been passed through reconciliation would be so popular Congress wouldn't dare let it expire.

It's called "learning from the political miscalculations of your predecessors."

He got the Patriot Act.

Yeah, Bush did that with the force of his brilliant political skills and winning personality. No irresistable external forces driving that one whatsoever. And none of the same intrinsic cowardice characteristic of some of the same Democrats giving Obama problems now was implicated either.

He got Iraq.

See above.

He got massive deregulation.

Entirely within the scope of Excutive power. Which is why and how Obama's been undoing it at least as fast as Bush did it. Though he's getting no cred for it, apparently.

He got - and got away with - politicization of DOJ.

Ask Monica Goodling and Gonzo if "he got away with it." Bush, thanks in no small part to Josh and TPM, btw, got his nuts toasted for that little act of hubris. And, yeah, Obama's undone what was done in much less time than it took Bush to do it.

He spent us into the deepest fiscal and financial hole ever, and his policies almost caused the second Great Depression.

Yeah, quite the leadership coup, that. Convincing Congress to cut taxes, spend money and pass laws that will get them big contributions from big bidness? What a leader of men you have to be to make that happen. Undoing it? Just a bit a little harder.

He placed more restrictions on abortion than at any time since Roe v. Wade. (And thanks to Obama's weakness, more are on the way.)

The ones done administratively by Bush, are being undone the same way they got done. The limitiations being written into HCR? Yeah, right, Obama had the power to just order people in Congress with a genuine moral objection to abortion to change their minds and let it slide. It's good to be the king.

Brought us the Defense of Marriage Act, along with faith-based contraception (aka Abstince Only "education" programs).

Nope, sorry to break up the Obama is the awfulust prezident evah train with mere facts, but Bill Clinton signed DOMA. Obama has successfully zeroed out the billion a year Bush wasted on abstinence only funding, though the yahoos are trying to sneak 50 million back in through HCR.

Gutted the Estate Tax so that those poor, downtrodden children of millionaires will no longer have to subsidize welfare queens or their kids.

And, once again, expiring due to reconciliation. The only question is whether Congress will manage to close the gap between the zeroing out year and the next year when the tax springs back into something like its pre-Bush glory, so people don't have an incentive to off their parents.

So, do tell, were you one of the ones screaming because Reid wouldn't use reconciliation to save the public option?

Brought us No Child Left Behind.

Aided and abetted by well-known Republican Ted Kennedy.

Killed the Kyoto Treaty.

Executive power. Notice how we're back at that table now, by any chance?

Allowed virtually unlimited road building and logging on Forest Service land, and directed his EPA to facilitate mountain top removal practices.

He overturned regulations put into place under Clinton. That's an executive power. Obama's people are undoing most of it as fast as they can. I am pretty pissed about the lack of agressive action on mountain top removal, so I'll grant you that one, but that insanity predates Bush.

Restricted judicial review and compliance actions under the Endangered Species Act.

Okay, seriously? You think Obama hasn't done anything on a par with this magnificant legislative and administrative achievement?

Killed CO2 emmissions rules put in place by Clinton.

No such rules were ever put into place by Clinton. Obama, on the other hand . . .

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123997738881429275.html

Ended U.S. involvement with the International Criminal Court.

Right. Whereas Obama has done absolutely nothing of note or interest in the area of foreign relations or international cooperation in his less than one year in office.

Refused to work with the U.N. on anything of importance.

Obama's gone further down the road to multilateralism than any president since the U.N. was founded. But, in any case, how is this even relevant to your thesis ?

Out-sourced tens of thousands of Federal jobs, increasing Defense contractor pofits and gutting unions.

Started under Bush I, continued under Clinton. Allowing existing trends to continue trending the in the direction set by bureaucratic inertia is isn't exactly "leadership," methinks. So, again, how is this even relevent to your thesis?

Now leadership would be trying to get that oil tanker turned around. That's hard because you can't just wave a magic wand and fill all those places with soldiers or new civil service employees. Damn Obama for not doing that. Oh, wait, he is.

Just a note here. I'm not a Senate parliamentarian, but as far as I know the Senate does not have to reauthorize its rules every other year as the House does.

Rule V indicates that this is the case, so most likely if the Senate formally reauthorizes its own rules it does so purely as a symbolic resolution with no procedural meaning.

Also, the Senate can amend its rules at any time, but Rule XXII (which creates the cloture motion) requires a vote of two-thirds for cloture to be invoked on a motion to amend the rules.

So, barring any nuclear options that overturn existing precedents, the Senate can change its rules at any time, but doing so is more difficult than passing a bill.

Obama needs to get to a microphone and say to the millions and millions of people who supported him that now feel completely screwed that he is very very disappointed that the 60 vote rule in the Senate has gotten in the way of doing the decent and fair things on healthcare. Obama is sinking like a rock because the people who worked their asses off for him are now feeling betrayed because some inside the game rules have called the game for the corporate team and we can all just go home and eat shit.

AMERICA IS NOT A DEMOCRACY!

THE HOUSE OF LORDS HAS SPOKEN!

LET THEM EAT CAKE!

If you add up the Bush tax cuts plus the interest paid on them (since it is all money borrowed from the Chinese) then Bush got about 2 Trillion dollars worth of money sucked out of the pockets of everyone else for his rich friends. I would say the super rich consider that MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

he couldn't keep it in his pants

I am second to no one in loathing fat Bill for the (Reagan!) Republican he really was, but Gore fucked us (& himself) by being a stinkin' Yahwist prude.