3 ms·

And why was it "an unachievable pipe dream"? As I remember it, the Democrats had control of both houses of Congress, as well as the White House, for about 2 ye

And why was it "an unachievable pipe dream"? As I remember it, the Democrats had control of both houses of Congress, as well as the White House, for about 2 years. They could have passed anything they wanted.

tstrimple 2y ago
Joe Lieberman sabotaged the public option.
- chgs 2y ago
  If one person has such power you aren’t really in a democracy
  - tstrimple 2y ago
    The senate is not Democratic. Senators represent states, not people. Unfortunately the house is very poor at representation as well since the number of seats has been frozen. Too many compromises with slave holders built into the foundation of our country to have anything approaching a functional system. Those compromises have been hampering democracy and progress ever since.
  - zdragnar 2y ago
    Perhaps you don't understand how voting works? When the difference between minority in favor (not passing) and majority in favor (passing) is one person, then yes, one person has such power. Democracy doesn't mean that the minority gets to overrule the majority when they feel like it. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
    - tstrimple 2y ago
      Unfortunately that’s exactly what “democracy” in the US means. Without a super majority, any individual can hold up any legislation they want outside of budget reconciliation. It will be that way as long as the filibuster exists in its current form.
ein0p 2y ago
Because they’re owned by Big Pharma and Big Healthcare. Same as Republicans. Also because we'd much rather fund wars than solve such problems.
- netsharc 2y ago
  I was complaining about the state of discourse on HN the other day. Your comment is example number... I don't know what number, I've lost count.
netsharc 2y ago
A others have replied, some Dems were quite red, a lot of politicians are more eager to preserve their jobs than burn political capital... The excerpt from his book: https://archive.is/V5TVM https://archive.is/V5TVM . He also talks about "political capital" and whether it'd be more wise to spend them on e.g. recession recovery. Ctrl-F for "More than forty-three million Americans were now uninsured" to skip the introduction about how the system got to the way it got.
triceratops 2y ago
You're remembering wrong. They had a super-majority for only about 6 months. After that Republicans could hold up legislation via filibustering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Massachusetts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Senate_spec...

tstrimple 2y ago

Joe Lieberman sabotaged the public option.

chgs 2y ago
If one person has such power you aren’t really in a democracy
- tstrimple 2y ago
  The senate is not Democratic. Senators represent states, not people. Unfortunately the house is very poor at representation as well since the number of seats has been frozen. Too many compromises with slave holders built into the foundation of our country to have anything approaching a functional system. Those compromises have been hampering democracy and progress ever since.
- zdragnar 2y ago
  Perhaps you don't understand how voting works? When the difference between minority in favor (not passing) and majority in favor (passing) is one person, then yes, one person has such power. Democracy doesn't mean that the minority gets to overrule the majority when they feel like it. In fact, it is quite the opposite.
  - tstrimple 2y ago
    Unfortunately that’s exactly what “democracy” in the US means. Without a super majority, any individual can hold up any legislation they want outside of budget reconciliation. It will be that way as long as the filibuster exists in its current form.

ein0p 2y ago

Because they’re owned by Big Pharma and Big Healthcare. Same as Republicans. Also because we'd much rather fund wars than solve such problems.

netsharc 2y ago
I was complaining about the state of discourse on HN the other day. Your comment is example number... I don't know what number, I've lost count.

netsharc 2y ago

A others have replied, some Dems were quite red, a lot of politicians are more eager to preserve their jobs than burn political capital... The excerpt from his book: https://archive.is/V5TVM https://archive.is/V5TVM . He also talks about "political capital" and whether it'd be more wise to spend them on e.g. recession recovery. Ctrl-F for "More than forty-three million Americans were now uninsured" to skip the introduction about how the system got to the way it got.

triceratops 2y ago

You're remembering wrong. They had a super-majority for only about 6 months. After that Republicans could hold up legislation via filibustering. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Senate_special_election_in_Massachusetts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_Senate_spec...