really pivoted the jobs as president obama put it at the beginning of the year. and on the ethics, you know, it s beginning to look a lot like 2006 and i think nancy pelosi came in talking about the most ethical congress but had no commitment to taking on the old bold in her party. there is the late john murtha who personified the practice around ear marks and charlie rangel a sad case of someone who thinks he deserved a lifestyle beyond his income and began to cut corners. we re talking about performance as well among democrats and the president. and senator hatch, the republican national committee, the finance director, did a power point presentation to donors and the like. i ll put it up on the screen. this is the imagery. how to run against the democrats. it had this offensive picture of the president and socialism, the joker from the film, and had other unflattering images of democratic leaders. is this the way republicans are
the deficit. that s evidence we have. and you can postpone ensuring, providing insurance for the uninsured forever, if you just say well, we got to fix everything else and then get all of these people insured. on rich s point about process, i looked at all of the columns i looked at criticizing the bush tax cut. i argued about the merits of the tax cuts and i think instead of talking about process we ought to talk about the merits of the health plan. did write a stirring column about the nuclear option in defense of the senate and as an anti-institution. i believe one last thing. the point you re saying is republicans are united, democrats can t govern is what they say. it would have been relatively easy and senator hatch would be an expert on this because he worked so closely with ted kennedy on health care issues to get 65 or 70 votes for a major health care bill in the senate. not this, but 100, $200 billion more for medicaid, maybe some
when people understand what s in the bill, a new insurance marketplace, giving small business owners and individuals the same choices that members of congress have, new rules for insurance companies and david, this is a fundamental difference between republicans and democrats. they really don t believe that insurance companies should have more consumer protections, more oversight that it should change the rules and i think at the end of the day that may be the dividing line where republicans will not vote for a bill that cracks down on insurance company abuses, changes the practices. you had unified opposition from republicans. did you also have a breakdown in the president and administration s communication to the american people about what the goal was and how you would get there? i think when you have anything that s this comprehensive, there are always strategies along the way that focus on things. we spent way too much time and energy talking about what s not in the bill, tryi
first of all, i find it astonishing that so many republicans who when president bush surged troops into iraq against the polls said this is a courageous act and when president obama tries to push a health care bill against the polls this is a terrible thing, this is not a consistent argument. several points. the health bill thatment obama will sign got 60 votes in the senate. that s the bill the house would pass. the only thing that s being talked about here are amendments that would be passed through reconciliation dealing with money which is in the tradition of conciliation. second, senator hatch keeps saying this is unprecedented in scope. and that you need bipartisan support. there is a chart in the new york times today put together by tom mann of brookings and their colleagues. there are seven instances where reconciliation was used in cases where the bill got fewer than 60 votes. five of those were done by republican senates.
i think the cbo says that congressional budget office says over time this bill will reduce the deficit. that s evidence we have. and you can postpone ensuring, providing insurance for the uninsured forever, if you just say well, we got to fix everything else and then get all of these people insured. on rich s point about process, i looked at all of the columns i looked at criticizing the bush tax cut. i argued about the merits of the tax cuts and i think instead of talking about process we ought to talk about the merits of the health plan. did write a stirring column about the nuclear option in defense of the senate and as an anti-institution. i believe one last thing. the point you re saying is republicans are united, democrats can t govern is what they say. it would have been relatively easy and senator hatch would be an expert on this because he worked so closely with ted kennedy on health care issues to get 65 or 70 votes for a major health care bill in the senate.