So the Democrats have been repeatedly saying they will use reconciliation, also known as "the nuclear option", to pass the health care bill. It's a route to pass it with simple majority and avoid the threat of filibuster.

So what do Obama, Biden et al think of the nuclear option?

Democrats discuss reconciliation

I can't believe how much time I wasted skimming through so many retarded comments looking for something that tried to explain this from a Democrat point of view.

I didn't find anything.

So...what is their defense? That this time is different? That the Republicans do it too?

I don't really understand all of it, but it sure looks like pretty blatant hypocrisy.

Of course it is.

On the other hand, I could make the same video of Republicans justifying trying to use the nuclear defense 5 years ago. It works both ways, both sides only want things their way.


(IMO, needing 60 votes to break a filibuster is pretty silly and should be altered if not done away with entirely)

What is silly is the mutually agreed upon condition that saying you declare a filibuster is all that is required.

Used to be they actually had to put forth effort and tie up the floor for days on end, but now both sides agreed that this is just too much work, so they decided that saying filibuster is all they should be required to do.


It would be akin to a labor union just saying strike, but not actually leaving home and carrying signs, and the business would have to shut down until the unions said Okay, no more strike.



Lazy idiots all of them.


Oh and the notion that they would ram this through is marvelously juicy in hypocrisy from the Obama of the campaign trail who would 'open all the doors' and ' make the debates public' and 'reach across the aisles'


Equally hypocritical to the invited sit down with the republicans to 'work out the health care bill' then two days before the meeting, come out with his health care bill. I guess that meeting with the republicans wasn't as necessary as he thought.

Did I mention that I think democrats are hypocrites?

you don't say...

i don't believe there are enough democrats willing to walk the blank for the Whitehouse!!

My impression was that Obama's health care bill was their proposal for the meeting, it was the mental starting point for the Democrats.

Yeah, I agree, it goes both ways. It seems like I saw one lately of Republicans on something similar, although I don't recall the subject.

And I agree, 60 votes is ridiculous. It should be 66 or 70. If it's not important enough to get 2/3 of Congress to agree, it's not important enough to foist on 300,000,000 people.

Instead, what we should do is have a start over period every 50 years where all laws are wiped off the books and we have to start from scratch. (I'm only 85% joking)

I've often said that any law passed should have an expiration date max of 5 or 10 years. That way our "leadership" could spend time Reviewing/updating/renewing existing laws and deciding if they were still relevant rather than trying to justify their existence with new crappy legislation.

The two party system actually makes it too easy to pass legislation. I believe that the multiparty system was designed to make it difficult to reach >50% to pass a law and would require more diplomacy with other parties.

Im guessing the average Iranian citizen wishes there was a filibuster provision in their govt.

wat?

has everyone on this forum gone COMPLETELY MAD?!

Obviously. What, are you not there yet? Don't worry, it'll happen.

Gone?

They could limit the amount of filibusters in a given year or x amount of time, that way Dems could chop the bill up into little pieces and get it passed one by one, and republicans would have to only filibuster the worst parts of the bill.

I have no idea how well it would work in practice but its an idea that could be looked at.

Actually I'd rather go with LLY's 50 year idea. I like that one.