Citizen Action-IL had a special event at the Chicago Temple celebrating the one-year anniversary of the signing of the Affordable Care Act. There were a number of speakers including the always inspiring William McNary of Citizen Action. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky made the point that some day soon, we'll all be going around saying, 'I heart Obamacare'.
This is how Greg Sargent put the successful passage of HCR in his 'Morning Plum' for today:
A new era in American politics dawns this morning, in the wake of the House's successful passage of the reconciliation fix last night. The first major progressive legislative achievement of the 21st Century has now been achieved.
For all the political and economic uncertainties about health reform, at least one thing seems clear: The bill that President Obama signed on Tuesday is the federal government’s biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago.
"We will go through the gate. If the gate is closed, we will go over the fence. If the fence is too high, we will pole vault in. If that doesn’t work, we will parachute in. But we are going to get health care reform passed." (1/28/2010)
There's a lot of grumbling about liberals always having to make all the concessions, most recently on health care reform, while the Blue Dogs don't have to make any and still the focus continues to be on them and their needs and not on us and ours. It's not fair.
But let's face it, the group that most wants something -- in this case, us -- is naturally in a weaker position than the group for whom this isn't as much a priority. The Blue Dogs are happy enough to walk away from this. We aren't. That's a huge difference.
-- Shameless admiration bordering on sycophancy --
On why she's having a "hard time" getting 216 votes together to pass HCR:
Nancy Pelosi: "Well, let me say this. First of all, as I’ve said to you before, every vote around here is a heavy lift. How many times have you come — whether it was the budget, whether it was energy — whatever it is. Every vote is a heavy lift. We have great diversity in our Caucus. We don’t have a rubber-stamp Congress or a rubber-stamp Caucus...."
