On Twitter just now, MA-5 candidate Carl Sciortino posted the following:
Some in this race would cave to Tea Party. I would not. Today millions of Americans can access health insurance for 1st time. #ma5 #ACA
I’m very curious to know who he thinks would “cave.” Is he saying that one or more of his opponents would agree to GOP demands regarding delaying or defunding the Affordable Care Act in exchange for averting a government shutdown? If so, who? ‘Cause that’s news to me. Or is he making a broader charge that some of his opponents would be willing to negotiate on points that Sciortino considers non-negotiable? That could be a reference to, for instance, Will Brownsberger’s apparent willingness to use “chained CPI” for Social Security as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations, but it doesn’t seem exactly germane to the shutdown/health care brouhaha.
So I’d really like to know what Sciortino means. I asked for clarification via Twitter but haven’t heard back yet. I’ll update as necessary.
UPDATE: I haven’t heard back from Sciortino, but alert BMGer marthews has pointed to what Sciortino very likely is talking about. It turns out that Will Brownsberger would consider accepting a 1-year delay in implementing the Affordable Care Act in exchange for ending a government shutdown. Here’s part of what Brownsberger had to say:
I painted the following doomsday scenario for the candidates: It’s October 10 and you are a member of Congress. The government has been shut down for 10 days and is now on the brink of default on the national debt. Minority Leader Pelosi walks in to a meeting of all the Democrats and says that Speaker Boehner has made an offer that will be very hard to swallow: He thinks he can end the impasse in return for a one year delay in Obamacare and adjusting the indexation of social security benefits (a proposal that the President has actually supported)….
I support Obama Care and I’d rather not even adjust the growth rate of social security. And, of course, it’s hard to know where we are in a game of chicken. But at some point, when the other side bends we have to bend too. The consequences of a default on our national debt are unthinkable — it could plunge the world into recession and wreak financial havoc that could take decades to recover from. All Americans will suffer if America’s leadership can’t get the financial basics right.
The problem is very simple — weak politicians in both parties are saying that they will “stand strong”, but that is really nothing more than pandering to their base voters. Republicans are promising to repeal Obama Care because that is what their voters want and because that’s what they themselves believe in. Democrats are promising to fight to preserve Obama Care because that is what their voters want and because that’s what they themselves believe in. A one year delay would be a bitter compromise — very bad and not something I want in the slightest, but it’s not the repeal that the extremist Republicans are seeking.
All due respect to Brownsberger, he’s dead wrong on this. Once the repeal, delay, or modification of duly-enacted legislation is on the table as a condition for allowing government to continue to function, it will never leave. If the tables were turned, perhaps Democrats would shut down the government until an assault weapons ban is enacted. That would be unacceptable; so is this. Obama is right: no compromise. Sadly, the description “cave to the Tea Party” doesn’t seem far off.
He’ll say something lame like, “Frank Addivinola.”
Hopefully he’ll respond. But after today, good luck to any Republican trying to get a house seat. Not happening.
that sounds like Headline Grabbing Bluster to me.
Although it does highlight something I’ve been thinking about for quite some time. With so few idealogical differences among the leading dems in Ma-05, a lot of voting decisions will have to turn on which candidate can handle minority status with no seniority best, who will deliver the biggest bang for the buck in constituency services…who will “grow into the job” given the ludicrous safety of the seat for the democrats.
Elias N.
At a forum in Lexington this weekend, Brownsberger said he would compromise with GOP over the ACA and chained CPI.
Thanks for posting — I missed the Lexington forum.
He also said he thought Citizens United was correctly decided. How many more reasons does one need to vote for someone else?
Did cable access video the forum?
From the forum “Courage and the Fiscal Crisis” on his campaign website, and written as from the candidate:
“It was an extraordinary moment this evening — one of those moments that crystallizes important issues in a campaign.
During a debate in Lexington, I asked the other four major candidates how they would handle an opportunity to break the fiscal log jam and they all said they would take the country over the cliff rather than compromise. That’s what’s wrong with America today — Democrats and Republicans won’t compromise their core positions and find a way to move forward.
I painted the following doomsday scenario for the candidates: It’s October 10 and you are a member of Congress. The government has been shut down for 10 days and is now on the brink of default on the national debt. Minority Leader Pelosi walks in to a meeting of all the Democrats and says that Speaker Boehner has made an offer that will be very hard to swallow: He thinks he can end the impasse in return for a one year delay in Obamacare and adjusting the indexation of social security benefits (a proposal that the President has actually supported). Further, Speaker Boehner says that he only has 120 votes in the Republican caucus for the compromise so that he needs some Democratic votes to pass it.
All four candidates said that they would stand firm and vote against the compromise to end the impasse, even though it meant continuation of the government shutdown, which would be closely followed by a catastrophic default on our national debt. They did not qualify their response with any recognition of the gravity of a breakdown.
I share their values and I share your values — I support Obama Care and I’d rather not even adjust the growth rate of social security. And, of course, it’s hard to know where we are in a game of chicken. But at some point, when the other side bends we have to bend too. The consequences of a default on our national debt are unthinkable — it could plunge the world into recession and wreak financial havoc that could take decades to recover from. All Americans will suffer if America’s leadership can’t get the financial basics right.
The problem is very simple — weak politicians in both parties are saying that they will “stand strong”, but that is really nothing more than pandering to their base voters. Republicans are promising to repeal Obama Care because that is what their voters want and because that’s what they themselves believe in. Democrats are promising to fight to preserve Obama Care because that is what their voters want and because that’s what they themselves believe in. A one year delay would be a bitter compromise — very bad and not something I want in the slightest, but it’s not the repeal that the extremist Republicans are seeking.
We have should never yield on women’s rights and civil rights issues, but on the complex economic issues, a responsible legislator always has to be willing to put his or her own beliefs aside and find a way to keep government functioning. And a responsible politician has to be willing to take a truly tough vote, a vote that he or she knows folks back in the district will be upset about.
That’s the Congressman I’ll be for you. I share your values, but I’m strong enough to let you know when we can’t get all that we want. We need leaders in Washington who will find a way to move our country forward — not politicians who stick by the talking points that poll well in their district.
he says he’s support this, even though the 1 year ‘delay’ would only earn the country a few months in the Republican plan before we do this all over again.
There is no such thing as a delay. If it’s delayed now, write its obituary.
After Brownsberger is defeated in this race, he needs to be primaried for State Senate.
The Tea Party has made an art of knocking off any Republican who strays from the party orthodoxy on any issue. How’s that working for them and the country?
As a supporter of Will who happens to disagree with him on this one, I can assure you that any effort at primarying Will from the left is a fool’s errand.
1) there’s a difference between straying from “party orthodoxy” and violating our shared fundamental principles that define why we’re Democrats. These are not one of dozens of rank and file issues in which honest Democrats can disagree; these are the bedrock issues, our raison d’être.
If you can’t be in favor of defending the Affordable Care Act against Republican assault and you can’t be in favor of protecting Social Security at all cost, why are you a Democrat?
2) Tangentially, it’s not just that he’s strayed, but that he’s strayed in a really dumb way. This would kill ACA and get literally nothing in return for it — we’d be back at this game in another few months from now and ACA would be off the table.
3) The Tea Party isn’t necessarily wrong challenging people on the right, from a strategic point of view, in very conservative areas. They’ve been wrong to do it in states where Democrats could win, or in support of candidates who couldn’t win anywhere. I’ve called for neither.
Brownsberger represents some of the most liberal parts of the state. The area deserves better representation than someone who would support Citizens United, support cutting Social Security and support denying people all around the country basic health care because Republicans are big meanies. These areas deserve better than someone who would support the destruction of the planet in the form of Keystone XL, but would oppose public workers being able to negotiate fair retirements in a state where they’re ineligible for Social Security and would have nothing else to live on.
Fool’s errand or not, Will Brownsberger has outed himself in this race as no ally to working families and the middle class. He is wildly out of the mainstream in his district. I would welcome and encourage a good, strong progressive to run against Brownsberger, whether a matter of principal or to expose Brownsberger’s weakness as being out of the mainstream.
Brownsberger’s Senate District is 2nd Suffolk and Middlesex = Belmont, Arlington, and parts of Boston. In the last 3 Senate races all 3 went Democratic, which we can take as a reliable indicator of his views and his voting base.
MA-05 is less, not more, liberal. I’m a big supporter of the ACA, but in the Coakley-Brown matchup, which was basically a referendum on that law, 12 towns in MA-05 went for Brown: Ashland, Holliston, Southborough, Sherborn, Waltham, Weston, Woburn, Winchester, Stoneham, Melrose, Revere, and Winthrop. In 2012, 8 towns went for Brown over Warren: Ashland, Holliston, Southborough, Sherborn, Weston, Woburn, Winchester, and Stoneham. There were even 2 that voted for Gomez over Markey: Southborough and Woburn. (Boston Globe results page)
I didn’t analyze by population which might also be interesting. Although I suspect that in this race regional loyalty trumps ideology, it’s not really accurate to paint the district as 100% progressive.
Belmont, Watertown, and parts of Boston (mostly Brighton, Back Bay, Fenway).
The political context in the MA Senate is much different than the US House of Representatives. Most of the issues where Senator Brownsberger is taking the ‘less progressive’ position are ones that are not likely to come up in a meaningful way on the state level for various reasons.
Brownsberger may be arguing himself out of contention in the 5th CD, and may very well deserve to lose that race due to his naivete (in my view) or centrism/conservatism (in others views) on important national issues of the day. But that does not suddenly mean he is a regressive state Senator who deserves a primary when his voting record and list of accomplishments at that level indicate otherwise.
Even if you dislike him based on this race, I would argue its a huge waste of time, money and resources to challenge him on national issues when he is a reliable State Senate progressive. That money would be better spent primarying the Timilty’s and Miceli’s of the State Senate who are severely conservative for their district.
According to progressive MA he is a 90% progressive rating in te Senate and when he was on the House. Why he is choosing to emphasize centrist rhetoric rather than his progressive record is beyond me, but we can keep him where he is without any worries, you’d be hard pressed to find better. As one of his former constituents at the rep and senate level (moved out due to redistricting) I can attest to this personally.
I’d rather primary the Timilty’s and Lynch’s first.
Uprated this too soon. He does NOT need to be primaried for the state senate, that’s absurd-just look at his freakin record on progressiveMA, he is the last person we should primary. He is to the left of Clark and Spilka.
Where he has been terrible is on the campaign trail, not sure why he is running as ‘the sensible centrist’ when its a left leaning primary. It has not helped him at all.
No need to primary him, but also no need to promote him.
It seems increasingly unlikely he is going to come out of this one with a win. I still think his skillset would be better for DA or AG. It’s increasingly clear he would be in over his head in Congress. We need someone willing to fight for progressive principles and articulate them in a compelling resonant way. I think Carl is probably the closest we are going to get to an ideal candidate on both counts. The choice is coming down to him or Clark, and I think he will do a much better job.
I like Clark, too, but her civil liberties positions are problematic. Sciortino is special.
And if he really believes it ends there, I have a bridge spanning the Mystic River to sell him.
I can’t immediately find it on his website.
http://www.willbrownsbergerforcongress.com/forums/topic/courage-and-the-fiscal-crisis/
So, yeah, that’s what Sciortino was talking about.
http://www.willbrownsbergerforcongress.com/forums/topic/courage-and-the-fiscal-crisis/
Here is the link to Waltham wickedlocal. Thank God Will puts people ahead of egos in the Democratic Party.
http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/wp-admin/post.php?post=62146&action=edit
I’m a constituent of Will’s, and he has often taken praiseworthy stances on many issues. But on this matter, I think he misunderstands the strategic situation.
If Democrats agree to a one-year delay of the individual mandate, then Republicans will not consider the matter settled. They will simply force another shutdown in a year’s time if Democrats don’t agree to another delay, and eventually, the individual mandate will never be implemented, crippling Obamacare at its core. The employer mandate is non-core, and has been delayed; but without the individual mandate, Obamacare cannot work. Without it, the premiums in the exchanges will run out of control, with Republicans whooping up in the press every step of the way about how expensive Obamacare is. The Republican-crippled version of Obamacare will be laid at the Democrats’ feet, and Republicans will use its crippled condition to push for their preferred option of doing nothing and letting the free market decide who lives and who dies.
Republicans are well aware of all of this. This is their last hope for derailing health insurance reform. They’re trying to shut down the government to get it. And sadly, Will is saying here that if elected, he would be suckered in.
I understand the pain behind his writing, and the horror he feels about a default. But Obamacare is at this point settled law; it’s not up for further negotiation, and the President has done well to signal that it’s not. There are enough Republicans willing to vote for a clean continuing resolution if it is allowed to come to the floor, and it really is up to Boehner, and Boehner alone, to allow it.
It’s far better to have a temporary shutdown out of this, and get a clean resolution out of it, than to stagger from crisis to crisis generated by showing Republicans that hostage-taking works. This foolishness needs to end.
I completely agree with everyone that the proposal is something no one should consider. Suppose, however, the Republicans agreed to an automatic continuation indefinitely as part of the rules, and an abolition of the debt ceiling in return for a year’s postponement so that they could contest it in 2014, would anyone agree to that?
They wouldn’t honor that deal.
The only deal that really sticks in Congress is the Ethics Committee. It is always exactly half Democrats and half Republicans, no matter who’s in charge. It is therefore useless, but that deal sticks.
This blog is part of the reality-based community. Let’s deal in things that could actually happen.
On letting tax cuts expire
On the debt ceiling
On the fiscal cliff
All we get out of it is the privilege of having to fight on these grounds again and again.
Will lays out a scenario in which Nancy Pelosi is asking the Democratic caucus to swallow hard and accept a compromise on ACA and Social Security. I’m trying to imagine a scenario where Pelosi is asking for caucus support for abject surrender to the GOP — that seems inconceivable. What I think Will is talking about is a hypothetical in which a compromise that’s unpalatable to progressives appears to offer a way forward for the entire country. If the leaders of the Democratic caucus are urging Democrats to support a compromise, he’s saying he’d consider it and the others say they won’t.
This isn’t really a hypothetical either. We may end up eventually seeing a compromise in the form of the repeal of the medical device tax — that would give the Tea Party something to beat their chests about while leaving the ACA otherwise intact and giving Boehner cover to pass the debt ceiling extension with Democratic votes.
all it does is reflect that Will doesn’t really understand what’s happening in DC. As you point out, there is zero probability that Pelosi would ever ask the Dems to go along with a one-year delay, and there’s little point in posing a doomsday hypothetical that would never come to pass.
As for repealing the medical device tax, an expression in favor of doing that has already easily cleared the Senate (79-20) and might well become law at some point. But attaching it to a continuing resolution to fund the government’s operations is a very bad idea. Keep the CR clean; otherwise, there’s no end of trouble ahead.
If Will doesn’t mean literally what he said and was just looking for a hypothetical example to show us his compromising nature, he picked a really bad example.
Then I humbly suggest those praising Obama and Reid, don’t fully understand the impact of this shutdown. You see, I do know Federal workers, they have bills, and rely on the income they earn.
Is there a hat being passed around helping out these people or just let them manage without pay?
Not us. He has the bipartisan votes to pass the clean CR and those folks would get paychecks again. All he has to do is put the bill on the floor for a vote.
Pelosi should tell Boehner that it’s not her problem if most of his caucus is interested only in political terrorism. She can provide 200 Democratic votes for clean CR and a clean increase in the debt ceiling, he has to provide 18.
No more hostages.
For the most part I have been very defensive of Will from really ignorant and unfair posts from a lot of his opponents there, but he is too ‘honorable’ for his own good. He honestly believes the problems of too much money in politics can be solved by politicians self policing themselves better, he honestly feels, in spite of all recent political history, that if we give the GOP an inch they won’t demand a mile or threaten to shutdown the government.
I think Will is likely to lose this primary, and when he does, he should really reach back out to his constituents and ask them what they want. They will tell him they like his maverick progressive style, but this cannot translate to the current Congress unless he is wiling to fight for what is right, rather than trying to be above the fray. That strategy has utterly failed for the entirety of this Presidency and it won’t start succeeding for a lowly member of the MA delegation.
I honestly feel he is coming at these issues from a place of integrity, but in some ways it betrays how naive he must be about the way Washington works. We needed to take a stand and stop the madness, Obama and Reid made the right call, and anyone feeling ‘both sides got us into this mess’ after all we have endured has not been paying attention. Period.
that Brownsberger’s positions are more about ideology intertwined with a passionate sense of economic and social justice. He just thinks differently than most folks and perhaps it is his intelligence that gets in the way.
It can be said that the best politicians aren’t always the super intellects in the class and the intellects aren’t always the best politicians. Fortunately, all five serious candidates are bright.
When the CD-05 race began, I posted my concerns about pragmatic-progressive-results oriented legislators vs. progressive idealists whose votes may be cast in the winds of the DC entropic funnel.
Sciortino has run a very good campaign, Brownsberger not much.
Spilka continues to be the candidate with the proven record of legislating with disparate pols and the broadest-based diverse interests.
Her leadership on civil rights (as opposed to Clark) should be recognized and rewarded. I see her as the Hillary in the group. Workhorse. Delivers.
I don’t think there’s really any question about Brownsberger’s progressive bona fides, and he may have just gotten himself twisted up in a logic trap here. But consider as well that it’s been a while since he declared himself open to compromise on certain issues. At the present moment, hanging tough seems to be a better immediate strategy for the Democrats, and that’s not playing well for him. We don’t know what will happen, though; things could change tomorrow and it’s hard to believe that this all won’t play out without some minor concessions that will allow the GOP to save face.
It’s also a bit inconsistent that we are all waiting for 18 Republican House members to break with their party (and basically their beliefs) for the good of the country, while we are demanding that never, ever, ever, should any Democrat consider doing the same, even as a hypothetical.
The country does not benefit from a delay of Obamacare. Therefore the Republicans are asking for something they want, and no one else does. So we are right to hold firm.
As a general rule, we compromise far more than they do. We can get mad about this, or we can recognize that it’s a typical split between a homogenous group of conservatives and a diverse group of progressives (so diverse we define progress differently).
I take your point, and I’d most likely be willing to overlook this mistake by Brownsberger, but there’s no way to describe his position other than “Giving them what they want.” That’s unacceptable, in this case. They would never stop opposing the law.
AFTER we brought spending levels down to what they wanted in a Continuing Resolution. It is absolutely NOT inconsistent to say that we are waiting on them to break with their party after we compromised on many key points.
Source.
When you say that we are demanding that “never, ever, ever should any Democrat” break with their party and compromise, I cannot disagree with you more. We have, as a Party compromised. Over and over and over again. The Republicans are simply not interested in it. There are plenty of Democrats willing to compromise — including, I imagine all five candidates, including Sciortino. But only some are not willing to cave to the Tea Party at this late date on key principles. Brownsberger wants to cave even further. Sciortino does not.
Actually, we are waiting for only one Republican – John Boehner – to break with the extremist faction within his own party. As soon as he does that, he can pass a clean continuing resolution to fund the government with lots of bipartisan support.
Idealists like Brownsberger and Obama made, which is that you are assuming you are dealing with rational actors on the other side. In international relations theory you have to assume the other actors are just as rational as you are in order to secure a negotiation or gain an advantage with brickmanship. What makes terrorists so dangerous, and I would argue, the extremists in the House of Representatives, is that they are irrational and impossible to predict. They are choosing to govern against the interests of their own party not to mention the country over a plan that has no rational basis for ever happening in reality. They were over that cliff a long time ago.
And the problem for Democrats is the best we can do is pass a CR that essentially enacts the Romney-Ryan budget. These bastards have succeeded in enacting their own legislation in spite of losing the Presidency and they are still demanding more.
You don’t negotiate with irrational actors, you defeat them.
What is happening here is perfectly logical from the Republican point of view. They view the success of Obamacare as deeply threatening to their party’s future – and it is. They have found a strategy for delaying or thwarting it, and they are implementing it on the (historically well-founded) assumption that eventually the Democrats will fold and allow the delay. The continual debt limit crises offer excellent leverage – one might say, the only realistic leverage – for a party holding only the House. The only irrationality of the Republicans lies in refusing to abandon the destruction of Obamacare after it successfully passed both democratic and Constitutional review.
Terrorists, too, want to achieve certain political aims (if that wasn’t true, they would simply be criminals, not terrorists). In the case of al-Qaeda, they want to drive the US military out of the “holy land” of the Arabian peninsula; establish a unified Islamic caliphate governed by very strict interpretations of sharia law and covering all areas that have ever been majority-Muslim, including Israel and Spain; and then systematically wage war on and convert the remainder of the world. Since this is not a popular objective, and is opposed by the governments of every Muslim state, they have turned to violence to try to achieve their ends. Their only irrationality lies in their refusal to abandon their aims in light of the fact that they can only be achieved through violent and unpopular revolution.
There are already 20 Republicans that said they’d break with the party! Boehner just needs to let them vote on a clean CR!
That is why we need adults like Will in DC. Most here are saying not to compromise, right? Let’s have chaos and default over a bill that is being delayed for 12 months. My guess is Will is confident his party an extract a concession of their own, say $10.25 minimum wage which he supports, get a compromise, and win back the house in 2014.
Logic must trump ideology. If Tea Party are willing to go to the brink, their last hurrah, perhaps we need rationale to stop the insanity, that is what Will Brownsberger brings to the table.
What Will said is a lot more nuanced than the headline, and more nuanced than many of these dismissive comments understand. I fear that the bleating “not liberal enough” commenters here are the other side of the Tea Party coin.
The goal here is to govern. The goal is not to be just as pig-headed as the Republicans. We don’t want to send people to Washington who will just shout over the aisle and get nothing done. We want to send people to Washington who will govern.
If the voters of the Mass 5th aren’t savvy enough to know the difference, then we get what we deserve. It’s playing out for us right now in Washington.
does “governing” include capitulating to blackmail? Because that’s exactly what accepting a 1-year delay in the ACA in exchange for funding the government would be. Sorry, but them’s the facts.
I like Will, but his prescription would make things a lot worse going forward.
it was appeasement that empowered these bozos in the first place. Firmness is badly needed now to let the laughing gas out of their balloon.
I’m not saying that to be in anyone’s face, but on purely pragmatic grounds. If the No Caucus walks away with anything to show from this the practical implications will be very bad.
Job 1 is neutralizing this threat. Then maybe we’ll have an opposition party we can do business with.
It is about governing, not ideology. Only it really feels as though Will is the ideologue this time.
The Will Brownsberger team’s argument seems to boil down to: if you disagree with my argument from the left, you’re either not savvy or a left-wing equivalent of the Tea Party. Brownsberger hasn’t said as much, but that seems to be the tone I’ve heard from everybody I know who supports him.
Enough. Of. That.
We are not being “as pig-headed as the Republicans,” when we agree to the Republican budget demands for the continuing resolution but then refuse to delay the Affordable Care Act. When George Bush was president, left-wing Congresspeople and activists *vehemently* disagreed with many, many, many of his positions. But not once did we force a government shutdown to pass a budget unless we got what we wanted. Not. Once. In fact, In the last twenty years, the only government shutdowns have come because Republicans wanted it to happen.
We are looking to get things done. But we cannot get things done when Republicans refuse to accept “yes” as an answer. We would not say “We will force a government shutdown unless you add universal background checks to the budget.” There is simply no equivalence.
Secondly, I am willing to concede many things, but I am not going to say that I simply don’t understand the finer points of Brownsberger’s policies. I do. I’ve read his blog posts. I’ve spoken with him in person. I get it. I can both understand exactly what he stands for and think it’s wrong. It is not pig-headed to say that we should defend the signature domestic achievement of the Democratic party. It’s not pig-headed to say that we have waited long enough to get a national health reform law and it is already working — we need no delay. It is not pig-headed to say that we will defend the right of every person to get access to quality health care from those who would do nothing but predict calamity and delay, delay, delay. Their aim is simply to defund the Affordable Care Act because they disagree with it. Their aim is not to craft the right policy.
I have no patience for people who say, “Well, why not give in to their delays?” After all, for the millions of uninsured across the country, what’s just one more year without seeing a doctor? What’s just one more year of being one illness away from bankruptcy?
It’s very similar to when Brownsberger spoke of his Citizen’s United position and would begin with “I think I’m the only candidate in this race who understands the decision.”
Yeah, and apparently almost every other progressive and four members of the Supreme Court are dumb.
Delaying the ACA for another year is playing with people’s lives. We have it and look at how many people are desperate to sign up? So many have waited so long for this day and it is the right thing to open the exchanges now and not any more delays. I know people who get married just to get health care. I know people turned away from doctor’s offices even though they can pay out of pocket but the doctor’s won’t let you through the door if you don’t have insurance. I know people without insurance who wait to go the emergency room and then get a $2000 bill when as a normal doctor visit it would only be in the hundreds. This has got to stop. And if we can’t get a Democrat from Mass 5th who is going to stand up for the people, then where will we?
Until 2006, the Democrats didn’t have majorities in either house of Congress, but, even after 2006, the Democratic caucus was heavily moderate (as opposed to consistently liberal) and had difficulty voting as a bloc. Witness the difficulty getting the ACA passed.
So while it is nice that the Democrats never threatened to blow up the economy, they were never capable of doing so either. They have always lacked the unity for this sort of maneuver.
Your comment proves the point. There was no critical mass of Democrats willing to blow up the economy to get their way on an unrelated issue. The progressives always blinked before it came to that.
Sure, on plenty of issues the Dem caucus had people peeling off on the right. If the progressives didn’t care about the consequences for the nation, they could have told Pelosi on the ACA and budgets, “You don’t have our votes. If our position makes you lose Blue Dogs and you need GOP votes to get something through, too bad.” They didn’t do that.
But right now the GOP has people peeling off on the “left” (if you can call a clean 15-week CR preserving sequester funding levels to end the shutdown that’s killing their brand the “left”). Still no floor vote from Boehner.
We’re seeing that right now. What they do have is enough votes to potentially deprive Boehner of his speakership. There are enough votes in the House to pass a clean CR right now. Boehner won’t bring it up because he likes his position of, uh, “power”.
As was pointed out, you’re proving the point. Dems have never done it.