End of the Democratic Party (not kidding)

Bernie Sanders BRILLIANT takedown of Trump's Lies and Hypocrisy
is the title of a pretty good film on YouTube.

... oooOO}{OOooo ...

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So, they're more interested in playing politics than in helping the American people. check - SIGNY

You are waaaay too obsidian black and arctic white. I would say it's more like 'playing politics' takes up too much of their time - that's Gridlock. I really don't think there are any representatives that don't think they are helping the American public, or their version of the Am public that is. I think playing politics can consume many of them. And because of the dynamics of Congress that means the ones with the most power become the most consumed and personally invested in their side winning. The Ryans and McConnells and their counterparts on the Dems. The more power and influence the more corrupted by ego. That's a long playing human tragedy.- G

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Good point, I'll want to come back to that when I have more time.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM: Nobody said it would be easy, so the time to start was two years ago, when the cost/participation trend started moving against Obamacare. OK, so, they didn't move two years ago. Well, they better get moving SOON on making a plan because Obamacare is falling apart rapidly, and by next election they may be in the same spot as the GOP is now. - SIGNY

Everything looks easier from the sidelines.- G

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Which is exactly why they need to start NOW. It's like global warming ... it's not going to get easier the longer you wait.

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OR... consider this, G ... the DEMS don't want to lose their big pharma contributions, or their health insurance contributions, just like the GOP doesn't want to lose theirs. Hillary was a HUGE recipient of speakers fees from big pharma .... even bigger than the banks speakers fees that she got. Maybe its just fair to say that they're constrained by their need for campaign contributions? Because I think it's fair to say that the REAL constituents of Congress are those who put $$$ in their pockets.- SIGNY

Money and greed - 2 more factors muddying the already muddy swamp making for more GRIDLOCK. (swamplock?) Lobbyists should have been removed decades ago - how are their efforts any different than the very influences that constitute the basis for the emoluments clause??? - G

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It's not just lobbyists, G. Did you know that Congressmen are required (by their party) to get on the phone so many days per month and hustle contributions? There they are ... in a sweaty room, like a bunch of $10/hour cold-callers, asking for money.

So, why is money such a big problem? Well, they need money to run their campaigns. And why do they need money to run their campaigns? Well, because corporate media ... which BTW gets their licenses from the FCC, one requirement of which is that they operate IN THE PUBLIC GOOD, will not provide free air time to candidates who want to make their views known. I think you can see where I'm going with this ... Reduce the role of money in campaigns by reducing the amount of advertising money that candidates have to raise.

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Originally posted by SIGNYM: You really think the GOP was studying this problem with Trump as their candidate??? - G

Is reading comprehension not your thing? What did I just post? I said they COULD HAVE ... but they DIDN'T. - SIGNY

Is reading comprehension not your thing? I was so incredulous that you would suggest such a fantasy I had to ask again. See the 3 "???" That's me *really* wanting to make sure if you were smoking crack or just joking. - G

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Haha. Not smoking crack. But it's not just the GOP avoiding the issue like the plague.

Cost-effective health care is SIMPLE. You simply take all of the money currently being paid to insurances, paid in Medicare tax, paid out of pocket, and use it to fund a single-payer government-run insurance program. Government negotiates prices with hospitals, doctors, and pharmas. Instead of an "overhead" of something like 30% for private insurances, Medicare runs with an overhead of about 6%. That's an extr

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I've heard many people mention that a plan should have been in the making for years, but I don't see that as workable.
The elections change everything. With such a tight margin for votes, the realists in Congress must work with whichever candidate won the last race in each district, and the bill must in essence be tailored to the set of Congresspeople in office at the time of the bill's submittal.
And trying to conjure how to get around Mr. Elaine Chao (McConnell) is another headache - he has absolutely no interest in bettering America.
And if they really did start planning 2 years ago, they would have been working on the problem of getting around Johnny Boner - and then BOOOM, problem gone when Ryan takes over in October 2015 (a non-election year, and mid-session of Congress).

Getting a reasonable law passed in Congress is not easy, which is why it so seldom happens.

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I want to take a step back from the very narrow focus that this discussion is getting into. Health care is just one of the critical real-world problems that the Democratic Party has been unable to solve. It's a good example, but not the only one. Blame also falls on the GOP, which has been similarly unable to offer anything to the American people except "trickle-down" (the American name for "austerity").

Unlike global warming or unemployment (which are world-wide system problems), providing universal healthcare is easy. It's been solved in many nations already, even poor ones; it's the USA which is a laggard. And since it's a critical real-world problem which is at the same time relatively easy to solve it serves as a great indicator of American political dysfunction. Not just PARTY dysfunction but also institutional dysfunction ... there is something inherent in the way we govern that prevents us from solving even simplest of problems: just funding Social Security and Medicare or getting the budget out every year becomes an exercise in hand-wringing and endless angst.

If you track back to the root cause of the health-care debacle, it isn't lack of popular support for single-payer or government option. It was the overweening influence of Big Money on Congressional deliberations: Insurance money, hospital money, big pharma money. Nobody was willing to cross the source of so much campaign contribution$. Certainly not Max Baucus, who crafted the bill and who was also THE LARGEST recipient of insurance and big pharma contributions for many years. And certainly not Obama, who didn't want to put his Congressional Dems in a bind.

If you want Congress to function, you HAVE to reduce the role of campaign contributions. And BTW, G, it's not just the vision of Congresspeople in shirtsleeves phone-banking for money, it's all of the breakfast meetings, lunchtime speaking engagements, brunch get-togethers, and thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners, as well as endless schmoozing with lobbyists which all together take up HALF OR MORE of each Congressional day. That leaves very little time to actually read bills and think about their consequences and propose amendments. Yanno, if I had to spend half of MY time hustling for money, I sure wouldn't be very effective at my job!

There are two solutions to this problem: One is to reduce the role of campaign money-raising in Congress.

Social media MIGHT offer a way around the advertising problem, but a lot of people still get their news from mainstream FCC-licensed broadcasters. I see no problem whatsoever to requiring that people campaigning for office get free airtime during near-prime hours (not at 2 AM). It is the simplest most cost effective solution to the problem, does not require all of the detailed monitoring and self-reporting required by other approaches, which are simply gotten around by having third=party nonprofits fund their own "public interest" campaigns. There are all kinds of ways to screen out minor candidates, such as eliminating people who don't poll over 5%-10%. There will still be political advertising ... you can't stop that, but at least third parties won't get shut out.

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You are waaaay too obsidian black and arctic white. I would say it's more like 'playing politics' takes up too much of their time - that's Gridlock. = G

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Actually it's fundraising, as describe above.

But there IS a problem when you get a bunch of people together. they start getting all involved in who's with who and forming cliques (committees) and in-groups and out-groups. You could do away with ALL of that by going to direct democracy. But there are problems with that, too.

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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
THUGR, JONESING FOR WWIII
All those guns 1kiki, are pointed towards your beloved Russia. All those cyber capabilities, pointed right at Russia. Thanks Puti

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OK, so there one solution to the problem of money influencing Congress. Why hasn't Congress considered it?


Here's another problem- Gerrymandering.

The vast majority of seats in Congress are considered "safe", and the reason why they're "safe" is because the district boundaries have been drawn in such a way as to protect the party in power. District boundaries are drawn by state legislatures after the Census is done, every ten years. Whichever party is in power creates these comfortable pockets for their candidates.

The reason why this is a problem in Congress because candidates no longer have to appeal to a wide variety of people in their District, they only need to appeal to their PARTY BASE.

That leads to two relatively intransigent parties who are 100% ideological, and can NEVER come to resolution. Can't boundaries be drawn in a politically-neutral way? What about by zip code, for example?

That's another relatively simple fix, and yet another one that most state legislatures fail to consider.


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"Pity would be no more,
If we did not MAKE men poor"- William Blake
THUGR, JONESING FOR WWIII
All those guns 1kiki, are pointed towards your beloved Russia. All those cyber capabilities, pointed right at Russia. Thanks Putin, and get ready to duck.
I'll accept your apology any time, THUGR. But I know you're not man enough to give me one

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Wow, all the shit SIG posts about the Democrats being the problem with passing a good healthcare bill. The Republicans won't even the let the Dems see what is in their bill.

With the old bill it was the same. No way they were going to allow Obama to succeed. That was the biggest fail when it came to the ACA. The Republicans did all they could to make it fail, and they still are.

It's all to funny, well sad.

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