Saturday, January 23, 2010

I dont think Congress would know what a compromise was if instead of slapping them in the face it lightly kicked them in the butt....



Compromise
1. a settlement of differences by mutual concessions; an agreement reached by adjustment of conflicting or opposing claims, principles, etc., by reciprocal modification of demands
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That seems a simple enough concept, so why is it so hard to get our Congress to grasp that?

My biggest problem with the whole healthcare debate isnt that I am not getting everything I wanted out of the bill. It is just that I dont feel that I am getting anything for those things that I wanted but are disappearing. I dont expect to get everything I want that is not true compromise.

There is no true compromise going on. In a true compromise I would expect to hear one party say what they previously were not willing to accept that they will now accept given condition X is met. I have yet to hear that from the republicans.

From the the democrats standpoint I would expect them to say we will only make X concession if doing so would gain support for Y. I havent seen that either. Not across the isle. In the democratic party there has been compromise because of a few "blue dog" democrats trying to tenuously hold on to purple seats.

With all do respect to President Obama, Ried, Gibbs et al., I dont want you all to slow down on healthcare. I think more than three decades is slow enough. What I want is you guys to sit down to at a table on TV and say: "If I give serious tort reform a try, will you try a form of some kind of public option? Two possible responses

1) Yes," ok lets bang this out" or 2) No: "Ok reconciliation and I'll holler back in 2010, and 12"

Sounds simple, makes sense to me.