TeresaCentric

If you've paid any attention to anything that's gone on in Congress since 2006, you've probably heard a whole lot about the need for Democrats to muster 60 votes in the Senate to pass anything. And this is true, so far, the Senate has needed 60 votes in order to get a floor vote and avoid a filibuster. However, the Senate can also call for "reconciliation", whereby debate is ended and bills go straight to a vote. Then, the Senate only needs 50 votes plus Joe "Foot-in-Mouth" Biden to pass anything. And, according to Chuck Schumer, the Senate is beginning to consider this. Now, this would mean an end to the "bipartisan" process that Barack Obama has naively been pushing for since he got elected. I think it's admirable that he wanted to try to get a few Republicans and every single Democratic Senator to vote for his bill. But in reality, Chuck Grassley, the leading Republican writing the health care bill has said he won't vote for it (and he's WRITING it), and Senator John Kyl, the number 2 Republican in the Senate, has said that he won't vote for anything. Both Senators have also expressed concerned about "death panels." Meanwhile the "moderate" Democrats Obama needs to get to 60 votes are really just the Democrats who have accepted the most money from health insurance companies. So I hope Schumer, Obama, and the remaining Democratic Senators who have not been bought and sold realize that the Republican party cares solely about thwarting the Democratic party, and that the moderate Democrats would be better named the "bought" Democrats. Screw them, and stop watering down bills like the Stimulus package or cap-and-trade. Stop passing garbage. Cap-and-trade won't do anything, if you want to decrease pollution, TAX ENERGY. Health care "reform" without a public option won't solve any problems or bring down costs. We need free, public, universal health care and we need it 15 years ago. We need to actually regulate the financial industry. Oh, and we need to raise fucking taxes. Our deficit is at 1.6 trillion dollars*. The Republican party is not lost in the wilderness, they have set the wilderness on fire and are going around the village looking for more gasoline and matches. Stop trying to get them on board, and pass actual laws that help solve actual problems. * Pulling out of Afghanistan might help with this. I don't see the point of being there. What actual good are we doing? Our soldiers are dying, we're spending billions of dollars, the Taliban controls the South, Al Qaeda has free reign in Waziristan, and the government has passed laws legalizing marital rape. We've been there for 8 years, and even year the situation gets worse, not better. If we're there to fight Al Qaeda, we can leave now, they're all in Pakistan. If we're there to fight for women's right's, let's airlift them all out and move them to California. If we're there to set up a stable nation state, we better increase our budget by a factor of 40.