Biden offers major change to tax proposal in effort to secure infrastructure deal with Republicans

[BumRushDaShow]

41. The ACA & PPA

which I watched the hearings and markups for, that went on in both chambers in multiple committees, and watched the debates on the final legislation (including the joint effort to reconcile the 2 different bills), required 60 votes to advance in the Senate, and Democrats only got that 60 vote majority during the summer of 2009, with a defection of Arlen Specter from R to D.

But with the pontificating Max Baucus and Joe Lieberman, along with 17 anti-abortion House Democrats lead by Bart Stupak, what was left of the final iteration of the consolidated bill, managed to get passed in December 2009 with the temp (D) replacement for Ted Kennedy, who died that summer before the bill became law.

And when Massachusetts decided to vote for fucking GOP Senator Scott Brown that same December 2009 (in the MA special election to replace Ted Kennedy), that killed the 60 votes needed to get a "fix" (able to invoke cloture) for what was originally passed, and they had to do the final piece the next spring by reconciliation with only 59 votes (which was more than enough for the simple majority needed for that type of legislative process), which limited the types of things that could be put in. Then the SCOTUS came around and killed the mandate.

We are in a different world today - barely having a majority in the Senate, which is only due to having the VP (who is the technical President of the Senate), who can cast a tie-breaking vote for a simple majority.