Byron York talked to Michele Bachmann on Friday Night:
I talked with one of the most vocal of the defund/delay advocates, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, on Friday night, as she waited to hear what path the House Republican leadership would take. It’s safe to say her views reflected those of many of her conservative colleagues, and her reasoning was this: One, Obamacare as a policy is so far-reaching, so consequential, and so damaging that members of Congress should do everything they can — everything — to stop it before it fully goes into effect. Two, lesser measures to fight Obamacare — repealing the medical device tax or making Congress purchase coverage through the exchanges without special subsidies — are just not big enough to address the problem. And three, there have been government shutdowns in the past over far less urgent reasons that did not result in doom for Republicans.
“There is a very large group of us who believe that this is it, this isn’t just another year, this isn’t just another CR fight,” Bachmann told me. “This is historic, and it’s a historic shift that’s about to happen, and if we’re going to fight, we need to fight now.”
“This isn’t just another bill,” Bachmann continued. “This isn’t load limits on turnip trucks that we’re talking about. This is consequential. And I think the reason why you’ve come to this flash point is that this is an extremely consequential bill that will impact every American, and that’s why you have such passionate opinions. And we’re not giving up and we’re not caving in that easily.”
Well, when the president signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Joe Biden told him that it was a “big effing deal.” And it was. So, I don’t disagree with Rep. Bachmann about that. Who is going to vote for people who want to make their health insurance more expensive and less comprehensive, or who simply want to take their insurance away?
So, yeah, the law is extremely consequential, and conservatives don’t want to live in a country where they are on the losing side of the national debate over health care every single time. But they already do live in that country. What they are engaged in now is just a mass hallucination. It’s just massive denial.
And the rest of us are losing our patience.
I have a feeling they would attach an Obamacare repeal to such legislation as well, for the good of the country of course.
That’s actually a pretty good line. Didn’t think Michele had it in her.
she did get elected, she must have some ability to wordsmith
Let’s not go overestimating the intelligence of the idiots who elected her.
They’re used to rolling Democrats. They think that’s how you play the game. Of course they’re going to give in, they always do.
I think the shutdown is going to happen. Should be a hell of a ride.
You mean default is going to happen and it’s going to be a hell of a ride.
Shutdown first, followed by default. Two hells of rides.
Can someone explain to me this “special subsidy” bullshit? I haven’t looked into it but I’ve seen it repeated all over right-wing websites.
On its face what it looks like is the same “special subsidy” that any other employee would get through their job, but because their “employer” is the government, they get “extra” as the government covers their costs. Do I have that right, or are these morans talking about something else?
Every employee in every business in America has the option of staying with his/her employer-provided and possibly subsidized health plan, or of going to the health insurance exchange, and buying a plan there. Most people will probably stay with the employer plan, unless the subsidy there is totally inadequate.
Every employee, that is, except for one group: Congresspeople and the people on their staffs. A special provision of ACA requires them to get their insurance from exchanges, instead of the government provided and subsidized plans they now have. Proposed by a Republican Senator and not opposed by Democrats because, well, they screwed up.
Now, to keep things fair, and to provide these employees with benefits comparable to what they enjoyed prior to the law, the government will provide an subsidy equivalent to that which they previously enjoyed. And the Republicans are calling that ‘favoritism’ and ‘special treatment’. It is neither, it is simply (well, not so simply) preserving the status quo.
does this mean that we’re going to get to put a $$$ amount to the kind of healthcare that our Congresscritters get?
that the $$$ will make it crystal clear, especially those against giving healthcare to others?
I think it raises another interesting issue. Those “subsidies” were part of their employment contract-typical employment subsidies provided through employers. So really it is compensation and this includes congress as well. Isn’t there a prohibition about when and how congress can reduce or increase their own salaries? And, in reality, for their staff, if they don’t allow the employer subsidies, this is a pay cut.
Well, it’s not just a law. It’s the 27th amendment to the constitution.
That’s exactly what I thought. I knew they were full of shit, I just didn’t know the exact point where they were full of shit. Thanks.
In a presidential year, at least 45% of the voters. In the mid-terms, probably a majority.
People don’t vote economic self-interest. They vote religion, and race, and team, and like their neighbors do, and like their parents did. And then they vote economic self-interest.
Please don’t say
“People don’t vote their self-interest.”
Please say the truth….
Working class WHITE PEOPLE don’t vote their economic self-interest. …..cause they cling to that WHITENESS.
The rest of the NON-WHITE working class votes their self-interest quite fine.
That is simplistic. They vote for what they believe they can affect. The Democrats have largely abandoned helping working people, and get as much or more money from Wall street and the banks as the repukes. So, much of the standard boilerplate democratic language on economics is 20-30 years out of date. So, why vote for one party or another? They vote for the repukes because they can save the babies. Repukes have been somewhat effective in saving the babies and saving the guns.
If we want working class voters, we can help working class workers. Which we largely do not do at this time. No bankster is in jail or even went to court. But hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, lost their houses.
So I live in Wisconsin, in one of suburbs just outside of Milwaukee and I was pretty active in the campaign to recall Scott Walker from late 2011 to June 2012. And I’d say the biggest reason we lost the recall election in June (and we lost it by a lot) was white privilege. Rikyrah gets it exactly right w/r/t that situation: Walker exploited white privilege in that election to the hilt and he and the Wisconsin Republicans continue to do so to this day.
Not that I disagree with your main point. I expect that white privilege plus the very real fact that the Democrats have, as you say, largely abandoned helping working people is going to clinch Walker’s victory in 2014.
For decades I’ve known people who have struggled because of “pre-existing conditions” and medical based bankruptcies. I’ve known people tied to dead end jobs because of a child with a pre-existing condition and thus had to assume they would be stuck there for the remainder of their working lives. Over the next 3 months most of that fades into history. I never thought I would see it in my life time. I can remember Carter talking about broadening healthcare insurance, Clinton too obviously. I’m aware that 4 other presidents have attempted similar moves.
But its obvious that this has been due to democrats all the way. The best Republicans come up with at first was “repeal and replace”. Then the “replace” got lost. Now it’s destroy the economy…
The ACA is finally happening and it is “a big effing deal”. So please pardon me also for saying that “Democrats have largely abandoned helping working people” is just a load of bullshit.
Here we are 9 months into the legislative session and not one appropriations bill has been passed (correct me if I’m wrong). With the House in GOP hands we’re stuck. So how are Dems supposed to get those infrastructure and jobs bill ideas rolling with Boehner and the GOP in charge of the chamber that initiates spending bills?
Excuse me again, but I think your comment is simplistic. It takes no stock of the enormous work Dems have done for us recently nor the sad political realities of Republican sabotage and our broken institutions.
The ACA is a genuine populist accomplishment. You are correct on that.
However, I will remain consistent with my position that the Democrats talk a lot about economic help for working people, but do very little.
This. This is a (the?) central truth about working-class white people.
Here’s another one: I spent the first couple months of the summer talking — I mean physically talking, standing there with a clipboard and petition sheets in my hand — to a lot of medium-to-well-off working class white people in the community where I live. And I did hear a some thinking based in the privileges of whiteness though that wasn’t the dominant theme. More dominant was the lack of enthusiasm for voting at all. There are a lot of working-class white people who see right through the Republicans, they just don’t think that the Democrats offer them anything much better. So they vote with their feet, and walk away from participating in the political system at all. And from what I was seeing I’d say this is as true for people in their 30’s (quite a bit younger than I am) as it is for people of my much more advanced age group.
The fascists rely on this.
They don’t win elections with mass participation. They win by getting normal people to ignore and dismiss the election as useless.
Until there is some type of fine/fee/penalty/tax for not voting, the fascists will always be within shouting distance of power.
Speaking of fascists, one of them is going to endure some imprisonment, albeit, probably at home in cushy surroundings. So, he’s blowing up the Italian government in retaliation.
Fascists should be considered traitors to the people, and treated as such under the law.
Do that, and he no longer has the ability to do anything, at all. Hint-hint!
But that’s just me.
I fucking hate fascists and people who think power is just a tool for their own use.
Then again, I’m an un-serious radical.
I really don’t want to study the issues and candidates and have my vote negated by some idiot picking a candidate at random just to get out quickly because he was forced to vote. That’s not democracy that’s mob rule.
So you’d rather have people who don’t study the issues voting for fascists because they hate you and people like you a whole shitload, while decent people sit at home?
‘Cause that’s what you got.
Enjoy!
No, I want people who don’t study the issues to stay home.
Not economic, but they’re still voting interests. They just put different value on things, largely for the reason of white privilege.
Also add that you are talking only of the working class white folk that vote for folks like Michele Bachmann and the other Republican crazies.
There are lots of white people capable of voting for their self-interest as well. Probably 30-something percent of Obama voters in South Carolina, for example. More in North Carolina.
But what you raise is a fundamental issue in almost every state.
What’s been said about racism and republicans is true … but as you point out, it’s only a part of the story. We need to see the issue of white support for Obama in proportion.
I said it before and I’ll say it again. The figures prove that white support for Obama is much stronger than people often think.
If 30% of Obama voters in SC were white, you know that in many states it was a LOT higher than that.
It is the South, Texas and Oklahoma (10 states) that skews the national white vote.
On the contrary, Obama won the white vote outright in 19 states (222 electoral votes), andearned at least 45% of the white vote in 25 of 50 states. See the rest here:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/11/09/1159610/-The-pundits-clearly-do-not-understand-the-white-vo
ter-in-the-US
I don’t think the point about white privilege is about Obama’s ethnicity; white working class people are just fine with “entitlement” programs until it gets pointed out to them that everybody benefits from those programs regardless of race, religion, or whatever: Social Security and Medicare are great as long as you don’t hand it out to lazy black folks like welfare, is how the thinking goes. THAT’s the white privilege.
Recall the beating that Bill Clinton took during the Hillarycare days–and the fact that he lost that legislative battle, and Obama won his despite an even more recalcitrant Congress. White president, same battle, same enemy.
But it’s true, Obama has lots of support among white voters. The pendulum is still swinging back from the Dixiecrat days, though, and the same old racist dog whistles are still plenty effective in the South.
Then again, wasn’t there a study of voting trends in the last year or so that showed Obama would have gotten something like 5% more of the national vote if he’d been a white candidate?
People vote church, or the lack of it. For the unchurched, and for many people of color, that breaks out as voting Democratic.
People vote neighborhood, and for many people of color, that breaks Democratic.
People vote what their parents voted, and for many people of color, those who had parents who could vote, that breaks Democratic.
Throw in unions, ditto.
People vote tribe, neighborhood, religion, what their parents voted, and then their economic self interest — regardless of their color.
Wrong. African Americans were mostly Republicans even when they could not vote (until VRA of 1965). Many Civil Rights leaders were Republicans. But once LBJ signed CRA & VRA, & the Dixiecrats left the Democratic Party. African Americans joined the Democratic Party. It was NOT their Daddies’ party.
People of color do not vote tribe as you assume. They vote for their economic and political interest. Check out history.
Ask the AAs of a Tennessee district who voted for Jewish Rep Cohen rather than an AA bigot (both Democrats) in 2008, or those in Louisiana who voted for Vietnamese-American Republican Cao rather than disgraced AA Jefferson in 2008. Or even last week when AAs voted by big margins for Bill di Blasio than AA Bill Thompson who came this close to defeating Bloomberg in 2009.
Then pull out the multiple examples of White working class sticking by ethically disgraced Republicans than vote for a Democrat who ACTUALLY represents their economic interests. Sanford, Vitter, Craig, Ensign (until he left himself w/ zero penalty), Rick Scott, idiot Jim Bunning of KY, and on and on.
Read history, get your facts right!
For every Cao, a Rangel…
thank you zizi.
the problem with Black voters is getting them to the polls. once they get to the polls, they vote their own economic self-interest.
Non-whites can be just as bad at voting skin color over interests.
NOPE!!! see my comment above. The FACTS don’t support your flippant assertion
People vote foe what they think is their economic interest. I had an argument today at break with a guy, intelligent other than his politics, who said a Congressman said that a Bronze plan will cost a family of five $20,000 a year. I told him that was ridiculous because of own “Cadillac” plan only cost $13,000 a year for self and family coverage. I told him the Congressman was either a Republican and lying (redundant, I know) or confusing his numbers. I said probably a family of five making under $20,000 gets a subsidy. I told him that the rates are different in every state and that I had seen the California sit and a Bronze plan costs about $400 a month. Maybe the Congressman is multiplying by five for a family.
When people hear crap like this then they think voting against Obamacare is in their economic interests. I said beginning at least a year ago that Democrats had to leave the policy bubble and explain the law to the voters. This is what happens when you let Republicans spread lies without countering them. Not to ourselves but to the voters.
“I said probably a family of five making under $20,000 gets a subsidy.”
Under the ACA, a family of five making less than $90,000 is very likely to get a subsidy to help them buy private health insurance. In most states, a family of five making less than $30,000 gets all five covered with the Medicaid eligibility expansion.
Yeah, I knew the numbers had to be bogus. I bet that Congressman was a Tea Party nut. Sadly, this particular colleague was a conservative of the small-government strong-defense type but seems to be slipping into Tea Party crackpottery. He tells me I have to stop listening to NPR. I tell him to stop listening to Fox News.
That mofo needs to get his head out of his ass; he may have some native intelligence, but his ignorance in this area is endangering him, you and I. But he’s your colleague, and I guess that suggestion wouldn’t persuade. Keep on trying if he’s willing to engage you in good faith, though.
I know the ‘smart set’ like Chris Hayes are leaning towards a shutdown allowing the R’s to get the ridiculous out of their system before the debt ceiling arrives, but I’m thinkin this gang will look at it as a win tomorrow and go for the big win next. Their feeble minds just may go for it. So all due respect to Chris Hayes, but he’s still working under the assumption that there’s a pebble worth of sense left in the fear marinated brains.
And a note to the Rep’s we’re accustomed to calling moderates…Fear is not a leadership quality.
Just the same old talking points for Michele Bachmann. Byron York is gullible for thinking that he would get anything different.
The lemmingz iz hedded ovah zee kliff. 10…9…8…
The whole subtext that Booman is referring to in his post is what Bill Kristol argued in ’93 about the health care effort then: That government intrusion to make the middle class more secure would rekindle the notion that it has a beneficial role to play. The GOP playbook has for a long time rested upon the assumption that government is bad and only getting it out of the way can improve our lot. Of course this results in much inequality, but a lot of people instinctively agree with them. A successful health care reform undermines the entire premise of the GOP. That is why it’s a big f**king deal.
The extremely offensive part of Kristol’s position paper is its (correct) presumption that health care reform (Hillarycare then, Obamacare now) WOULD HELP THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICANS. Thus, the need to HURT AMERICANS in order to assure continued support their ideology.
The banality of evil. And God know no one is more banal than Bill and the Kristols.
If we assume the President is not going to compromise (I know that’s questionable, but there’s really no reason why he should), and if the GOP leadership is aware of that, isn’t it possible that they have all agreed to let the government shut down for a few days in order to prove to the Tea Partiers that they can’t get their way this time? Could the shut down now be a way to protect us from default? It would give the GOP leaders an excuse to surrender on the debt ceiling without looking too weak. It seems like the kind of long term manipulation that Obama is good at.
Of course, I acknowledge that it is equally likely that the GOP is simply insane at the bottom and feeble at top, but hope springs eternal.
That’s possibly. It’s possible that that is the strategy AND the Republicans are insane. There are not mutually exclusive.
Who is losing their patience? The DFH’es are yelling shrilly that yes, we’re marching towards destruction again, but the vast majority of the American electorate couldn’t give a flying fuck. Most of them cannot even bestir themselves to vote when they’re NOT being suppressed by the right.
They’ll be happily told by Rushbo and Fox News that it’s all that dusky kenyan usurper’s fault and they should just pour another Brawndo on their lawn, it’ll green up any day now, it’s got what plants want!
Then they’ll go on about their daily slow grind into poverty and misery sure in their belief that its all the moochers fault, that if we just got rid of those welfare queens, gays, uppity femnazis and all those brown people everything will be just peachy, and the Koch’s and their ilk will follow Jay Gould’s dictum and continue hiring half of labor to murder the other half.
I live in a redstate hellhole full of these people and they make me want to wail and rend my garments.
Because they will win.
The President isn’t going to let the country go over the cliff and the terrorists know that.
They’re willing to burn it all down, because that’s what they want to do anyway, remember? “Make it small enough to drown in a bathtub”. That’s our democracy they’ve always been talking about.
It would be nice if people are losing patience, but it’s been thirty years they’ve been lined up and screwed over by their Pied Pipers on the right and I don’t see it stopping any time soon.
And the rest of us are losing our patience.
Unfortunately, I’m seeing a LOT of this impatience being expressed as “both sides are to blame,” and “throw all the bums out.” And a lot of Libertarian nonsense about how government can’t do anything right, Reagan’s “nine scariest words,” yada yada.
Not just from right wingers; I’m reading this from Obama voters (whom I know personally, so I know they’re not pretending to be former Obama supporters having second thoughts now) and other people who really ought to know better.
If the shutdown happens as expected, we assume that most sensible people already know who to blame for it. I hope that’s true, because the chatter I’m seeing today on the social networks is leaning in an entirely different direction.
CSPAN’s online FB poll has:
60% blame Republicans
26% blame WH
14% blame Democrats
When you’re forced to choose, it seems people know who’s to blame.
I’ll admit it has been a few hours since I checked my FB feed. Last time I was sorting through, to the extent that any discussion of the impending shitstorm in DC occurred, I saw a dearth of false equivalence. Now it is possible that some of my friends block me from reading some of their posts, because I am an attack dog when I see that “both sides are equally at fault” nonsense when the evidence suggest the contrary. Hence my social media experience may be, shall we say, an unrepresentative sample. I do think seabe’s mention of the CSPAN poll, even if it is not likely a scientific poll, suggests reason to hope that most folks can figure out what’s what when the proverbial truth hits the fan.
Smells like fishy in here! https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mokoolapps.waterfallspuzzles