Pelosi: Two 'pillars' down, one more to go in passing Obama's 'blueprint'

[NJmaverick]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said the Democrats are one bill away from completing President Barack Obama’s “blueprint for American prosperity.”

“We have passed two of the three pillars in the historic healthcare and education reform and are working towards a clean energy and climate agenda in Congress,” Pelosi said in her remarks to the California Democratic Party state convention in Los Angeles on Saturday. “And essential to prosperity for middle-income Americans is reining in Wall Street.”

“The House has passed Wall Street reform, and working with our colleagues in the Senate, we will ensure that never again will those who are reckless on Wall Street make people jobless on Main Street,” she said.

During her speech, Pelosi singled out several members of the California delegation who were in attendance. “We must reelect and retain the extraordinary leadership of my colleagues in Congress who are here today,” she said.

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http://thehill.com/homenews/house/92857-pelosi-two-pillars-down-one-to-go-in-passing-obamas-blueprint

[Ian David]

1. We should really AVOID calling them pillars. It will feed the teabagger conspiracies.

Five Pillars of Islam
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_Pillars_of_Islam

[Arkana]

2. It would if they even knew anything about Islam other than "BROWN PEOPLE IS BAD ARGH".

[Posteritatis]

16. No matter what they called them it would feed teabagger conspiracies.

They could call them the pork chops of the administration's promises and people would still say it was proof of evil Muslimness.

[polichick]

3. Wish the Senate was half as efficient as the House! nt

[NJmaverick]

4. The House isn't hampered by the filibuster

besides the constitution sort of designed the Senate to be a road block of sorts.

[polichick]

6. High time to do away with the misuse of the filibuster - that was never intended. nt

[NJmaverick]

11. I am torn on this as I remember there was a time not long ago

that the filibuster was the only means of stopping the GOP.

[polichick]

12. But Dems didn't use it nearly as much as it's being used now...

Rachel showed the chart recently - crazy!

[liberalpragmatist]

13. We didn't stop much

We stopped making the Bush tax cuts permanent. (But without a filibuster, it would also be easier to repeal them.)

We prevented malpractice caps.

We stopped Miguel Estrada's nomination the federal bench (he would probably have been appointed to the Supreme Court instead of Alito).

I'm glad we stopped those things but honestly, they don't really build a strong enough case against a filibuster. Our system has numerous veto points - the committee system, two separate houses of Congress, the presidential signature, court challenges - where legislation can be blocked. That's FAR more than any other democracy. We don't need a filibuster, which also, keep in mind, basically subverts the constitutional framework by making the Senate vastly more powerful than the House, when the Constitution basically called for them to be co-equal.

Keep in mind that the filibuster has an asymmetrical effect - because the Senate is tilted towards conservative, rural states, Democrats inherently need a more ideologically diverse caucus to assemble a majority. That makes it harder to hold all our votes, and the same principle holds when Republicans have a majority. Because there are going to be more conservative Democrats than liberal Republicans, it's easier for Republicans to break a filibuster by peeling off Democratic votes than vice versa.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. I have no problem with the filibuster...

if it was used like it was designed. Force the fuckers to stand up and actually filibuster, not threaten. Make them read for hours upon hours from a phone book. What they call a filibuster today is a joke, and requires no sacrifice.

[vaberella]

17. Let's be honest here...the Senate was hampered before the threat of filibuster.

We're hampered by Republicans who hate Obama.

[Enrique]

5. it should be two pillars up, right?

unless the Hill thinks Obama and Pelosi are demolishing something.

[NJmaverick]

10. Point taken and I am sure some right wingnut will latch on to that.

[MadHound]

7. Well one of those pillars certainly won't lead to prosperity, namely education "reform"

And it is very doubtful that health care "reform" will either. I shudder at what is going to come out of the sausage grinder and be labeled "clean energy" (I have a pretty good idea, saddling us with decades of nuclear power).

[msongs]

8. thank goodness health care reform allows unlimited $$ increases for corporate welfare nt

[NJmaverick]

9. The facts suggest our current education system is failing, so reforming it would

be a logical solution.

[MadHound]

15. Ah, so rather than subtract elements that are failing in eduction, such as NCLB

Obama is increasing testing, and worse yet, increasing the privatization of education. That sounds like the reform of education by killing it.

You have a seriously twisted notion of reform.

[Peacetrain]

14. I am a great navigator and mapreader myself!!! and yes he is..

following the blueprint or map he laid out during the primaries.

:hi:

[FrenchieCat]

19. K&R