An effort spearheaded by Republicans to repeal the new health care law collapsed Wednesday evening after the Senate refused to ignore its adverse impact on the deficit.
By a vote of 47-51, the Senate sustained an objection to the legislation on the grounds that it does not comply with congressional budget rules. Because a full repeal of the law is projected to increase the deficit, waiving that point of order would have required 60 votes.
But even if Democrats had allowed a straight up or down vote on the amendment, it likely would have failed. No Democrats voted with the GOP to remove the objection, giving them fewer than the 51 they'd need to successfully repeal it. Republicans -- and, really, everyone else -- have been expecting this outcome for months. And while this blunts their head-on efforts at repeal, they've always expected that their best chances to destroy or chip away at the law will come either via the courts, spending bills or amendments to the law meant to weaken it.
Pointless, as predicted. Kabuki. Showmanship. Hooray, you have registered your objection, as you have chosen to do so many, many times.
Now how about fixing the damn economy? Republicans attacked Democrats by saying they passed a health care bill when they should have been working on jobs. What do Republicans spend the first month of the 112th Congress doing? Re-fighting and re-losing the same health care debate (and bizarrely redefining rape.)
We have bigger problems to worry about, folks.
Tent cities don’t typically enjoy a warm welcome anywhere. But in Seattle, where Tent City 3 and other similar camps have operated in an uneasy truce with officials for nearly a decade, there’s a plan to institutionalize the concept.
Seattle officials are considering setting up encampment on city property. Unlike current tent cities that are required to move every three months, this one would stay in one place, operate with the city’s approval and feature storage lockers and trailer-style facilities for showers and cooking. The proposal reflects the scope of Seattle’s homelessness problem and heightened political tension over the issue, which came to a head with the establishment in 2008 of an encampment dubbed Nickelsville – after former mayor Greg Nickels, who was criticized for his homelessness policies. Current Mayor Mike McGinn, who was elected in 2009, acted on the recommendation of a citizens review panel to propose a permanent encampment.
And you know, Republicans don't seem to mind about the permanent American underclass. Hey, Republicans are trying to do everything they can to keep folks like this down anyway. Hard to vote without a permanent address in a red state, so in the end, they don't matter. They're not "constituents".
Maybe we should be doing something about the millions of Americans dying by inches each day. But no, we've got to cut taxes on the wealthy.
When Republicans said they had job growth as a priority, they didn't mean you. Complain and blame Obama for two years, and obstruct all legislation. Heck of a plan, GOP.
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During the height of the housing bubble, when modest starter homes in cookie cutter suburban development communities that surround West Coast metropoli were selling for over half a million bucks, and urban housing in places like SF and Seattle was becoming unaffordable to blue-collar and retail/service workers, I predicted two things:
1) Shantytowns surrounding US large cities, a la Mexico City, Buenos Ares, etc., and,
2) Ghost town developments in places like Modesto, Victorville, and Temecula, stripped of valuable finish and fixturing materials, and repopulated by squatters.
That was only six years ago. Now both of them have come to pass... though local law enforcement in SoCal has made special effort to discourage squatting in unoccupied tract homes, so it's yet to be a persistent phenomenon.
The way things are going, the kleptocrats and corruptocrats enabling the Capitalist Paradise will eventually turn the US into a third world banana republic.
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