Grassley’s “Bipartisanship” Bar Keeps Rising … And Rising …
Question: When is a bit more attention gonna be paid to the fact that Chuck Grassley keeps hoisting the bar ever higher for the compromise he can support and for what counts as true bipartisan cooperation from Dems?
Grassley has quietly moved the goalposts yet again. Here’s what Grassley told National Review on Wednesday about his bottom line for what he can support:
So what are the make-or-break issues for Grassley moving forward? Grassley says there are four: no public option, no rationing, no government bureaucrats getting between doctors and patients, and tort reform.
But yesterday, Grassley added a fifth condition, telling NPR he couldn’t back a “pay or play” mandate requiring employers to cover workers or chip into a national coverage fund:
“No public option, no pay-or-play, no things that are going to lead to any rationing of health care, no interference with doctor-patient relationships, and tort reform.”
This is a relatively minor shift, but the larger pattern is obvious. First Grassley raised the number of votes he wants for a truly bipartisan Senate bill to 80. More recently, Dems handed Grassley a win, nixing the public option from the Senate bill.
Grassley’s response? He endorsed the “death panels,” then said Dems had pushed him away from the table. Then he laid down yet more conditions for GOP support: A smaller bill, and a public repudiation by Obama of the public plan, to reassure GOPers of his bipartisan good faith!
There’s nothing wrong with Grassley negotiating for whatever he can get. That’s his role. But the point is, the question of who’s to blame for stalling compromise isn’t just a matter of dispute. There’s a factual reality we can point to here. (H/T Matt Corley.)
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Actually I would say its more substantial when you think about it. He is now saying not only will he not back a public option for people who don’t have health insurance and on the other hand he won’t support mandates for employers to provide coverage. Well that begs the question, how the hell can you cover all the people who don’t have insurance if that be the case? You won’t have a mechanism in place to help bring down costs and make it affordable for poor people (public option) and you won’t compel businesses to cover the employees in the face of these rising premiums (mandate).
Basicaly he just said he would only vote for us keeping the same system in place plus tort reform.
Thats bullsh*t and as long as President Obama keeps bringing up Grassley as someone who is working in good faith the more he is making himself look like a grade A chump.
And trust me, I don’t say that lightly. But it is what it is.
Yo SG — you up as early as I am?
Good point re Obama. Also, Obama’s claim yesterday that Grassley deserves a “chance” seems to muddy the White House message — if GOP leaders are plotting to deny him a victory, but Grassley, the chief GOP negotiator, is acting in good faith, which GOP leaders is he taking about then?
Greg
Yeah man I couldn’t sleep lol.
Saying Grassley is acting in good faith also will end up making THEM look like partisans when he eventually comes out and just blatantly says he isn’t voting for the bill after he has gotten them to water it down a bit more. Remember, he has yet to say that the administation was working in good faith so when he comes out against the bill President Obama himself will have granted Grassley all the crediblility in the world as some kind of straight shooter.
I can’t for the life of me understand the messaging on this group of six bullsh*t. They could have put a kibosh on it a LONG time ago and told Baucus to take the damn bill to the full committee just like everybody else. But for some reason they are being made to look like fools by 6 Senators whose state populations combined might not equal California.
@Greg:
I want to point out two things:
1) While it still seems unlikely that we will see a public option come out of the finance committee, it’s still premature to claim they have “nixing the public option from the Senate bill”. First off, we don’t HAVE a bill out of the FC yet, and if Grassley keeps dragging his feet until the deadline, Dems might just put one in and vote a party line vote. Unlikely? Sure. But still a possibility. Also, the HELP committee bill has a public option, and we don’t know what will happen when they combine the bills. Do you know who will be on the committee to combine them? I’m really asking…I have no idea and I want to find out. But I wouldn’t think it would be the same 6 people doing the FC bill.
2) Your presumption is that Dems are taking this negotiation seriously. It’s starting to seem to me that Dems are really just negotiating out of wanting to appear reasonable. There’s no way Pres. Obama thinks Mike Enzi will EVER vote for a Democratic health care reform plan. And Rahm, while a Blue Dog coddler, is not nearly politically stupid enough to not see the moving of the goalposts. It’s looking less like they are getting played, and more like they just don’t care.
I mean, Rahm is a political animal. There’s no way in h*** that he believes – even if you remove the Public Option – that TWENTY Republicans will cross the line and vote for this plan. He knows there’s nothing you could do that would garner that amount of Republican support short of just directly using a purely Republican written plan. And even then it’s a toss up – a lot of them wouldn’t want Obama to be able to say he signed health care reform EVEN if it was their plan.
I’m pissed that Pres. Obama hasn’t messaged this the way I think would have been best – a moral imperative, a fight to break special interests’ hold on DC, and returning health care back to doctors and patients. But even for a frustrated progressive, there’s a line at which your thoughts go “Geez Pres. Obama…are you really that dumb?” for working with them – to “Ok, I know you’re not that dumb”.
@Greg & SG:
If you haven’t yet, check out the interview with Betsy McCaughey on The Daily Show. She got manhandled by Stewart…in a policy debate. How embarrassing. And hilarious!
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2009/8/20/232544/538/287#c287
BBQ
I watched it over and over last night. Its a shame that it takes Jon Stewart to do that but I a glad he did. And to be honest I thought he took it just a little easy on her but still made her look like a lunatic.
Bipartisanship is going to END 9/15 so it doesn’t matter what Grassley says now.
On the Smerconish 30 mins the Pres once again gave Grassley the nod. I am having a problem with the continued insistence on bipartisanship. We had 8 years of “bipartisanship” under Bush and where did that get us? I get the impression that the Pres is more concerned with Independents and his attitude towards me is” “Where will you go? Will you vote Republican?”. My reply: ” No sir, I just won’t vote “. And I’ll keep my cash, thank you.
Maritza
Let me paint a picture for you. Grassley comes out the on 9-14 and proclaims that they are close to a compromise but they just need a few more days. Now having built him up all this time and claiming he is working in good faith, how exactly will President Obama be able to say no in that circumstance without looking like the partisan? Perception IS reality in politics.
When someone keeps doing the same thing, over and over, and keeps expecting different results, does our level of respect for them increase, or do they start to turn into an object of scorn and laughter.
The President’s unrelenting pursuit of Republicans, who have no intention of helping him, is getting him nowhere. He is rapidly losing support from Independents, and Progressives, while the objective of his relentless courtship, Republicans are openly mocking him.
The only Republicans that are possibly in play, are Susan Collins and Olympia Snow. Grassley is not, because he has a primary to win in 2010.
Republican primaries are dominated by the far right of their party, so Grassley is not going to rile them up, by straying from the party line.
This is getting embarrasing.
Charlie Brown always expecting, that this time Lucy will not pull the football away, or Wiley Coyote always being made look foolish by the Road Runner, comes readily to mind.
Once a President becomes an object of derision, it becomes almost impossible to reverse that perception.
I want him to be a strong leader, in the mold of FDR. Instead, what keeps coming to my mind these days, is President Carter, and we all know how that ended up, and what it led to.
I’m hesitant to make the presumption that I’m smarter than these guys or that I know, somehow, more than they do. If there’s anyway I might get something right while they get it wrong, I figure it will be merely a matter of luck or that in not having a bazillion things to worry about, I might be able to focus on something small where they can’t.
Clearly, they understand the RNC/medical industry game plan. That’s the easy part.
On another only peripherally related matter, the Guardian reports today that Murdoch’s profits are down significantly through decrease in advertising dollars… http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/aug/20/murdoch-takes-pay-cut
Now, I’m sure that the other networks/papers etc are suffering similarly. But it does point out that right at this point in time, Murdoch/FOX have a significant weakness which we ought to take advantage of, and do so without mercy. Color of Change has managed to get 20 advertisers (might be more now) to drop Beck. A much bigger and sustained campaign might well hurt FOX in a way that really matters.
Alan, I’m one of those Independents the Pres. is supposedly trying to appease. It’s not happening. The media thinks he’s going too big for Independents, in reality he’s going too small for this one. I’m for the working class, used to be called the “middle class”, and so far he’s not getting the job done. I’m still in let’s wait and see mode with Health Care although I am getting discouraged by his pandering to Repubs, especially Grassley. How did all these old guys retain their jobs in the last election? Time to retire gentlemen. Not an agist, as I am 59 and am married to a 62 year old, almost old guy. They’re messing with the hopes of a lot of us out here who see Health CARE reform as the most important issue of our time. I have two girls who can’t get coverage, both with advanced degrees, one in art and one in science. They have done everything right but happen to have a little medical history so keep getting denied. We pay $1200 per month for **** insurance because we own a small business, but had to let all of our employees go because the cost of coverage is too high. It’s time to stop ******** around and get something done. Hopefully when “crazy” August ends we’ll see some serious forward movement. I’ll keep my money in my pocket in the meantime as far as OFA is concerned and give it to the Progressive movement to keep pressure on our Nice Guy Pres.
I am reminded of a back and forth between Congressman Elijah Cummings and Neil Kashkari who was over the TARP program. After grilling Kashkari about all of the ways AIG was taking advantage of the government, Congressman Cummings asked him “Is Kashkari a chump?”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqDS5B69s9w
I swear Mr Cummings needs to take a trip up to the White House and have a sit down with President Obama.
I thought the president would have learned from the stimulus bill that Republicans were not going to act in good faith, or help in any way to fix the mess their party spent the last 8 years creating. I have no idea why Obama keeps giving them opportunities to appear mainstream.
Fact of the matter is, it doesn’t matter if the GOP wrote the entire bill, they still wouldn’t vote for it. Their goal is to make the president fail. Anything that might appear as a victory for Obama they will be against.
PS – Nothing I said above ought to be construed to mean we shouldn’t push, yell, coerce this administration in the direction we want. The forces pushing from the other side are formidable and we’ll lose the game if we don’t do it too. As FDR famously advised to a critic who thought he didn’t go far enough, “Then make me do it.”
Rachel Maddow very effectively used a basketball metaphor last night to illustrate just how outrageous the Republicans’ demand is.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/vp/32501344#32501344
Rachel Maddow very effectively used <a href=”Rachel Maddow very effectively used a basketball metaphor last night to illustrate just how outrageous the Republicans’ demand is.”>a basketball metaphor last night to illustrate just how outrageous the Republicans’ demand is.
Rachel Maddow very effectively used a basketball metaphor last night to illustrate just how outrageous the Republicans’ demand is.
Grassley is a clown. It is obvious that he will not participate in any meaningful reform. His position is to deny President Obama a victory, regardless of what the consequences are for his constituents or the American people. It is rather entertaining watching his contorted logic that he uses to justify his thousands of ways to “Just Say No!”
Let us hope that his Democratic opponent in the next election uses a highlight reel of Grassley’s most hypocritical inanities as the basis for campaign ads.
When more than 3/4 of the nation approves of a public option, Grassley is ignoring the will of the people in favor of shilling for the healthcare pirates in the insurance and drug lobbies.
As they say in Texas, “You dance with them what brung ‘ya.”
It is crystal clear who brought Grassley to this dance.
SG — about the population of these small states, it’s about 6.5 million combined. Found that at Nate Silver, from a post in early August.
Another thing he points out that senators from low-pop states are extraordinarily dependent on PAC money. And don’t the PACs know it.
http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/08/real-problem-with-senates-small-state.html
Isn’t it obvious Grassley’s just being a Republican, the party where “bipartisan” means we get all we wanted and everyone else gets squat?
The Obama “Bipartisan consensus pursuit, Paradox.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jifjRVLVjzA
“These are the folks who created the mess” President Obama.
That is why the nation turned away from the Republicans, and left them with record low approval ratings and support.
Why then is the President, who says that they created the mess, so desperately trying to rehabilitate the Republicans who created the mess. The country came to the conclusion that the were sick of what the Republicans had wrought, and turned to Obama to undo the mess.
Why then is he trying to include those who created the mess, in providing the cure.
It is absurd. Republicans were following their deeply held convictions, when they created the mess, and they ae not going to abandon those convictions, just because President Obama gives them a come hither smile.
Look what has happened. Obama has been weakened, and the Republicans have become emboldened.
President Obama, you were elected to rehabilitate the nation, and not the Party that create the mess.
edit;
they are not going to abandon those convictions.
When more than 3/4 of the country approves of the public option you won’t have so much trouble passing it with mere 60% Democratic majorities in both houses.
㍴␆ ㏌ ㎈
this is just a test