This is a really dumb point. Obviously there are tons of things you can do without legislation "we couldn't do anything without legislation" is pretty undermined when in 2015 and 2016 you do a bunch of regulations you could have done in 2009 on climate change and agriculture and labor stuff.deaddmwalking wrote:During Obama's term, there was only a narrow period where there was a governmental trifecta, and it was never a 'filibuster proof majority'. Without breaking the laws, there's no way to get to where you want to go.
But also, the filibuster isn't a law! It's a made up procedural gimmick that was created by accident. Nothing about just passing laws with 50 votes breaks any law. When the first senate sat, they literally had a majority rule provision to stop debate, they only deleted that senate procedural rule years later and the reason they deleted it was because they THOUGHT there two identical rules that said the same thing and they were just cleaning up the rules. Turns out there weren't duplicates, oopsie. So the idea that anyone should respect an accidental mistake in the senate rules as a law is just really bad.
This is just.... all kinds of wrong. First off the reconciliation process does involve passing a new law. Reconciliation is a senate procedural rule that allows the senate to end debate on a LAW they are going to pass with just 51 votes. Also the 2000k checks can't actually be passed under reconciliation! The rule is only for things that are budget neutral. So a massive stimulus is exactly the kind of thing you CAN'T pass under reconciliation.deaddmwalking wrote:There are things that Biden will be able to do early in 2021. For example, the stimulus checks that the Republican Senate refused to pass can be passed using the reconciliation process between House and Senate - which doesn't require actually passing a new law so can't be held hostage by a filibuster. The reconciliation process can be passed with a simple majority.
Republicans passed their tax cuts by raising taxes on the poor after 6 years and saying "well over the whole budget window of 10 years it's neutral" and they still lied about magic fake increased taxes from economic growth to get that neutral number. This is, fundamentally, just like ignoring the rules for reconciliation, and is a good argument for not you know, respecting the imaginary senate rule mistake as a law.
This is the kind of thing you say when you are incredibly fucking stupid.deaddmwalking wrote:Now, maybe getting rid of the filibuster is worth doing - knowing that you could do that legally. But the Senate is heavily weighted toward favoring Republicans. Do you think Manchin will win reelection in 2024? How about John Tester? Even with 2 Democratic pick-up opportunities in 2022 (PA, WI), control of the Senate is likely to change sooner rather than later. So that's one of those things that definitely will come back to bite you before long. Undoing everything you accomplish now becomes a lot easier if the filibuster doesn't exist...
Right now the situation is that when the Republicans have the Senate, the House, and the Presidency, they pass whatever they want with 50 votes and laugh about how stupid democrats are to believe that anything could ever stop them. The thing is republicans don't want to pass lots of laws because the laws right now are just fine for them! If they wanted to pass more laws, they would!
But what DeadDM wants to sell you on is that Democrats should just agree to never pass any law ever for the rest of eternity because they can only pass laws when they have 60 votes because WHAT IF the republicans pass laws by having a majority in all three branches.
Here's an alternative theory: Just have control over ONE of the House, Senate, and Presidency at all times and then abolish the filibuster and then republicans can never pass any laws! (except all the ones democrats keep agreeing to which are mostly bad too).
Some things you could do to make that happen are: 1) pass laws that help people so they vote for you, instead of not doing that and then people blaming you when you have ALL THREE BRANCHES AND EVERTHING STILL SUCKS AND IT IS YOUR GODDAM FAULT BECAUSE YOU COULD HAVE FIXED IT. and 2) Pass laws that make the US an actual democracy, since democrats keep getting more fucking goddam votes, this would make it very unlikely that republicans would ever control all three branches.
Again, DeadDm is trying to dishonestly sell the idea that passing laws with 51 votes is ILLEGAL here because he doesn't want democrats to actually be responsible for the power they do hold now. But in fact, it is totally legal.deaddmwalking wrote:I'm confident that the current Republican Party will continue to try to lie, cheat, and steal. But I don't think that ignoring the rule of law is the right response.
DeadDM has not the faintest clue what socialism or communism are.deaddmwalking wrote:And sometimes that means what you can achieve is limited by what kind of coalition you can build. There's a lot of support for SOCIALISM in the Democratic party, but not a lot of support for COMMUNISM.
Back to lying to you and telling you that you have to get McConnell to agree to things to pass them because that way it's always the republicans fault that Democrats have the power to do good things and refuse to do them.deaddmwalking wrote:There's a narrow window of opportunity to do some good, but there isn't carte blanche ability to pass whatever legislation you want. Changing the system requires agreement from the minority party which won't happen.
I cannot stress enough how much this isn't true. Republicans never ask permission from democrats to pass laws because their goals are to pass laws. Democrats only ask permission so they can deflect blame when they fail. You can pass literally whatever you want with 51 votes and Democrats are responsible for every law they don't pass.
ESPECIALLY the ones that could create a permanent democratic majority like admitting currently unrepresented people as states and other laws to make voting easy. For example, a law mandating polling place locations based on a formula so that republican AND DEMOCRATIC state governments can't get away with closing all the polling locations in poor and minority areas. Automatic Voter Registration. Zero ID laws. Ect.