I very much agree with Nick’s response that if conservatives are truly interested in fiscal concerns that they’d at least be acknowledging as a group that health care reform is crucial. In fact, many of them are denying that there’s a problem at all, a point I trust their Democrat opponents will at least attempt to raise come election time.

Virtually all current GOP congress folk don’t want to share the blame for whatever reform passes, because they believe in a fundamentally different approach. The belief that the GOP must compromise in the name of bipartisanship rests on the notion that “something must be done.” The pretty simply answer to that contention by the GOP is “not is it makes things worse, which we think it will.”

So you guys position sort of shows where YOU GUYS think moderation lies. But what we are looking at on this issue is very fundamental disagreement about the correct approach. Remaining Republican legislators fundamentally disagree with “reform” that means higher taxes and more government involvement .Just like democrats disagreed with most recent past republican reform that meant lower taxes and less government involvement.

The GOP has shrunk in congressional numbers. The successfully re-elected GOP congressfolk are redder than usual because they largely represent districts that are staunch GOP places. So along with this development, the vast majority of pragmatic moderates that are in congress these days are democratic blue dogs.

There’s just no reason to think that any GOP congressfolk will come out early as supporters of moderate proposals backed and shopped by democrats. Not at this stage. When and if we reach a point where one proposal has gotten some legs and is starting to be hammered out for a real vote, THEN you might see a handful of GOP folks come on board with that.

IOW, it will unfold in a fashion similar to the Sotamayor confirmation. Republicans did not go out of their way to say nice things about her during the run up to confirmation, but when the vote was held, a handful of GOP folk were on board. Right?

Here’s the thing. Due to the numbers, the democrats are about as in charge as it gets. Under such circumstances, minimal party loyalty dictates that it just aint the GOP’s job to get the ball of any democratic initiative rolling.

@Kranky, I expect that the Republicans will plow that terrain in the upcoming elections. I’m interested to see how short the country’s collective memory is. And I very much agree with Nick’s response that if conservatives are truly interested in fiscal concerns that they’d at least be acknowledging as a group that health care reform is crucial. In fact, many of them are denying that there’s a problem at all, a point I trust their Democrat opponents will at least attempt to raise come election time.

LOL- save your breath- Constitutionally-aware patriots don’t take lectures from Marxists.

http://reaganiterepublicanresistance.blogspot.com

Once again: Filibuster proof majority in the Senate. 80 vote plurality in the House. Democratic President.

You do realize that Ted Kennedy died? And that Franken only took office in July? And that the Senate took a month long recess in August? From July 7 – August 7 the Democrats had a filibuster-proof majority in the US Senate.

And if they’d tried to ram something through in that month they’d have caught hell for rushing it.

Snowe is always going to be a problem. She represents a high-cost state, so she thinks the tax on expensive health plans will hit Maine hard. There is a fix (the threshold for the tax scales based on costs in a state), but she doesn’t think it’ll work well enough.

Additionally she has a soul, but hates government spending. As a person with a soul she wants subsidies for people up to 400% of poverty. Without those subsidies a lot of hard-working folks will still have to pay 20-30% of their incomes to get covered.

But the extra subsidies won’t be cheap. And she really hates voting for bills that cost more than $800 Billion, even if they’re paid for with new taxes.

I’m guessing Harry Reid will bring the HELP Committee bill up for a vote in the Senate, possibly dividing it into two bills. Things Snowe hates go in the second bill, which is passed via reconciliation.

kk,
If there were Republicans interested in compromise there’d be a few on-board. Fiscal Conservative is supposed to mean deficit hawk, the deficit will eat us alive if we don’t fix health care, and opportunities to fix it only come once every decade or two. In this case the right strategy for a fiscal conservative is pretty clear: negotiate a deal that cuts the deficit.

The fact that only Olympia Snowe is taking advantage of the opportunity seems to indicate that a) the GOP caucus is opposing the bill for political gain, and b) they’ve made it clear they’ll destroy the career of anyone who bucks the party line on this one.

I’ll agree that it’s irrational to expect much GOP support on this issue. They are simply not rational when it comes to taxes.

The only relevant question: When will the Democrats stop obstructing Health Care reform? The primary objections to this bill are coming from the left.

The Republicans are under no obligation to provide political cover to the Democrats for a bad bill. I know it is a lot more fun for you guys to bash Republicans, and I want you all to have fun, but someday you might want to (as MR suggests) “smell the coffee” and do the math.

You didn’t actually expect Republicans to support anything, did you?

The core belief inherent in Donklephant, that we have two well-meaning parties of different ideologies but of a shared interest in solving the nation’s problems, is no longer operative.

We have one political party. And then we have a collection of racist loons and their enablers.

The GOP is the party of Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Joe the Plumber, MIchele Malkin, Ann Coulter and Joe Wilson. You thought what, exactly? That they would set aside the crazy for long enough to do something for the country?

Wake up and smell the coffee. There’s only one political goal for the GOP: destroy Obama. Period.

It’s called block quoting. You insert your quoted text between blockquote tags:

blah blah blah sample quote here

(except you should remove the ‘ marks).

So, a block of quoted text will look like this:

blah blah blah sample quote here

I hope this helps! Happy coding!

RE: “I’m getting so tired of this, and it’s one of the reasons why I haven’t been posting lately. Nobody on the right seems to want to actually compromise on this stuff and it’s beyond frustrating….” (I still haven’t figured out how to do that cool quotation thing, but that’s my bad….)

I appreciate your frustration, and feel similarly. History is very frustrating! We (us folks) do things and then things happen. And then history happens. People in China do something, people in Germany, Peru, Arkansas, California, etc. do things and this is what we “end up” with.

One of my motivations to keep going is that I believe that the “last man standing” wins. I’m out to win. I will be there until the end, count on it!

In the meantime, keep up the great work!
NH

Insuring people who aren’t insured is going to be expensive. You can make argument that it is too expensive and you can say that it is ridiculous that so many people don’t have insurance. The biggest crime here is that the partisan bickering is going to prevent any meaningful changes that can try and limit health care costs. In the end that is the bigger problem and it needs to be solved soon before all the Baby Boomers get Medicare or the only people with health insurance are going to be millionaires.

don’t you think this will still get passed down to your average citizen? it will be a “round-about” tax that still affects us.