The Glade 4.0

Dedolito:

Most of the chafing isn't about the "other side" doing "it"; that is, procedural games do not legislation make, regardless of which "party" or "side" controls "Congress."

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My understanding was that you don't own the property, you own the right to use it.

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Not really. Not all land is valued equally. You can buy vast tracks of admittedly largely useless land at a penny or less a square foot. Even if you mandated something like a 1000 sqft minimum (larger than small condos), you could still buy that size of land for a pittance.

If you then try to continue to redefine the rules eventually you'll smack into subdivisions where the 40-acre farmstead sold off a modest 2000 sqft lot to build a single family home.

The guy said I would have owned it and could sell it. I gotta admit, I was in it for the little TV so I wasn't paying much attention.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Khross:

Agree on the analysis of legislation, fully disagree with who is currently complaining.

The GOP media machine is blasting the airwaves about how evil Reconciliation is yet fully supported the practice when they needed it for their own agendas.

I don't like the game the Dems are playing right now, but I find the hypocrisy coming out of the GOP stomach churning and infuriating. I'll say the same thing in 2 years when the GOP is back in marginal control and the Dems start railing on how dastardly the 'nuclear option' really is.

Dedo:

Were any of those instances of self-executing rules completely partisan? Were they of the magnitude of this health insurance reform?

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Well you don't "own" property in this nation anyway - you own real estate.

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"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Payroll taxes, however, run afoul of the same issues that property taxes do for renters. Namely, since they don't come out of the individual's checkbook, the individual (with the truly sorry state our society's civic and economic involvement, education, and foresight are intoday) never really feels any stewardship or responsibility for that contribution, and thus votes as if they do not pay that tax indirectly.

Of course, this is a circumstance politicians seem to love and promote.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Vind: According to the CBO, the tax cuts passed by the GOP under Bush via reconciliation cut more than 2 trillion from the public coffers for the 10 years they are to be in effect. I don't know if you consider that sweeping or not.

The COBRA program was created via reconciliation, it 'only' costs a couple of hundred billion a year.

Medicare Part C, while not separately funded, 'just' costs a couple dozen billion a year.

At what price point does a 'sweeping' categorization kick in?

Obligatory:

[youtube]eVWH01E2weA[/youtube]

Those calculations are faulty and knowingly doctored. Incidentally, that 2 trillion dollars will be exceeded by the increased ceiling on FICA and SS witholding.

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Reconciliation isn't the same thing as the self-executing rules quote that you presented. Reconciliation isn't what they're proposing to get the bill passed, they're going to "deem" it passed as they review the amendments they want for the reconciliation process. They've moved beyond reconciliation because A) T can't force it through even using reconciliation and B) They would probably have a problem with it even being applicable to reconciliation, as much of the bill has absolutely nothing to do with the budget. It's a strange place we've come to when even supporters of these actions get confused by the machinations used to get bills through Congress.

The parallels used even on the reconciliation front aren't as clear cut as people would like it to seem. The 2001 tax cuts passed 58-33. 12 Democrats supported it, and two Senators voted "present" while seven were were absent from the vote, two of them Republicans. COBRA passed 93-6; it seems to me that these votes were made, not because reconciliation was the only was they would pass, but for expediency.

For the record, I would not say that any of the examples you presented, were they valid comparisons, were of the magnitude of this Health Reform bill. We all know that "price" isn't the only, or even most important, factor here.


I'm still interested in what the past uses of the self-executing rules were all about, if you'd care to address it.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

I don't know if the Republican use of the self-executing rule was on bills with a significant partisan divide, but I don't think it really matters. It's pretty common knowledge that the parties have become more partisan over the last 20 years, and the Republicans in particular have generally been more successful at promoting and enforcing a unified caucus in Congress. So, if the Reps really did get more bipartisan support for their use of procedural gimmicks when in the majority, a lot of that difference is attributable to broad trends in ideological sorting between the parties and greater party discipline by the Reps when in the minority.

That said, I do find the magnitude argument persuasive, assuming it holds up when you compare the bills the Reps used these gimmicks on.

The concept of the self executing rule doesn't bother me honestly, if we aren't taking into account the requirements of the Constitution for the passage of laws. Quite frankly, it doesn't matter, and the primary objections to it at this point appear to be nothing other than it doesn't provide ammunition for election ads, that are easily defeated anyway.

For accountability, the only thing that matters is how and why the person voted on the final version.

That said, I dislike the acrobatics moves that are allowed, much less being considered, for legislation. Either the bill passes by the rules, or it doesn't.

Well, there is the chance to call liberals the Deemocrats for a while to consider too.

I think it's rather foolish idea to vote on passage of the bill you don't like hoping the other side will agree to your changes

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

This particular self-executing rule is setup to let the Senate deny all House proposed amendments and let it go to Obama's desk as the Senate passed it without a vote in the House.

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But then, on the other side, why are the disenfranchised (according to Khross's criteria) subject to any law passed by the franchised? I have no problem with not having a right to vote, so long as the franchised have absolutely no ability to enforce any law upon me and mine. No law upon me or mine, period.

Too bad. You can leave if you don't like it.

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Or you can try to enforce your law upon those who will fight back.

That's generally who they get enforced on, yes.

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You aren't fighting back now; so, like any other ruling class, I'll make the safe assumption you won't fight back under my system either. Of course, it never occurred to you that every human being in the country has the ability to gain the franchise under my system. They just have to choose to do so. And those who do not choose to do or who cannot exercise the one universal option available wouldn't be allowed to vote under current rules anyway.

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That did occur to me, and history is full of peoples who fought back against the oppression of the franchised, why you'd consider that a safe assumption is beyond me.

For every one instance of successfully fighting back, there are hundreds where the attempt was unsuccessful, or there was no attempt at all.

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"Dress cops up as soldiers, give them military equipment, train them in military tactics, tell them they’re fighting a ‘war,’ and the consequences are predictable." —Radley Balko

Sure I am!

I anonymously make disparaging remarks on the internet!

Sheesh! You make it sound as if I'm impotent in my rage!

Grrrrr!*

*note the copious use of the exclamation mark. Don't make me go ALL CAPS on your ***!

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In time, this too shall pass.

Of course. But of what use was it to the dead, if/when their side "won"? or "lost?"