|
Just to be clear since the chatter is growing: I couldn't care less that Jeanne Shaheen is a member of Evan Bayh's dopey little club.
Jeanne Shaheen is a moderate Democrat. There is nothing at all surprising about this, even for someone like me who didn't get invested in New Hampshire politics until after her gubernatorial career. What is surprising - and wonderful - is how often I have been happy with her votes in the short time she has been in the senate.
That Shaheen meets with moderate senators is not cause for alarm. It's not cause for anything.
What is cause for alarm is a smaller group which has expressed opposition to using the budget reconciliation process as a way to enact real health care reform, and real (though still far too tepid, imo) action on climate change.
If those don't get done this year, it will be much harder next year, and the year after. Both are hair-on-fire emergencies that needed to be addressed immediately a decade ago.
As OMB Director Peter Orszag noted, many past presidents have used the reconciliation process repeatedly for big pieces of their agendas. Judd Gregg used it to ram Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest down our throats.
But here's what Janus Gregg had the audacity to say today on page A1 of WaPo: Republicans are howling about the proposal to expand health coverage and tax greenhouse gas emissions without their input, warning that it could irrevocably damage relations with the new president.
"That would be the Chicago approach to governing: Strong-arm it through," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), who briefly considered joining the Obama administration as commerce secretary. "You're talking about the exact opposite of bipartisan. You're talking about running over the minority, putting them in cement and throwing them in the Chicago River." That's the real danger - the blinding hypocrisy of the right allowing them to get what they want, which is business as usual.
We voted for change. |
