Reconciliation has been used with increasing frequency. That was bad enough. But at least for the Bush tax cuts or the prescription drug bill, there was significant bipartisan support. Now we have pure reconciliation mixed with pure partisanship.

via Op-Ed Columnist – The Spirit of Sympathy – NYTimes.com.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t one of the Bush tax cuts only passed when Dick Cheney broke a tie in the Senate?

We’re going to hear an awful lot of hand-wringing in the next few weeks if the health care bill sneaks through the House and ends up passing in the Senate via reconciliation — as though using reconciliation were somehow immoral, or cheating.

I’m not sure I get what the issue is here. No Republican Senator is ever going to vote for the health care bill under any circumstances. It could have a rider in it mandating biblical readings up through the junior college level and you still couldn’t get even a very God-fearing Republican like Tom Coburn to vote for an Obama health care bill. Chuck Grassley wouldn’t vote for it if you moved the U.S. Naval Shipyard to an Iowa cornfield. They’ve locked arms on this bitch like soccer players on a free kick.

From the start, the only way this was going to pass was with 100% Democratic votes. So if there are 60 Democrats, you can do it without reconciliation. If there are 59, you have to use reconciliation. “Sympathy” has nothing to do with this; it’s math.

I also don’t get how anyone could have watched the Senate over the last year or so and not concluded that this thing is better passed with 50 votes than 60. With 50 votes, you have ten fewer Senators to bribe, which according to my calculations should bring the overall cost of the bill down by about at least fifty trillion dollars.

I hate this bill and have since the beginning — to me it seems like a radical and dangerous step to start forcing people to become customers of a seriously overpriced, inefficient product, thereby removing the last incentive for an already antitrust-exempted, horrifically-performing industry to improve itself in any way.

But I’m beginning to come around to the idea that if we do pass this thing, sooner or later Congress is going to get around to complaining about subsidizing the profits of WellPoint and Aetna and all the rest of them. Naturally the first place they’ll cut in future budget crises is the “affordability credits” for low-income earners, but there’s a slim chance they’ll get around to chiseling the fat from the insurance companies, too, which might in turn lead ultimately to a sane revamping of this ridiculous system.

Or maybe not. I’m trying to find a way to feel good about this thing. Is there a way this thing doesn’t suck? Input is welcomed here.

Engage creative thinkers and pilot bold innovations, especially technology-based solutions. CAP

CAP experts discuss the pressing need for a national career navigation system that works for workers and employers. CAP

CAP, the Markle Foundation, and the Engelberg Center for Health Care Reform at the Brookings Institution offer recommendations for clarifying new Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services regulations on electronic health records. CAP

Great news, Americans – our economy lost only 36,000 jobs in February!

Well, yes, that's still a loss, but economists, politicians, and other peers of the establishment are cheering the news that our monthly job decline is now smaller than it was a year ago. Hallelujah, they shout, claiming that the job market might finally be bottoming out.

Before you rush to buy a celebratory bottle of champagne, though, you might want to reflect on a sobering reality: Even if the job market has hit bottom, it's likely to say there for a long, long time.

This is because the Powers That Be have sunk America's workforce into a very deep hole. How deep? Since Wall Street crashed our economy, leading to the Great Recession that began in December 2007, 8.4 million American jobs have disappeared. Also, the workforce has increased by 2.7 million new job seekers in that period. This leaves us in a hole that is 11.1 million jobs deep – so far.

To get our economy out of this hole, and to absorb the millions of new people who'll be coming into the workforce, we must not merely stop losing jobs, but must create 400,000 new positions a month for the next three years.

Where's the plan to get us anyhere near that urgent need? Corporations continue to fire and move offshore, with no plans to increase jobs. Also, Wall Street adamantly refuses to invest in job-creating enterprises, despite being handed a multitrillion-dollar taxpayer bailout.

And Washington? Our priority, declared one house member, is "jobs, jobs, jobs," and Congress has indeed passed a bill to spur job growth. How many jobs can America expect from it? Get ready to be astounded: 250,000.

What a pathetic job performance on meeting America's job crisis! To kick Congress' butt and demand a real jobs bill, contact: aflcio.org.

The Obama administration presents a more cohesive agenda for education reform, writes Cynthia Brown, and it's one that follows many CAP recommendations. Cynthia G. Brown

Judy Feder details the provisions in the health care bill that are specifically designed to rein in galloping health care costs. Judy Feder

The public's support for clean energy policies remains strong despite conservative attacks on global warming science, observes Ruy Teixeira. Ruy Teixeira

It's time to encourage more companies to invest in advancing incumbent workers' skills through work-based learning, access to career pathways, and opportunities to earn college credit. CAP

Under-the-radar reforms in contracting and IT management are likely to save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 10 years, writes Ian Millhiser. Ian Millhiser

How a deep, narrow canyon became a vital transportation corridor

Would you have tea with me?

I'm talking to you authentic tea bag folks – those who are not corporate-funded, Republican party spin-offs, and those whose minds are not nailed shut by a simplistic, anti-government, laissez-fairyland ideology. Let's talk. You tea partiers who are fed up with Washington and the leaders of both political parties – hey, count me in! And the target of our anger doesn't stop there, does it? Politicians are the face of our problems, but we all know that behind those faces is the real power that's stomping on us: Wall Street banksters, corporate downsizers, the 13,000 corporate lobbyists swarming our government, and the political consultants and media yakkers who exist only to segment and divide us.

Let's talk about it all – the whole corrupt insider system of moneyed elites who're systematically destroying the middle class and perverting the political process to shut out the voices of America's workaday majority.

Let's discuss this Big Theft, but most importantly, let's figure out what to do about it. Whether you call yourself conservative or progressive, what can we do together to decentralize and democratize our country's economic and political power, putting America back on its historic mission of trying to build a nation of, by, and for the people?

Another organization has suddenly sprouted across the country that might help get us together. It's called the Coffee Party – not meant to counter the Tea Party, but to engage it positively. Check it out at coffeepartyusa.com.

Who knows – maybe we can all merge into a Beer Party! Beverage preferences aside, the important thing is for ordinary grassroots Americans to reach across false divides, see what we have in common – and start acting like the bosses of our government, our society, and our mutual destiny. That's what it really means to be American.

CAP experts discuss the need for holistic and comprehensive teacher evaluation systems so students don't lose out. CAP

Experts at CAP discuss the Bush torture memos and how to hold Bush administration officials accountable. CAP

New federal programs or initiatives ought to encourage attention to and resources for growing and testing improved career navigation models. CAP

Climbing to a small wonder in Nevada

Also check product safety recalls, food recalls and pet-related recalls.

Let's talk chicken.

I don't mean clucking and cockadoodledooing, but the power of the bird. Most people hear the word "chicken" and immediately think: "Dinner!" Some commercial interests in Georgia, however, think: "Money!" So, they've launched a campaign to put the common fryer on the top roost of the bird kingdom by having it declared the State Bird of Georgia.

But, wait – there's already a state bird: the brown thrasher. No problem, says Chris Cunningham, the chief champion of the chicken campaign – we'll just get the legislature to dethrone that little thrasher and enthrone our money bird. Chris, who owns a chain of restaurants specializing in (what else?) fried chicken, says that the thrasher is inedible, lazy, and migratory. Beside being pretty, he asks, "What's it ever done for the state of Georgia?"

Yeah, if you can't pluck a profit from a feathered creature, who needs it?

In contrast, Cunningham points out that the chicken is Georgia's cash cow (so to speak), with millions of the cooped up cluckers generating some $18 billion a year for the state economy and providing about 47,000 poultry industry jobs. It's time for chickens to "get a little respect," Cunningham crows.

Well, chickens themselves probably don't think that a daily mass slaughter of their kin and kind is a show of much respect. And before we weep with gratitude about those chicken plucking jobs, let's note that the overwhelming number of them are non-union, no-benefit, short-term, nasty, and dangerous "jobettes" that don't come near providing a family wage or a middle-class opportunity for workers. Where's the respect in that?

Actually, I'm with Chris in seeing the nobility in common chickens. He points out that they are the "closest living relative to the Tyrannosaurus Rex." But their nobility stems from their overall birdness – not from them being chopped up parts to feed the corporate profits of Big Chicken.

Don't aggravate yourself. These green resolutions from NRDC's Simple Steps are worth the effort.

The impact of conservative talk radio on American politics cannot continue to go ignored, argue Eric Alterman and Danny Goldberg. Eric Alterman, Danny Goldberg