My wife was talking to a friend yesterday who was complaining about how the Republicans in Congress are obstructing the passage of health care reform. Steny Hoyer, Democratic Majority Leader in the House of Representatives, has said the same thing: Republican obstructionism is blocking health care reform.
Except I’m confused. The Democrats have 258 seats in the House of Representatives, and the Republicans only have 177. The Democrats have an 81-seat majority, the biggest since 1993-94. How can Republicans obstruct anything there?
And in the Senate the Republicans only have 40 seats. That’s not even enough to mount a successful filibuster. The Democrats have enough votes to pass any bill they want to – assuming they can agree with each other.
The problem is not Republican obstructionism; it’s that the Democratic leadership can’t even come up with a bill that enough Democrats like.
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