So Joe's at it again, being with us on everything that matters, except the war and comprehensive healthcare reform. BTW, he's still lying about it. Ezra's much nicer about it, saying that maybe Lieberman has some special knowledge about how the public really will increase the deficit, while every economic analysis complete says the exact opposite. Ezra gives him the benefit of the doubt, probably because he's trying to get an interview from him, and can't that Joe knows he's lying about this and doesn't care because he's an unprincipled sack of shit.
Which leads us to Harry Reid, as the ball is now firmly in his court, if the CBO ever finishes.
Just after the House vote at 11 p.m. on Nov. 7, Obama released a statement urging the Senate to act. He repeated that message Sunday, telling reporters: "Now it falls on the United States Senate to take the baton and bring this effort to the finish line on behalf of the American people. And I’m absolutely confident that they will."
However, the Senate has been in a holding pattern on its overhaul, with Reid and other Democrats saying Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates have been the biggest holdup. Reid has not released the Democrats’ bill, which will combine measures produced by the Finance Committee and the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee....
Even with the absence of CBO scores, Senate Democrats are still working to get the 60 votes they will need to move past a cloture vote on their bill. To that end, Reid and Durbin are likely to spend this week meeting with their colleagues.
Forget 60, Harry. Any compromise you have to make with Lieberman (and now Nelson and Casey on abortion) ain't gonna be worth it. Get serious about this and start, at the very least, making reconciliation a real threat. Go back to the Schumer split bill plan from this summer before Kennedy's seat was filled:
Are you planning on having an interim appointment from Massachusetts?
No, I don’t know. That would be up to the Massachusetts state legislature but I know they’re considering it. Ah, so, so the bottom line is that even with 60 or even if Olympia Snowe comes to some kind of agreement, it’s going to be hard, and I’ve always favored using reconciliation for good parts of the bill. I think that will get you the best bill, the strongest bill and the bill that will have the greatest positive effect on the American people. Ultimately, we’ll be judged not by whether we pass the bill, but ultimately we’ll be judged by whether it works. Leaving the bill as something that doesn’t work, even if we pass it, leading to hurting both the country and the party.
Is it possible that using reconciliation will produce an ineffective bill, because of procedural problems like the Byrd rule?
We’ve looked at it and you can’t use reconciliation for everything, [but] you can use it for a good number of things. There’s nothing wrong with using it for the places where you can use it and then trying to get the 60 votes on the places where when you can’t. You’d be surprised — the number of places where you can use it is larger than we first thought.
Use it. Use reconciliation for the good parts of hte bill and pass the other critical insurance reforms, which are not controversial (despite the fact that Boehner forgot to include them in his bill) through the regular 60 vote process. We have a better chance of getting a strong public option and killing the Stupak Coathanger amendment this way.
But Reid's got to have the spine to do it. And once he does that, the spine to get the caucus to do what it needed to do months ago--cut Lieberman loose.