If you ran an ad to sell your car, that read " Asking $10K, but will take $2K"

[SoCalDem]

how many people will show up with a cashier's check for $10K?

I am starting to think that the whole health care plan was scuttled early on, and all the drama is just that...drama.

It should have been but ONE facet (of 4)of a real stimulus bill ...in FEBRUARY, and it should have been Medicare for all people , with a cessation of employer-assisted health care.

Facet #2 of the stimulus should have been the nationalization and re-regulation for the "big" banks/financial institutions, for 2 years, during which a FULL audit and inspection (attic to sub-basement) would have been done..and results published....followed by prosecution of CEOs...That would have reinstated faith in banking.

Facet #3 should have been an immediate revocation of all "tax-cuts" given in the last 12 years, and a return to a saner tax policy...with one exception. LOWER tax rates for people earning less than 100K

Facet #4 should have been a lowering of interest rates/cram down for people who were stuck with houses suddenly devalued by 30% or more (for maybe 5 years or so)...computers could have easily handled this, and a simple letter notifying these folks would have been easy.. "your new house payment is $....." would have sufficed, and would have kept millions of people in their houses, paying payments.

Dithering, dickering, dawdling, and dribbling, has only made the problems last longer, made the people madder, and in the end, we'll emerge with a shiny new bubble, all ready to pop in another 10-15 years..

The really scary thing is this.. Abortion, immigration, gay rights, were all issues that were diligently sidetracked during the election cycle, but now that Obama is president, they are all back, in a BIG way, and will be inserted into every bit of legislation he tries to pass.

His opponents were as afraid as he was, of using them in the campaigns (except in a dog-whistle-y way), but all bets are off now, thanks to the teabag people, and all the new right wing groups that are forming. They did not dare to attack Obama much when they knew he "might" win, but now that he has, they can finally "speak their minds".

They can trot out all their old issues, like trusted old friends, not seen for a while, and can attach those old friends to any issue they choose..and then they can beat the president about the head and shoulders with those old issues...and they can even get some help, with the likes of Lieberman, Nelson, Landrieu and others like them.

Congress has seen the balance sheet..they KNOW they have spent us into oblivion, and they also know that what money is coming in via taxes, is money THEY want and need for their own special issues. They all have health care for themselves and their families..they all make enough to live on...they have cushy jobs just waiting for them when they do get beaten, or decide to "spend more time with their families".

Status Quo is their goal, and even though they mouth the words of change, occasionally, they fear it, and will do whatever it takes (as a group) to maintain their old pal, Status Quo.

[Autumn]

1. You got it .

K/R

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Damn, but you're right.

K&R

:nuke:

[lonestarnot]

3. Little people fodder in a raging class war and don't have an inkling as to their roles.

[Jackpine Radical]

4. That's good for the first wave.

For the second wave, I'd start a massive jobs program, putting people to work planning and building a green infrastructure for the next century. It would incorporate high-speed rail, wideband internet, revitalization of inner cities and old urban areas,reforestation, agricultural land reclamation, financing for permaculture (google it if you don't know about it), etc. We could yet turn our impending social collapse into a cultural regeneration.

[QC]

5. The person who ran that hypothetical ad could get a White House job

as chief negotiator. That's how the Administration "negotiates."

[SoCalDem]

12. negotiating from weakness ..yeh.. that's the ticket..n/t

[stray cat]

6. Some people think they have something worth 10,000 but you really would have to pay to get rid of it

The left wing of the dem party is less than 20% of the population - dems alone are around 30% - 30% doesn't win elections or votes

[bertman]

13. Yes, but politicians who get things done that the people want DO win elections.

The people want regulation of the Wall Street thieves and the Banksters. They want the money that we taxpayers provided for the Bailouts to be accounted for and to be returned to them with interest. They want War Profiteers investigated and prosecuted, right along with the Wall Street and Banking CEO's. They want healthcare reform and they could have been educated as to how it would be the best course of action for the nation had we taken a giant stride forward and gone to Medicare for all.

A big part of the reason that there are not more Democrats is that Democrats have failed to be Democrats. They have become the errand boys and girls and the enablers for Big Pharma, Big Finance, Big War Industry, Big Insurance, Big Oil, BUT NOTHING FOR THE PEOPLE.

Someone said that there's only ONE party. It's the MONEY PARTY, with two wings: the Republican and Democratic. More and more, I agree with that assessment.

[JoeyT]

21. Those are nifty statistics.

So you admit the liberal wing of the party is 2/3rds of the party, then? ;)

[SoCalDem]

22. we wish

maybe you don't though:eyes:

[JoeyT]

23. I wish it were higher.

I wish 2/3rds of the country was liberal. ;)

[SoCalDem]

24. If we ask questions in a certain way, I think we'd find that most people are liberal

I think most people want to lead normal lives, with enough to not be poor, and do not really care all that much what other people do :)

[blm]

7. EXACTLY RIGHT!!!!!! And people here are already pissed that Ed Schultz is calling them on it.

.

[izquierdista]

8. I'm ready to vote for you

[SoCalDem]

9. Can't run.. I'm "pudgy" and my family has an army of skeletons in our closets

:rofl:

[Old Codger]

10. Yup

Pretty much hits the nail on the head, set-up from the start

[BeFree]

11. Yeah

Shoot, we're lucky to get any HCR at all.

There was a ton of arm twisting going on just to get the 220 votes.

We have the best democracy money can buy. That should be quite evident to everyone by now.

Congresscritters, tho, must be getting a bit nervous seeing as how the people are getting a bit riled, left and right. Of course the right is much more dangerous... after all they did vote for bush, eh?

[bertman]

14. I agree wholeheartedly with your analysis, but I fear that had it been implemented,

Facet #5 would have been State Funeral, followed by martial law.

[ooglymoogly]

15. You are being clever by 2.

We blithely sailed through the looking glass during the Reagan heist and we have never been able to, or never had the will to, climb out of the rabbit hole we allowed the Reagan thugs to dig for us. Alice's wonderland was far saner than the nightmare we are now living. All the lolly is gone and has been stolen by the pugfucks at an 8 year mad hatters tea bag party hosted, by the one and only mad hatter, Georg b. and now continues under O. We are fucked and the few honest folks that are fighting for us, makes it a David v/ Goliath battle.
But in a nut shell you pinned the tail on the asshole....this bill and the "drama" that proceeded it, is one grand Kabuki fuck. Big KR

[notesdev]

16. On "facet #4"

That has effectively been tried already, to some degree. The problem is you can't re-value all those underwater loans, or every major bank blows up the next day. There's also a serious problem with the government acting to subsidize property owners at the expense of those who don't own property. A lot of these underwater "homeowners" did something not much different than the investment bankers, namely making a big bet hoping for big private profit and begging for their losses to be socialized.

[Raineyb]

17. I made a similar point about the negotiating. I believe the phrase STFU was used.

:shrug:

There are some who just don't want to hear it.

[riderinthestorm]

19. Oh me too. Especially in GDP where Obama's playin' chess doncha know

and LOOK!! here's some photos!!!111!1

And being told one's an "Obama hater" for pointing out the obvious: Obama never did start out from a position of strength on HCR, has done very little to pressure Congress, has had some pretty suspicious industry meetings with Big Health Care Corp (Pharma) etc. etc.

[RoadRage]

18. If you really want $2,000 for the car- it's a BRILLIANT marketing strategy. NT :)

[BrklynLiberal]

20. Makes sense to me...

[chimpymustgo]

25. Damn skippy. Somehow the ringhtwing gets all the wars and tax cuts they want, but we have to

eat shit to get a few crumbs for the people.

WAKE UP!!!

[glitch]

26. Facet 5 investigate and indict the criminals to restore confidence in the system

Keep that limping along to give us a chance to make the truly mandatory systemic changes to meet peak oil and global climate change. That would have made those adjustments less traumatic, as it looks now the adjustment will be very catastrophic with little expectation of success.
This may've been what Obama had in mind before he met with his bosses, maybe he'll even tell us all about it in his next book.

[Greyhound]

27. Worse, enshrining the status quo in law, making it next to impossible to ever get rid of.

The very mechanism of this law guarantees that any subsequent "improvements" will be impossible, and the next time the repubs are in power they can start cutting this latest "evil Democratic entitlement".

[avaistheone1]

28. Unfortunately you have that right.

[rudy23]

29. Yes. Billy Tauzin and a few others let this slip in August. Then Rahm had to go out and

try to brand the public option as something wanted only by "the left of the left."

We're seeing echoes of this strategy in their attempts to brand us as "left-wing teabaggers", a term I've seen used about 100 times this week as part of an obvious talking-points strategy.

Yes, this is all drama. All an attempt to convince us in broad daylight that we should be in favor of the triggers the Obama admin settled on this past July.

All that courting of Snowe was a DESPERATE attempt to make that compromise seem worthwhile in that it gave us a bipartisan bill. Rahm and Obama screwed the pooch on HCR, and now they're stalling to see if they can break the bad news more gently by stretching this process out past our attention spans.

[Hippo_Tron]

30. You won't get $10k if your buyer knows you are starving and need the money

In order for threats to work in a bargaining situation they have to be credible. And Obama simply can't make credible threats because the incentives are stacked against him. He is finished politically if there is no health care bill and everybody in Washington knows that.

He could go before Congress and wave around a pen and say "I will veto anything short of Medicare for all". It wouldn't make a damn bit of difference. They would still send him the same crap that they are sending now and expect him to sign it because they know that he needs a bill. And even if he truly were serious and didn't care about his re-election, nobody would believe him.

[SoCalDem]

31. Thats; why it needed to happen in Feb, when the republicans were flat on their backs, busted

and his numbers were astronomical.. You have to hit hard..and first..to win (with an underhanded opponent like republicans in congress)

[Hippo_Tron]

33. Still wouldn't have been any different

Everybody knows that astronomical numbers will not last forever and the incentives were structured exactly as they are now. Just because Obama has a 65% approval rating doesn't make "I will veto anything short of Medicare for all" any more credible. Because once he does veto it and nothing has gotten done his approval rating won't be 65% anymore.

[hfojvt]

32. oh good grief

Medicare for all. If you wanted to scuttle it, that's what you would propose. Obama did not run on that, and most of the Democrats in Congress did not run on that.