No matter what your point of view or which side of the political aisle you are on, it’s a certainty that progress is being made.
Obamacare provides a perfect example.
On Tuesday, President Trump called a meeting of Republican senators to discuss Obamacare.
Heading into the meeting there were four Republican senators against the replacement bill.
Progress Delayed is Progress Made
Following the meeting, Senator McConnell says: ‘It’ll just take us a little bit longer’.
“We made good progress,” he told reporters after the roughly hour-long huddle in the East Room.
“We’re not quite there, he added. “But I think we’ve got a really good chance of getting there. It’ll just take us a little bit longer.”
Close to Agreement
Tuesday afternoon Trump proclaimed Senate GOP ‘very close’ to agreement on health bill
President Trump said Tuesday afternoon that Senate Republicans are getting “very close” to passing their embattled plan to repeal and replace ObamaCare, but added that if it fails, “that’s OK.”
“I think the Senate bill is going to be great,” Trump said during a photo-op ahead of a meeting with nearly every Republican senator at the White House. “So we’re going to talk and we’re going to see what we can do. But we’re getting very close.”
The Bill is going to be great, but it’s OK if it fails.
Quantifying the Progress
Inquiring minds may be interested in quantifying the progress.
Please consider three more Senators joined the “no camp”.
Republican Sens. Jerry Moran (Kan.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.) and Rob Portman (Ohio) announced Tuesday afternoon that they will vote against the Senate GOP bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare in its current form.
Moran said in a statement on Twitter that the bill “missed the mark,” adding that he was “pleased” that the vote on the Senate bill was delayed by Republican leadership until after the July 4 recess.
“The Senate healthcare bill missed the mark for Kansans and therefore did not have my support,” Moran wrote. “I am pleased with the decision to delay the vote – now is the time to take a step back and put the full legislative process to work.”
Parade of Progress
Republican Sens. Jerry Moran (Kan.), Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), and Rob Portman (Ohio) announced Tuesday afternoon that they will vote against the Senate GOP bill to repeal and replace ObamaCare in its current form. Those three join Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine), Dean Heller (Nev.), Rand Paul(Ky.), Ron Johnson (Wis.), Mike Lee (Utah) and Ted Cruz (Texas) who are also opposed to the Senate’s ObamaCare repeal bill in its current form.
This is what’s known as “progress”.
This leads us to “Mish’s Rule of Progress“:
Politicians like to cite progress no matter how ludicrous the claim or which side of the aisle they occupy. Opposing claims of progress are the norm.
Inquiring minds may also wish to investigate my “Rule of Nothing” and the Law of Bad Ideas.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
How about obama’s
“That’s not who we are…”
Used to justify everything.
I like to think about Chicago…every politician that was elected to office made “progress” towards its current bankrupted state.
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It was used to justify turning Bradley Manning into Chelsea Manning – at US taxpayer’s expense.
Want to change your gender identity but cannot afford to pay for the medical procedure? Go join the military and do a massive data dump of classified material, but first make sure your Commander-In-Chief is President Dimwit.
That way, he will be sure that your male identity “is not who you are”. The funds used to pay for your surgeries will be taxed from entrepreneurs who run businesses that “they didn’t build”.
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how insane was that on every level?????
off the rail soldier, lawlessness, political correctness, and bad leadership in a perfect storm of stupidity. He did this while soldiers were still in the battlefield, that POS.
but that is what the commander in chief wanted, evidently.
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The only POS in this story, are the scumbags who gunned downed innocent civilians and thougt that they covered their tracks … Abu Gharaib etc …. Manning exposed these murderers , she done us all a service
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Think of Chelsea Mannings switcheroo as a clever psyop to terrify ISIS fighters. It’s seems to have worked.
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“What we’ve got here is a failure to communicate …” – The Captain, Cool Hand Luke.
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No matter where you go, there you are.
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It’s worth noting that one third of all Dems in Congress come from just three states. Levels of Dems in Congress are at multi-decade lows. Same with Governorships. Same with control of state legislatures.
The media is still there cheerleading growth of govt and surrender of freedom. But the biggest, and last, elected power base left to oppose rollback of “Big Gov” is … anti-Trump Republicans.
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The baby boomer era of politics and economics is passing…
http://denariifin.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/the-passing-of-baby-bomer-economics-and.html
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I sleep better when nothing politically gets done. That’s progress.
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My favorite President was Coolidge, who took naps in the afternoon so that he wouldn’t have to sign bills. My favorite constitutional provision is from Nebraska, which requires every word of any proposed law to be read into the record from the floor before it can be voted on. If you visit a law library (that still has books), the collected statutes from Nebraska are much shorter than from most other states.
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Remember when Clintons (mostly Hillary) tried to push a national health care system through Congress in 19oe? The CBO issued a report that it was not possible in the US because of the high amount of violence that was prealent in our country back then. What’s any different today?
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More violence?
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No, it’s just an old bigoted leftist in need of tolerance training and anger management. No need to make it a religious issue, …or maybe so!
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I thought the solution to violence was submission to progressivism, outlaw guns and silence all opposition voices.
Multiculturalism is how you build an army of opposition against the dominant culture, the army of “progress”.
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You forgot about importing millions of moocher muslims “refugees” and their rape culture
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hmm… rape culture vs getting a good falafel. Sounds like a push.
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Progressivism is just a parallel ideology with Islam, Allah is the State and Mohammed is the progressive president. Progressives will claim tolerance, women’s and minority rights, but will happily crush them in a moment’s notice if it advances their agenda. They both believe their ideology IS law, all individual rights are subservient to the centrally directed ideology. There are no individual rights that do not serve that ideology, and abrogation is THE central tenant of their methodology, where ANY action is acceptable if it further their agenda. Principles are only important in suppressing the population through conforming moral codes that are arbitrarily placed upon the common citizens, NOT the ruling elites.
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Islam is a political system pretending to be a religion. But for many people any political system can be like a religion.
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The use of the word progress is absurd in itself.
It litterally means “walking forwards”.
Whole societies stirred up in commotion over going for a stroll. Maybe someone waved a lead in front of them, or they are tired of safe spaces.
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Until we actually genetically evolve, there is no progress, only battles over the same crap that we have always fought over
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What is hard to understand is that the level of appreciation for the most valuable of our long heritage, even if it is just seemingly common and everyday, seems to be being waylaid. It appears that we are tricked into exchanging it for answers to problems that do not, or did not, ever exist.
That must be the way of hard evolution, so there is no surprise some distance themselves from the collective and its chosen fate.
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Remember that the left has always embraced evolution, even while doing all in their power to negate it’s natural process…survival of the fittest. Meanwhile their religious adherence to the notion of evolution is used to promote this idea of change for the sake of change…..progress, like this imposed change is yet another evolution, yet stubbornly, people remain exactly the same.
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If you consider that they are looking to increase their own survival then if they succeed they will have ‘proved’ that they are the fittest…for as long as the achievement lasts.. Those who follow them get to partake in the spoil.
Who can argue, but that is a reason why simple defense of individual achievement should be encouraged, as well as a reduction of centralized power, which is always open to misuse. The left tend to openly oppose this, and that betrays their intent. The right often only pays lip service to the idea, and looks for ways to integrate the concept into a command structure.
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The Medicaid provision is there to underwrite insurers who can hand off patients who no longer pay their premiums, to the state. This is about the HC lobby restoring the state benefits the GOP bill would slash. When they come back, poof funding will be restored
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That is correct. Thanks for posting.
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“This leads us to “Mish’s Rule of Progress…, Rule of Nothing, Law of Bad Ideas”
Coming soon, Mish’s new Book of Rules and Laws. Available in paperback and E-book.
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Trivia question, Who was the guy from Nebraska that held Obamacare passage hostage for his $300 million ransom?
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The Oracle?
The same guy who supported stopping the Keystone Pipeline so his dangerous and polluting trains would get more business carrying the oil?
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nah.. not just trains.. he owns one of the most important pipelines in the U.S.
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Good to see the old white men fussing and fuming today. Still whining about Obama and Hillary. Come on, your Messiah is in office – it’s all good. The day of the rapture is here.
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Messiah? Rapture? There it is, politics = religion. For some people.
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Well said.
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Progress is another word for decay. America is progressing toward collapse and chaos. We will not be conquered but simply break apart from within.
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All of them know the GOP health care proposal is on life-support. “Progress” means after intense CPR the can feel a pulse, regardless of how faint.
This is the problem. Once you give a gift to somebody you can’t ask for it back. If you do you’ll get called every name in the book. Obamacare was a gift to the parasites. Now the GOP is trying to take it back. Really a stupid political strategy.
Again, the solution is so simple it’s stupid: Withdraw all health care reform proposals. Be patient. Let Obamacare collapse. It will happen sometime in the next 3 years. At that point the GOP would look like political heroes by coming up with a new health care plan of their choosing that would fly through congress.
The more attention the GOP brings to itself on health care now the worse they will look.
Patience. Time is the solution.
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If Obamacare premiums rise another 30% for 2018… there will be a massive recession and collapse. As yet, the exempt losers in Washington have not repealed the Obamacare scam as they promised.
Next year (2018) is a big election year. Democrats have to face the music that their welfare scam cannot work, and they cannot raise taxes high enough to make it work. Note that the lifetime accumulated wealth of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates (combined) would be completely wiped out by Obamacare costs in two months…. A lifetime of wealth accumulation cannot fund Obamacare for two months.
Republicans promised to repeal the Obamacare scam, and so far they have produced a phone book full of stupid excuses.
Lots of media running stories about some fat lady on medicaid having her “benefits” (aka welfare / free sh!t) cut. Wonder how many media stories there will be about the real victims: taxpayers who actually keep the economy running who are getting screwed by all the free sh!t Congress holds so dear.
I don’t give Obamacare 3 years. Next year is an election year, and BOTH political parties have unrealistic plans. Whomever (in both parties) decides to screw over the tax base is going to find out workers are more important than welfare recipients.
Obamacare continuing another year means a recession in 2018 (unless you know someone getting a 30% pay raise?). The Dems will be blamed for causing the problem, and the Reps will be blamed for not repealing it.
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It’s not like the GOP didn’t try to repeal and reform. If they tinker with it now and it collapses the GOP would own it and destroy the conservatives politically. The libs would recapture the House and Senate and then we’d really be up the creek without a paddle.
As it stands now Obamacare is financially unsustainable. It’s ALL on the libs who voted unanimously to make it law. Not one GOP’er voted for it. A classic ace in the hole when it implodes..
I said that Obamacare would collapse within 3 years – IOW’s 3 years at the latest.
We’re headed for a recession regardless of Obamacare. At least the GOP will be able to blame the recession on the libs and Obamacare. Otherwise they’d be left with no other choice than to look in the mirror and take full responsibility.
The appropriate GOP strategy would be to stand at ease and watch the lib ship sink. Then proceed to build a new one.
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The partisan nonsense isn’t going to work. Yes, the democrats shoved this extortion down the country’s throat Obama and Pelosi’s names will forever be associated with corruption and socialism.
But having said that, there is no system operated by the US government that will work. They simply cannot run an effective health care system. Anyone watching the VA system (which is single payer already) who thinks the US government can run a health system is just plain stupid. No buts, no excuses, no explanations of how the next time will be different.
Any system being run by the US government is going to fail. Period. Elderly generations need to remember that your medicare system is also not safe — the young people working in old age homes are going to be REALLY resentful of the trillions in debt your generation left behind to retire on. No matter what the courts say, no matter what platitudes the nursing staff utters on camera, you will not be safe. Remember that when you vote to screw over younger generations.
We all know where socialism leads. Do you see the civil war going on in Venezeula? Do you know what happens to the elderly during times of war? Are you senile enough to think this time will be different?
This is not a threat, it is an observation about how humans behave — and how humans have behaved for millennia.
No country on Earth offers what the libtards want. Other countries claim to offer universal care on paper, but in practicality they don’t. Not even close. Its time to stop listening to the lies from Obama and his media outlets. NO COUNTRY OFFERS UNIVERSAL CARE IN PRACTICE, not even the ones that claim to offer it on paper.
Other countries make better choices on food, exercise, fresh air, stress levels, etc. The lifestyles are not imposed from on high by fat, lazy, corrupt politicians or know-it-all academics. Its the lifestyle that happens regardless of whether the central planners are alive or dead.
Obamacare will get repealed, and it will not get replaced by anything. You can bet your retirement health system on it — because you already did
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You are spot on OldTimer. Giving stuff away gets lots of support for politicians, taking it away gets lots of enmity, even when getting rid of bad policy is the sensible thing to do. Repubs should let ObummerCare collapse before they offer a fix. However any government run healthcare system will get lots of criticism, always too much or too little, and inefficient at any level.
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We are seeing more and more state Obamacare scams collapse. We are seeing Obamacare collapse.
We are seeing the spendthrift ways of Washington smash head first into a wall of debt (both on balance sheet and off). We are seeing off-balance sheet promises (aka public employee pensions) aren’t worth the political promises that made them.
Slowly but surely the giant sucking sound that is keynesian socialism is dying — in the USA and Europe and Japan.
Sounds like progress to me.
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All the weeping and wailing about Obamacare and yet the other industrialized nations of the world do better than us. They have health care that covers their entire populations at less cost. Why can they afford it and we can’t? Why is the US at the bottom when it comes to quality of life among industrialized nations? Just for one example Mexico spends one tenth of what we spend with a life expectancy only two years shorter. Is that extra two years on life support worth spending ten times as much money on?
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Yeah, it’s kind of weird. A socialist nation with awesome healthcare that people are dying to escape.
There are plenty of uncounted variables but until you can find the SUSTAINABLE utopian country, arguing about the details is pointless. How many of these healthcare Nirvana will last another ten years.
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@John Smith — Wrong.
Lots of other countries have better lifestyles than the USA. Better food choices, more exercise, more fresh air, less sedentary life. That is what makes their health outcomes better than the USA.
Falsely attributing their results to “free” healthcare (that they don’t actually get) is a lie — just like Obamacare.
Time to face facts and stop your incessant demands for free sh!t. It doesn’t happen in those other countries. There is no free lunch, so stop your infantile nonsense and grow up.
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For a politician, the appearance of doing something is more important than actually accomplishing something.
For a taxpayer, the appearance of progress is preferable to actual legislation.
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