Which quote, Shodan? The video was made up of several separate clips, and the first one is from 2004!
I’d like to bring up that the Senate already passed Health Care with 60 votes.
Reconciliation will simply pass some modifiers to the bill after it’s signed into law. So anyone saying that we didn’t hit 60 votes is uninformed or lying.
First quote, November 2004: Senator-elect Obama says he thinks it takes 60 votes to get major bills passed in the Senate, so Senators should focus on an American agenda and not a partisan one.
Second quote, September 2007: Senator (candidate) Obama says a 60-vote majority will be needed to get a health care bill passed. EDIT: For the record, he refers to a universal health care bill, which he did not get.
Third quote, October 2007: candidate Obama says you can’t govern, as opposed to passing bills, with a ‘50 percent plus one’ mentality. He says health care reform won’t be passed with a 50 percent plus one strategy.
Fourth quote, July 2006: Senator Obama says Democrats should not function like Karl Rove and aim for only ‘50 percent plus one’ victories, saying a sizeable majority is needed to transform the country.
Well, that makes things easy, doesn’t it.
They like ELEMENTS of it. Not the bill itself.
I’m perfectly aware of what reconciliation is supposed to be used for. We’ll see if the Dems try to expand it. But regardless, Obama is correct in those videos when he states that passing such sweeping legislation by a narrow majority is the wrong thing to do.
A staunch Democrat put it very well back in 2001, even commenting on Clinton’s health care proposal. From here:
[QUOTE=Senator Robert Byrd]
In 1993, my own Democratic leadership–now, listen to this. In 1993, my own Democratic leadership pleaded with me. How many of my friends on the Republican side today would stand as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar as I did on that occasion? The Democratic leadership pleaded with me at length to agree to support the idea that the Clinton health care bill should be included in that year’s reconciliation package. They came to my office on the floor below. Not only did Majority Leader George Mitchell and others of my colleagues attempt to persuade me to go along and not raise a point of order under the Byrd rule, which would require 60 votes to waive, President Clinton got on the phone and called me also and pressed me to allow his massive health care bill to be insulated by reconciliation’s protection. He called me on the telephone.
Here is the President of the United States calling this lowly former coal town boy and asking me to let his huge health bill come before the Senate on that fast track. I could not, in good conscience, however, look the other way and not make that point of order and allow what would clearly have been an abuse of congressional intent to occur.
How many others would do that today on that side of the aisle, stand against their President. Well, perhaps that is not too important.
I felt that changes as dramatic as the Clinton health care package, which would affect every man, woman, and child in the United States, should be subject to scrutiny. I said: Mr. President, I cannot in good conscience turn my face the other way. That is why we have a Senate–to amend and to debate freely–and that health bill, important as it is, is so complex, so far reaching that the people of this country need to know what is in it and, moreover, Mr. President, we Senators need to know what
is in it.
He accepted that. He accepted that, thanked me, and we said goodbye.
I could not, I would not, and I did not allow that package to be handled in such a cavalier manner. It was the threat of the use of the Byrd rule–and my how that Byrd rule has been maligned and excoriated and criticized by many Members of the other body who should be thanking the Senate for it. It was the threat of the use of the Byrd rule that bolstered my position. My view prevailed then; my view is the same today. It is time for the abuse of the reconciliation process to cease. We should
not be using tight, expedited procedures to take up measures that worsen the fiscal situation of the Nation and that have far reaching, profound impacts on the people. Reconciliation was never, never, never intended to be a shield, to be used as a shield for controversial legislation by depriving Senators of their rights and their duty to debate and to amend.
I want the Senate to have an opportunity to work its will and to apply its considered judgment to the massive tax cut that is being proposed by the Bush administration. I strenuously object to having such a far-reaching, critical matter swathed in the protective bandages of a reconciliation process and ramrodded through this body like a self-propelled missile. Nobody who has listened to the testimony of witnesses before the Budget Committee could possibly claim that the right choices are clear.
There is vast uncertainty and disagreement about nearly every aspect of the Bush tax cut.
The President’s proposal is not an edict, and the Senate is not a quivering body of humble subjects who must obey.
Come one, come all! this rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I.
This is the Senate. Reliance on reconciliation as the torpedo with which to deliver a knock-out punch for the President is a tactic that ought to be abandoned. It is not a fair course. It is not a wise course. It is not right to enforce this reconciliation gag rule upon the Senate. It is wrong. We must not shackle the intellects of 100 Members of the Senate in this way. We should not fear the wisdom of open and free-ranging debate about a proposal which is, at best, risky business. Now is no
time to circle the wagons. Now is the time to hear all of the voices on both sides of the aisle. Now is the time to build consensus among ourselves and among the people we represent.
There will be no victory if we make the wrong choices and plunge this Nation back into a deficit status. There will be no victory. We will have plenty of time to regret and to weep.
The President has said that he wants bipartisanship. He has said that he has faith in his plan. I believe, therefore, that there is no need to hide behind the iron wall of reconciliation. This would be a hollow victory, indeed, for the President, and for the majority leadership in this body.
[/QUOTE]
(emphases mine)
The arguments are eerily on target today. Even that last paragraph.
What I said is 100% true. I didn’t mention filibuster. Again, look it up.
You will be relieved to find out, good sir, that the health care bill passed the Senate, after cloture, this past December.
That was unintentional. Sorry.
We agree!!! So, now that you’ve demonstrated such intelligence, is it safe to say you agree with me and Obama? 
LOL
I figured. I didn’t take any offense. Anyway, do you have a response to any of the other points I made? I listened to the excerpts again and I think it’s obvious he is talking about the right style of governance, not “trying to shove major legislation down the throat of the populace” on health care.
I know Obama said Democrats should wait on the health care bill rather than trying to pass it before Scott Brown took office, which they did do. And he’s proposed some new ideas today, so I assume he wants the current bill to be altered rather than passed through reconciliation. But I don’t know if he’s said anything specific about it.
No, it makes things hard and it kills thousands of Americans that don’t need to die. If the Republicans were actually approaching the table in seriousness it would be different. But Senate Republican leadership has decided that they will lock arms and outright lie every chance they get.
Because they’ve been lied to about the bill. The bill contains those elements and people are for the bits.
Look, are you against Pre-Existing Conditions? Well if you are you need a mandate (otherwise insurance costs will spike). If you’ve got a mandate you need subsidies for the poor so they can afford insurance.
Guess what Chester? That’s the Senate bill. Republicans don’t want to get rid of Pre-Existing Conditions.
Oh, so you understand the issue, and willingly decided to say things that don’t jibe with reality?
So you were just trying to mislead people there?
That would be reasonable if Republicans weren’t marching lockstep against him. Remember, they aren’t being reasonable. The Republican version of HCR is tort reform and states lines. Both of which do almost nothing to help (and in the case of states lines will make the country actively worse.)
Again, remember that this is Obama’s Waterloo. This is an actual effort by Republicans to no be bipartisan. They have been included at every step and made it obvious they do not intend vote for a bill that does anything but tort reform and allow state lines.
Ah my bad. I saw that period after Obama’s name as a comma.
Obama was wrong the first time, and we all knew he was. The Republicans aren’t interested in problem-solving or legislating, and they need to be removed from the process. Americans want and need health care (and polls about the current plan don’t mean anything since most Americans don’t actually know what’s in it and are only responding to propoganda from insurance companies), but public opnion is immaterial anyway, because if health care doesn’t get reformed, the country is going to be bankrupted by medical costs. It nees to be passed, it’s going to be passed, and that’s the end of it. That should definitely include a public option, and once the public has it, they’ll never want to go back.
Amen, brother. Amen.
This “bipartisanship” with an opposition that isn’t interested in helping the majority achieve legislative goals is approaching the borderline of being undemocratic.
Obama the realist politician and Obama the idealist are in accord on tactics.
Obama the idealist would love to move forward with a broad concensus of responsible legislators, who will ignore the threats and blandishments of the monied interests and do what needs be done. From his lips to the Ears…
Obama the pragmatist is going to every effort to ensure that if brute Congressional force need be applied, that he is publicly seen as having done every possible thing to prevent the necessity. He must demonstrate to the people that he has extended the hand of compromise again and again, only to be spurned.
And so it is.
No, it’s not borderline of undemocratic, it’s undemocratic. The fetish that people have with bipartisanship in this country is one of the most disgusting things about the political system. Elections don’t have consequences.
I’ve never heard anyone say “Why can’t Coke and Pepsi just come together and provide the best soda to all Americans?” Why people want to pretend that Demos and Republicans need to come together on public policy is astoundingly weird, IMO, and symptomatic of a uneducated electorate.
It’s only the Dems that care about bipartisanship, and I wish they’d stop.
Right you are 'luci.
Yes, he has. Or he will in a couple of minutes, anyway. cite
My focus is more on the rhetoric of bipartisanship. Sure, I agree that, in Washington, only Democratic politicians are more concerned with gaining bipartisan cover. But both parties parrot this “bipartisanship = good” thing when they are on the stump or being interviewed, which is absolutely ridiculous. Bipartisanship, when it comes to contested issues of public policy, is a incredibly undemocratic compulsion. It nullifies elections and masks accountability.