Friday, September 04, 2009

Interesting Point But...

Ezra points out that Bush didn't really get everything he wanted, especially on the domestic policy front. And he is correct. I am particularly pleased about the failure to privatize social security, and rather galled by the failure to pass immigration reform (possibly the only issue that I was in agreement with Bush's stated policy).

But no administration does. The take home from the Bush admin--and really every administration--is that victory was and should be 50+1 votes in the Senate, where the +1 is the VP vote. Why we have some bizarre notion of needing 60 votes, and then a few republicans for everything is beyond me. They should be working for the best legislation that they can pass, and that is legislation that will get 50 votes in the Senate (and pass the house). They may need to either break a filibuster or go through some other rule that circumvents filibusters to do so, but there is no reason to get remotely excited about having 63 votes with 4 GOP senators instead of 50 votes with 1 GOP and several opposed conservative Dems.

Passed legislation is passed legislation. As it is, people think about Bush getting what he wanted, not the bickering and little back and forths on how the legislation got passed and how much it was altered before that. The lesson is to pass as much as you can, and use whatever process you need to get there. Also Bush didn't pre-compromise with his bills. The equivalent would be Obama sending single payer to the floor and ending up with a very strong reform. As it is the starting point is already seriously watered down.

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