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BurghersAndDogsSports wrote:The biggest issue you are missing in your reply is you start at the primaries - because he had 100% support of the mandate prior to the primaries! his destruction of it during (which you note above) and his back tracking of it after.
BurghersAndDogsSports wrote:You can claim bipartisan all you want on the last part but you can not start a book halfway through and claim the last switch was for bipartisan reasons- I think its pretty clear that it was in his plans all along.....since he actually had said that in his recent past. He didnt switch to garner some right wing support. He switched to go back to his original beliefs and had switched them in the primaries to oust Hillary.
tifosi77 wrote:BurghersAndDogsSports wrote:The biggest issue you are missing in your reply is you start at the primaries - because he had 100% support of the mandate prior to the primaries! his destruction of it during (which you note above) and his back tracking of it after.
First, I 'start' in the primaries because that's what you've been talking about; how during the primaries Obama said one thing, and then once elected went completely against that. I'm not disagreeing with that statement, just adding context and disagreeing with the characterization of it as a lie.
Second, I have no idea what you mean when you say "he had 100% support of the mandate prior to the primaries". Candidate Obama first presented his ideas for healthcare reform in May of 2007. That was well and truly into primary season, but still fairly early going in the process and I am unaware of any earlier public statements on healthcare policy and reform that contradict this initial position.BurghersAndDogsSports wrote:You can claim bipartisan all you want on the last part but you can not start a book halfway through and claim the last switch was for bipartisan reasons- I think its pretty clear that it was in his plans all along.....since he actually had said that in his recent past. He didnt switch to garner some right wing support. He switched to go back to his original beliefs and had switched them in the primaries to oust Hillary.
That's an interesting assertion. Can you cite me to anything that documents this?
I confess to making the bi-partisan argument without giving it full context. The real driver of Obama's decision to ditch his campaign position on healthcare was the CBO analysis that suggested there was no real way to accomplish his goals without increasing the pool of participants in the private health insurance marketplace. And the only real way to do that was through a mandate. So in acceding to that, the Obama team needed to find a way to make the mandate argument (which already had majority support among Democrats) palatable to Republicans. So they looked north to the People's Republic of Massachusetts, and retooled what eventually became the ACA in much the same vein as Romneycare.
Also, I make the constant references to the en masse Republican flip-flop largely for my own bemusement, as some of the loudest opposition to the mandate came from Republicans who were all fine and dandy with a mandate prior to January 20, 2009. Some of them were even co-sponsors of healthcare bills that included mandates as late in the game as 2007.
And, to reiterate, I think the ACA is a garbage piece of legislation.
BurghersAndDogsSports wrote:
The bipartisan or he evolved or he is always trying to do what is best is just excusing his lying to get elected to push what he really wanted.
DelPen wrote:So if Congress does nothing we will have tax increases on everyone and some spending cuts. This fiscal cliff is looking better than any other compromise which will just be kicking the can down the road again.
ExPatriatePen wrote:Tif, please, clarify something for me will you? You certainly aren't arguing that Obama has reached across the aisle during his administration are you?
I think the Republicans are repugnant for maintaining steadfast opposition to any and all initiatives raised by the Obama administration, but please don't try and paint the Obama administration as an innocent party. Remember this was a President who shortly after his election, citing his 'mandate', said "Elections have consequencies" while justifying his refusal to work with the "R's".
ExPatriatePen wrote:EPP (I thnk we should start a grass roots movement that advocates only one thing: that individuals make a pledge to vote for a "third party candidate" in the next election, that folks promise only that they won't vote for a "D" or an "R")
tifosi77 wrote:ExPatriatePen wrote:Tif, please, clarify something for me will you? You certainly aren't arguing that Obama has reached across the aisle during his administration are you?
I think the Republicans are repugnant for maintaining steadfast opposition to any and all initiatives raised by the Obama administration, but please don't try and paint the Obama administration as an innocent party. Remember this was a President who shortly after his election, citing his 'mandate', said "Elections have consequencies" while justifying his refusal to work with the "R's".
It's not a question of arguing: Obama and the Democrats completely caved on their positions in an effort to recruit GOP support, but adopting ideas and concepts in the reform that had been long-standing tenets of nearly every GOP proposal on the subject for over a decade. Then, suddenly.... woosh. It's socialism.
When one or two people change their position, that's fine and dandy. But when about every single member of the GOP caucus decides, for politically-motivated reasons of outright obstructionism, to vote against proposals that they themselves supported for years in the past? Obama agreed to allow consumers to purchase healthcare from an insurer in a different state, something he had previously opposed and even supported a provision to allow small businesses to work together (collectively?!) to purchase group-rate insurance.... both key GOP points.
The main issues of contention that Obama was not reaching across the aisle was his refusal to begin work from existing pieces of legislation (bills that had been in Congress for years in some cases) and instead insisted upon a clean-sheet approach, and what Mitch McConnell described as the "arrogance of all this".
In other words, Obama and the Democrats were coming from a position of wanting to get something done, and Boehner and McConnell were coming from a position of not wanting to get anything done.
So to answer your question...... yes, I unequivocally assert that Obama and the Democrats acted with a spirit of bipartisanship - especially early in the process - than did the Republicans. And considering the latter came to the table with the express goal of preventing anything from happening, any amount of bipartisanship at all would have been more than the GOP offered up.ExPatriatePen wrote:EPP (I thnk we should start a grass roots movement that advocates only one thing: that individuals make a pledge to vote for a "third party candidate" in the next election, that folks promise only that they won't vote for a "D" or an "R")
Are you talking about yourself in the third person?
I'll gladly sign that pledge, and have already did my part by voting for a third-party guy this cycle. So there.
bhaw wrote:2. I don't know all the info on this, nor is it being reported on major news stations, but the men who were primarily responsible for the genocide of Serbs in Croatia were released. I saw the news 2nd hand from a former co-worker on FB who is 1st generation Serbian-American.
Tomas wrote:Now, I am not that impressed that in a relatively close election, you can create a graph showing that a small electorate segment carried the winner over the top (there are probably 50 different ways that can show who "broke the tie.") I am, however, quite surprised that a conservative republican ticket attracted 22% of LGBT vote (I would have predicted 5% at best).
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