He saw his shadow!
At the conclusion of President Obama’s health reform summit yesterday, the President called for another 6 weeks of discussion and debate. Check out his video from YouTube below. It’s almost 4 minutes long, but if you fast forward to the 3:00 mark you pick up his main concluding points:
So where do we go from here? Most telling for me is not his challenge encouraging both sides to work toward compromise over the next 6 weeks, but what he is willing to do if compromise remains unachievable:
“….if we can’t, then I think we’ve got to go ahead and make some decisions…then that’s what elections are for…we have honest disagreements about the vision for the country and we’ll go ahead and test those out over the next several months ’til November…”
To me, in the absence of substantial concessions from Republicans (not happening!) this means that he will continue to press his case before the people to see if he can get the traction he needs to push ahead.
If he builds any momentum, or if he is pressed by Dem’s to push for a final conclusion, then we’ll see the so-called nuclear option, the use of the budget reconciliation process whereby only 51 votes are needed to get through the Senate.
This would be a very dramatic and politically very risky strategy. There is a very entertaining debate about the political impact of reconciliation via Politico here.
But an end is nearing…even if it means enduring another 6 weeks of winter!
