and the Republicans cut it off at 216 and pass the bill?

And isn't it true this still has to go back to the Senate for another 50+ vote to become law?

Pence would make it 51 to 50, the tie-breaker.

That's why we always need at least 3 R's to get it to 49 - to stop Pence from voting.

I also don't understand why Democrats always need 60 votes to pass a bill (cloture, end debate, end filibuster).

The Republicans keep getting around this on all their major legislative attempts.

The Democratic leadership better be taking notes.

and the way the legislation is crafted is very restricted. The GOP has been stumbling around that part. But take note that they have also not passed much this past year either, despite many attempts - mainly due to their obsessive insanity at trying to kill Obamacare, which used up much of their time. Most everything else never made it to the floor because they knew they didn't have enough votes.

Republicans for the most simple legislative procedure, nor for very complex tactics. That's extremely insulting.

If you don't understand how votes are counted, why not go read a book about it? With knowledge will come respect. Btw, if you read further you'd inevitably come to realize that our legislators are typically both smarter and competent than theirs. This is a long-term pattern.

Strong conservatives typically do poor jobs in governments of, by and for the people because in their guts they don't believe in that. Another reason, of course, is that both corrupt conservative funders and strongly conservative electorates have a tendency to choose for people of their sort, which is why the Republican caucuses are filled with dutiful pre-corrupted scoundrels and the house especially is full of reactionary fools.

i think there's been a lot of democratic restraint as to legislative tactics over the years out of respect for tradition and a belief that republicans would return the favor. we have to stop doing that as republicans have made it clear that they'll use every trick in the book.

that said, we've certainly used the rule book when we've needed to. just look at how the aca was passed in the first place. we ran into some challenges when we lost ted kennedy's senate seat to a republican.

we found a way, which included the house passing the version the senate had passed prior to losing that seat, then passing a bill to "fix" it a week later under reconciliation rules.

If take the gloves of means go corrupt, no. We are America's wall against barbarism, against fascism, against those who'd turn us into the world's most advanced third-world nation crawling with poverty.

The problem is not in our legislators but in those who didn't vote or voted for another party.!

Every one of them wants to imagine it's all someone else's fault. It's not. It's 100% they who completely failed their responsibilities as citizens and turned the nation over to this pack of hyenas.

it's just on the list because some here, believe it or not, do. They don't like that word and usually avoid spelling out any secret, when-all-else-fails wishes, but when all the competent, principled, legal maneuvers, clever strategies, constant messages to the electorate, and grueling hard work of our Democratic warriors are dismissed with contempt, copying the corruption of the right is what is left.

My tendency is to assume that the noisiest, most contemptuous complainers about the party now were also among the noisest, most contemptuous less than a year ago now. 2018 will be a second, lesser chance for any who acted out their shabby attitudes on election day to belatedly join the fight and start restoring our democratic laws and systems.

The complainers need to remember that we have the demographic advantage now that forces the Republicans to cheat or lose. We don't need corrupt tactics, we just need people to vote.

Telling me to go "read a book" on "the most simple legislative procedure."

They wrote a book?

You understand I am pointing out that Republicans are driving us to adopting their "simple majority rule" when we get back in the majority. The notes I am referring to are to reference when the R's whine and cry about why we stop the 60 vote threshold, and why we no longer recognize super-majority in any legislative or confirmation role of the Senate.

Like the R's have done with Gorsuch, and repeated ACA 'repeal and replace' proposals, and now 'annual budgets' and 'tax reform.'

We never did traditional budgets in Congress when we didn't have a 60 vote margin to overcome the filibuster!

They're dumber than us?

reluctantly. Trump is incapable of respect because he doesn't know what it is to know something, much less to know a great deal.

budget resolutions don't require a cloture vote in the senate, so simply majority is enough.

then "reconciliation" bills can also then bypass a cloture vote as long as they don't blow the budget.

so the trick is to pass a budget resolution that includes enough room for whatever you're trying to pass via reconciliation.



works great for republicans things like tax cuts.

doesn't work as well for democratic things like creating government programs, because this process is only for budget reconciliation stuff. so it would work for an aca improvement, for instance, but not for creating a new regulatory body. still need cloture for that.

They loved hiding behind:

* It's not budget neutral
* It needs 60 votes
* It will never make it through the house
* insert additional weasel words here

I'm gonna need the bottle with the handle.

From The Hill:

Funny business? Voting shut down before everyone voted?

by billions and billions. And I can't even begin to absorb all the other horrors in this genocidal bill.

And I haven't heard a peep out of Democrats OR Independents. Where the hell are they? Where is AARP? I gave them an earful this very morning. (The woman on the phone hemmed and hawed - well, we wrote an article about it in our magazine. That is mobilizing???)

When GW Bush and all his repubs tried this shit just after he was reelected, people mobilized and raised hell and they had to back down and drop the very idea. And they dropped it fast. (Or was it Social Security? or both?)

This time, for Trump and his misgotten band of repubs, total S I L E N C E is all I hear. Even the pundits have stopped talking about it. NOBODY GIVES A SHIT ABOUT US.

I am so pissed and next to despairing. I have two great grandchildren who will be totally without medical insurance and no way to get any when the CHIP funds fail. Both have medical conditions that require medical supervision. And no sign of that band of crooks allowing that bill on the floor. Too busy cutting and denying insurance for the rest of us.

Now my Medicare will be cut back, or "co-pays" added. Or whatever tortures their sick minds can come up with. And I can hardly afford to pay the deductible and the supplemental insurance now. And those will both go up again for 2018.

And my children are in their 50s now. Couple of them with serious chronic medical conditions and still working hard as shit trying to get through the next ten years to Medicare. Or is it twelve years now? with two more years to be added ever so often, so maybe my babies will get medicare when they turn 75? Or maybe they won't make it that long at all. I am sitting here bawling.

These goddamned republicans are going to ravage my family.

And mark my words, as soon as this goes through, they will be after Social Security.

Wat

They blew up the deficit with this and will use that as an excuse next budget to make even more massive cuts. What a nightmare, I have been foolish enough to think these programs would be around when I need them if I live that long. The stress this god awful administration and these vile and corrupt members of the House and Senate my well take me out before then.

Peace

and other hard working, honest and decent people who work for a living WANT!

They WANT billionaires to have MORE money and for THEM to have less, nothing.

We know they want it because they have now seen the bill and I guarunfuckingtee you 97% of them will vote AGAIN for the people doing it to them.

Where the Dotard just seriously pissed off two more Republicans!

It could get interesting!

more rich, GOP tends to find a way.

I think just about anything could happen!

All we need is 3 - and the Republicans in the House were 2 votes short of shutting it down!

that if 20 GOP house members voted nay there woiuld b at least two senators against it!

For me, McCain's "Regular Order" includes overcoming 60 vote thresholds with proposals, negotiation and compromise between the two parties.

Everybody gets a little, everybody hurts a little.

One-party rule in an evenly divided country is not good for democracy. Maybe 3 R Senators get that.

"To secure a rare legislative victory this week, Senate Republicans turned to a strategy that has paid off for them in the recent past: killing policy rather than writing it."

"So Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) turned to an arcane legislative tool — 1996’s Congressional Review Act. The law gives legislators a limited period of time to block a new regulation before it goes into effect. Lawmakers have used the measure more than a dozen times already to roll back rules issued at the end of the Obama administration, often at the urging of the Trump administration, which has pushed to eliminate regulations it says are stifling economic growth."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/once-again-congressional-republicans-find-it-easier-to-kill-policy-than-write-it/2017/10/25/06eb764e-b997-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html

did we not have knowledge of this trick when Obama was elected and roll back all those GOP policies?

Orange Dotard all "Look, I passed tax cuts for you America! You're welcome! Enjoy your 'raise'..."

you just got screwed, big time.

Think it is time to go down to the senate and let them get an ear full, just like they / we did on the healthcare issue, this can be stopped

U.S. Capitol Switchboard, (202) 224-3121

I mean they will keep voting for them while they are literally homeless.

Because if they have a nickel in their pocket and they think they can take the black guy next to them last nickel, that is what they will vote for.

We really are that dumb and mean of a society.