And the Senate leadership is keeping such a tight lid on what's in their plan that we won't know until the vote most likely. No hearings. No debate. Get it scored by the CBO and vote. It's a given that no Democrats will vote for it. It'll be interesting to see how they manage to get Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee to vote for the same bill as the Susan Collins, Bill Cassidy, and Lindsey Graham.
>>It’ll be interesting to see how they manage to get Rand Paul, Ted Cruz, and Mike Lee to vote for the same bill as the Susan Collins, Bill Cassidy, and Lindsey Graham.<<
Going off-topic here, but that’s exactly why the argument that the filibuster encourages bipartisan legislation is such a crock.
In this example, the only way we’re going to get bi-partisanship is if the parties you cited can come together. As you imply, that will drag any result to the left, because we will be able to rely upon no Democrat votes.
But why zero Democrat votes? Because it takes at least eight of them to make a difference and that’s too big a number for the first three or four willing participants in the process to take a chance on. They stick their necks out for a good bill and it doesn’t pass and they get primaried for desertion.
But without the filibuster, a couple of relatively conservative Democrats (or at least from a conservative state) might consider offsetting the loss of Collins and Graham to get a good bill passed, have their names on it, be able to say to their constituents that they were on their side in DC, etc. In other words, we’d have a chance at a form of bi-partisanship that doesn’t automatically drag the bill to the left.
The filibuster is a pox on effective governing and absolutely needs to be jettisoned. Besides, we know the Dems will do it as soon as that’s required.