Trump Tweets (Again) About Changing Senate Filibuster Rules

[DonViejo]

Source: Talking Points Memo

By MATT SHUHAM Published MAY 30, 2017 10:39 AM

The President on Tuesday urged Senate Republicans to change the chamber’s legislative filibuster rules in order to pass big-ticket agenda items with a simple majority.

Trump argued that “Dems would do it, no doubt!” In fact, Democrats never exercised that option the last time they were in the Senate majority, from 2007 to 2015.

Link to tweet

While Democrats resorted to the so-called “nuclear option” in 2013 to eliminate the filibuster for executive branch and judicial nominees — except those to the Supreme Court — they did not change the rules for legislative filibusters.

In April, Senate Republicans voted to eliminate the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees, confirming Justice Neil Gorsuch shortly thereafter.

Read more: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-tweets-again-legislative-filibuster

[Initech]

1. STFU Donnie!!!!

I'm going to post this in every Trump tweet thread!

[yallerdawg]

2. Would they do this for the Corrupt One or their agenda?

I don't think they will - and if they did, a number of Republicans wouldn't go along.

Everything they did to Obama came under these rules. Passing many of these bills would be assured self-destruction, and possibly Democratic majorities and control for generations! With no protections for soon-to-be the minority party anymore!

[alwaysinflux]

3. He wants to be a dictator

So frikkin bad.

[C_U_L8R]

4. Why don't you just burn down the Reichstag while you're at it???

...then you can disband that pesky Congress and declare yourself Cheeto for life,

[karynnj]

5. If it were true the Democrats would have done this, imagine what they would have passed in 2009/10

In 2009 and 2010, they were always at or above 58. At the beginning of 2009, they weakened the stimulus bill to get three Republicans over 60. Had they gone with a simple majority, they would have kept in more infrastructure spending and more money to the states to maintain spending on education and other needs rather than using the same money for tax cuts, which are less efficient in reviving the economy. They could have had a public option in the healthcare bill which would have been a game changer. If not that, they could have included the provision of people from 55 to 64 buying into Medicare - which Joe Lieberman rejected meaning we did not have 60. Not to mention, they would not have had to work so hard on jobs bills, where they won over a small number of Republicans. The Senate had about 55 or so people behind a genuinely bipartisan cap and trade bill for climate change. (Here, a significant number of coal state Democrats were shown as nos -- I suspect that if the bill had a real chance of passing, many of them might have joined -- oddly leading to an over 60 vote BECAUSE only 51 were needed.

However, I think most Democrats understood that major change should require a supermajority of 60 votes. As it is, we passed ACA with 60 votes - AND WERE ATTACKED FOR "CHEATING" and passing it under reconciliation after Brown was elected. In fact, before Brown was elected, the Senate had passed it with 60 votes - the House followed by passing the Senate bill as is - meaning no reconciliation needed -- and the President signed it into law. The House then immediately passed a small "correction" bill where everything was deficit reducing and included an unrelated change to financing of college debt, that passed the Senate under reconciliation with less than 60 votes.

One caution they might take is that they themselves used the argument that it was wrong for the Democrats to ram the ACA through Congress - ignoring that for a year they had hearings and the Senate worked to keep 60 Senators.

[Yonnie3]

6. Hmm ... Late morning tweet

Not a usual time for his tweets.

I'll bet someone just explained to the IIC (Ignoramus In Chief) why it might not be so easy to get "his" budget through the Senate.

One would think that Mr. Art of the Deal would understand compromise, counter offers etc. But not this buffoon.

[BumRushDaShow]

8. He had already been tweeting earlier this morning by insulting our allies, praising our enemies

and rambling about "fake news".... So this tweet was just part of the series.

[Yonnie3]

12. Yes, he did his usual early rants, possibly from atop his golden throne,

but the three hours after his "normal" early morning rant tweets is unusual. Most daytime posts appear to be written or edited by someone else who has a bigly vocabulary, elementary knowledge of grammar, and a handle on spell checking.

It doesn't seem as if the Twitter intervention the staff did helped him.

[BumRushDaShow]

13. He may have been forced to go to a meeting first.

They are busy today blocking and creating bots though... https://www.democraticunderground.com/10029134591

[Yonnie3]

14. Thanks for the link

I hadn't read it yet and might have missed it.

[blueinredohio]

7. I HATE to say this but evidently this is what it's gonna take for his supporters to

maybe finally wake up to have everything taken away because I would say most of them are on Medicaid

[Honeycombe8]

9. The Catch-22 w/that is that...when the other side is in power, they will have the same benefit.

That's why the Dems didn't do it. If they had, the Republicans would be governing under that rule already.

The Republicans are going to think about this downside, for sure, esp since they are unpopular right now so that future elections are up in the air.

The sword cuts both ways.

[iluvtennis]

10. Twitter is not the venue for this - Dumpty needs to be the diplomat that he says he is...

...and go argue his point in the house and the senate.

Trump is Unfit and Unqualified to occupy the WH

[vkkv]

11. Trumphuck is out to destroy our Democracy. He is no patriot, he is a traitor to all we stand for.

[apnu]

15. Boo-hoo, what a whimp.

He's whining again. He's too stupid and lazy to figure out how to govern. He's small minded and mean, and pisses people off then cries like a child when people resist his bullshit. He's a pathetic man-child and has no idea what any kind of effort is.