[CornFed]

[quote author=Mick link=topic=14611.msg156674#msg156674 date=1455668874]
[quote author=ColoradoTree link=topic=14611.msg156636#msg156636 date=1455647492]


Every time a bill needed to be passed, the Republicans would come up with demands that they knew no Democratic president could agree to. The Democrats refusal to just roll over and give up everything they had accomplished in the last century for a temporary reprieve from Republican created crises does not make a shutdown a Democratic plot.

The Republicans have been intent on not making any deals. This is illustrated by the medical insurance brouhaha.  The Republicans didn't like Hilary Care and came back with the Heritage plan. Obama figures that the right wing plan is better than nothing and adopts the Heritage Plan, which then becomes proof that Obama is a communist and not interested in consensus. The Democrats could agree to everything on the Republicans' agenda and it would not be enough.

Republicans were shut out of the process of putting together legislation on health insurance.  Obama chided them at one point that "elections have consequences".  Indeed, they do.  Or they should.  But in 2010 polls showed that more than 60% of Americans hated the approach that was being taken by Democrats on the issue.  Across the country the 2010 election was a total rebuke of Obamacare.  The election of Scott Brown to fill the departed Ted Kennedy's seat in deep blue Massachusetts was the final straw.  He was a Republican who ran largely on the idea that he would be the vote to stop Democrats in the Senate and his election could not have been a stronger statement of how much people disliked the looming legislation.  So what did Obama, Pelosi and Reid do?  The ignored the election results and played parliamentary tricks in order to force their preferences on an unwilling electorate.  It is upsetting to think that your take away from that is that the Republicans are obstructionist.

[CornFed]

[quote author=Mick link=topic=14611.msg156674#msg156674 date=1455668874]
[quote author=ColoradoTree link=topic=14611.msg156636#msg156636 date=1455647492]


Every time a bill needed to be passed, the Republicans would come up with demands that they knew no Democratic president could agree to. The Democrats refusal to just roll over and give up everything they had accomplished in the last century for a temporary reprieve from Republican created crises does not make a shutdown a Democratic plot.

The Republicans have been intent on not making any deals. This is illustrated by the medical insurance brouhaha.  The Republicans didn't like Hilary Care and came back with the Heritage plan. Obama figures that the right wing plan is better than nothing and adopts the Heritage Plan, which then becomes proof that Obama is a communist and not interested in consensus. The Democrats could agree to everything on the Republicans' agenda and it would not be enough.

Republicans were shut out of the process of putting together legislation on health insurance.  Obama chided them at one point that "elections have consequences".  Indeed, they do.  Or they should.  But in 2010 polls showed that more than 60% of Americans hated the approach that was being taken by Democrats on the issue.  Across the country the 2010 election was a total rebuke of Obamacare.  The election of Scott Brown to fill the departed Ted Kennedy's seat in deep blue Massachusetts was the final straw.  He was a Republican who ran largely on the idea that he would be the vote to stop Democrats in the Senate and his election could not have been a stronger statement of how much people disliked the looming legislation.  So what did Obama, Pelosi and Reid do?  The ignored the election results and played parliamentary tricks in order to force their preferences on an unwilling electorate.  It is upsetting to think that your take away from that is that the Republicans are obstructionist.