On Kos, Meteor Blades chimes in:
Daily Kos: State of the Nation
Which sounds great... except that "foreign oil" (or domestic oil for that matter) doesn't compete in the electricity marketplace. It goes in gas tanks. Waxman-Markey does contain instructions for utilities to plan for more infrastructure in support of electric vehicles, and language that allows for encouragement of such vehicles, but it doesn't seem to contain any money toward that end. So whether Waxman-Markey would help reduce America's thirst for oil is as much up in the air as... all the carbon allowed under those permits. If I was facing this bill on the floor of the Congress, I'd vote yes. But I'd hold my nose while I did it.
Which sounds great... except that "foreign oil" (or domestic oil for that matter) doesn't compete in the electricity marketplace. It goes in gas tanks. Waxman-Markey does contain instructions for utilities to plan for more infrastructure in support of electric vehicles, and language that allows for encouragement of such vehicles, but it doesn't seem to contain any money toward that end. So whether Waxman-Markey would help reduce America's thirst for oil is as much up in the air as... all the carbon allowed under those permits.
If I was facing this bill on the floor of the Congress, I'd vote yes. But I'd hold my nose while I did it.
Worth reading the whole thing.
So we have Rockefeller and Specter moving in the right direction, while supposed "liberals" and "moderates" like DiFi and Baucus are jerking us around.
Still, this is progress. My theory of the health care fight is that if we get Specter, we'll probably wind up getting Lieberman, Nelson and the Maine girls in the end, since that little clique has to hang together in order to maintain their power. And the Maine girls, having voiced support for a "trigger" (thus already accepting the premise of the public option), can probably be swung over. Nelson has already signaled he's not going to filibuster anything.
And that means we probably get the other Dems in the end.
Still fairly early in the process, so a lot can change either way, and we're still a long way from the October deadline to move to reconciliation.
What I'd be curious to know -- and I'm hoping someone with more knowledge of Congress can clue me in, since I don't grok all the procedural bullshit -- is whether you could pass something shitty in the Senate (no public option), pass something very good in the House (w/ public option) where we don't have to dick around with the filibuster, and walk away with the essential elements in conference.
And the details of "reconciliation" are still murky to me, so how does that fit in? Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
But, yeah, that's what I'm wondering: Could they pass (say) Wyden-Bennett in the Senate, which seems to be where the Senate's headed anyway with a few Reps on board, and pass a proper bill in the House, and leave conference with something that we'll look at years from now as having been pretty good? All you'd really be left fighting over at that point is (1) how to pay for it and (2) the public option.
I think they can do that. (No rule jumps out at me saying they can't.) I believe both Waxman and Rockefeller are on the committee. Don't think Kennedy is, especially given his health.
Ultimately, I have trouble seeing a filibuster happening, to be honest. I think it's going to wind up being one of those bills where people make a lot of noise and wind up voting for it anyway. If those things happen, I think we wind up getting the usual Republicans and a few vulnerable ones. The Maine girls and HoJo are gonna want to have Snarlin' Arlen's back, and Snarlin' Arlen is clearly moving as quickly as he can -- actually a few months faster than I, personally, thought he would -- to make nice with the Democratic base in Pennsyltucky while trying not to flip-flop so fast that it attracts attention (we're between the Wink-Wink and Full Conversion stages at this point).
Anyway, that's kinda how I see it playing out. Could be wrong. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Just wondering keep to the Fen Causeway
There's logic to what you're saying, of course, but Congress is a logic-free zone. It's little wonder to me Obama and others go wobbly on this or that issue when so many members of their own party immediately sandbag them the moment they show signs of doing something right.
Where your logic does hold up is in this way: If it were the case that we couldn't get anything very good (I don't think that's the case), you could go with passing something universal, even if it kinda sucks, and then go back to fix it in 2011 or 2013 when we (hopefully and probably) have more members. You'll spend a little too much money on it, but who cares if you can firmly institutionalize the principle of universal coverage and not only leave the door open to further socialization, but basically require it in a kind of reverse-Drown Government in a Bathtub/setting-up-a-Shock-Doctrine-ahead-of-time situation?
I'm not sure if that would be workable or not. It's a point on which the concept of a trigger could theoretically work if it were done right, but how often does something like that get done right? Very rarely.
I'm okay with buying people and horse-trading if it means we get something good. If Senator Generic Shithead wants some stupid committee assignment or some pet project -- well, fine, whatever. Being highly risk-averse, I'd rather get it done now than roll the dice on having a better Congress in 2011, even though it seems likely.
Especially when we still have reconciliation as a last resort. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Now that phase of the process is passing over and everybody seems to be going back to their respective corners. Is Mark Warner really gonna vote against a public option? I highly doubt it. Is DiFi? No. She did the same thing on the stimulus bill and eventually fell in line.
A lot of it really isn't serious.
Which is fortunate, since the reformers on our side have done such a lousy job for the last few weeks. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
The danger, of course, is that they pass as good a bill as they can get now and that is what we are stuck with. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
