A Dangerous Dysfunction

[Undercurrent]

Unless some legislator pulls off a last-minute double-cross, health care reform will pass the Senate this week. Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement. It’s a seriously flawed bill, we’ll spend years if not decades fixing it, but it’s nonetheless a huge step forward.

It was, however, a close-run thing. And the fact that it was such a close thing shows that the Senate — and, therefore, the U.S. government as a whole — has become ominously dysfunctional.

After all, Democrats won big last year, running on a platform that put health reform front and center. In any other advanced democracy this would have given them the mandate and the ability to make major changes. But the need for 60 votes to cut off Senate debate and end a filibuster — a requirement that appears nowhere in the Constitution, but is simply a self-imposed rule — turned what should have been a straightforward piece of legislating into a nail-biter. And it gave a handful of wavering senators extraordinary power to shape the bill.

Now consider what lies ahead. We need fundamental financial reform. We need to deal with climate change. We need to deal with our long-run budget deficit. What are the chances that we can do all that — or, I’m tempted to say, any of it — if doing anything requires 60 votes in a deeply polarized Senate?

More of Paul Krugman's op-ed: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=NytimesKrugman

[silverweb]

1. K&R

:kick:

[lunatica]

2. I would substitute the word dysfunctional with the word corrupt

It puts a whole new light on it. Dysfunction isn't what they are suffering from. It's the corruption of looking out for their financial self interests. Be it their million dollar homes, incomes or their constant need for re-election donations. Dysfunction is all about emotional wounds and needs. They suffer from never ending financial needs.

[thunder rising]

3. This has all been theatrics. The outcome was known all the time

[depakid]

4. Operative words: "ominously dysfunctional."

Scary thought on this set of issues:

It didn't- with political fortitude- have to be this way.

And if the shoe were on the other foot- had in some parallel universe, Democrats had an ounce of Republican "get 'er done" spine -it wouldn't have been this way- and we wouldn't be seeing such ominous foreshadowing.

Reminds me a lot of classical literature- the genre of tragedy.

[Cha]

5. These are outstanding points by Krugman..

For all those saying.."the republicons pushed things through when bush was prez(sic).


"First, Bush-era Democrats weren’t nearly as determined to frustrate the majority party, at any cost, as Obama-era Republicans. Certainly, Democrats never did anything like what Republicans did last week: G.O.P. senators held up spending for the Defense Department — which was on the verge of running out of money — in an attempt to delay action on health care.

More important, however, Mr. Bush was a buy-now-pay-later president. He pushed through big tax cuts, but never tried to pass spending cuts to make up for the revenue loss. He rushed the nation into war, but never asked Congress to pay for it. He added an expensive drug benefit to Medicare, but left it completely unfunded. Yes, he had legislative victories; but he didn’t show that Congress can make hard choices and act responsibly, because he never asked it to."

[Undercurrent]

8. Indeed.

I'm as concerned as Krugman, and many others who have stated that the Senate is unable to function anymore. We have a long list of things that need to be addressed -- a jobs package, climate change, deficits, and financial regulation, to say nothing about a whole host of social issues like the repeal of DOMA. In this climate, with a barely functional Senate it's going to be much harder than ever before.

If we could just get rid of the filibuster.

Hey, a girl can dream.

[eridani]

6. An awesome achievment in fucking people over

Especially those aged 50-64. We are now legally disposable human garbage.

[DJ13]

7. we’ll spend years if not decades fixing it

This isnt a government ran program like Social Security, there is no "fixing it" once its enacted because it depends on the future cooperation of private, for profit companies.......and lets be honest, they wont willingly give up anything in the future to fix the shortcomings of this bill.

Its everything they paid hundreds of millions of dollars in lobbying to accomplish.

[HughMoran]

9. majorly fucked up

as we used to say back in the day

[Name removed]

10. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Clio the Leo]

11. pretty awesome as far as I'm concerned NT

[flpoljunkie]

12. The Senate is broken--very broken. From 8% in the 60's to 70% since Dems took control in 2006!

The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation. By the 1980s, that had risen to 27 percent. But after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent.

[flpoljunkie]

13. 'Remember the Constitution sets up the Senate as a body with majority--not supermajority rule.'

Remember, the Constitution sets up the Senate as a body with majority — not supermajority — rule. So the rule of 60 can be changed. A Congressional Research Service report from 2005, when a Republican majority was threatening to abolish the filibuster so it could push through Bush judicial nominees, suggests several ways this could happen — for example, through a majority vote changing Senate rules on the first day of a new session.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html?_r=1&src=twt&twt=NytimesKrugman

[live love laugh]

14. Count me among those who consider this an awesome achievement. nt

[Phx_Dem]

15. I'm extremely pleased. After, what, 70 years we finally have a foundation

on which we can continue to build. Getting anything, except tax cuts, through the Senate is very hard. Health care is the hardest -- which is why it took nearly a century. But we're on our way now, and we can add, change and build on this bill to improve it through the years.

Nice job!