Senator asks for CBO score of Sanders's single-payer bill

[GaryCnf]

95. Not just for you

but for anyone who reads what you wrote.

Did anyone notice these lines:

It's amazing that you don't seem to understand what the CBO is or how it works

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It's too bad that those who are clearly ignorant about how government works are so eager to attack anyone who wonders why using THE ACTUAL GOP SCRIPT to attack the CBO is somehow patronizing or a lecture.

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I have a feeling that attacking the CBO here

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Learn what the CBO is and figure out that explaining its role

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You still need to do the math and know how policies are constructed

Did anyone notice this unartful and patronizing, yet spirited defense of the CBO?

I only ask because not once have I attacked the CBO or questioned their impartiality, much less exhibited a "GOP level out poutrage." If you were to ask why I have, not, the answer would be first, that the CBO has, in the past tried to exhibit a high level of impartiality so it would be unfair and inaccurate to attack them over a report that has not even been started, much less completed; and second, that it would be hypocritical and/or politically unwise to attack a group like the CBO when I, as a 100% Democratic Party voter, routinely use the CBO to criticize Republican policies.

Why then, do you suppose my fellow newbie would go to such lengths to lecture me about the CBO? The reason is two-fold, but only one bears mention. It is easy to make an argument with which no one, and in particular the person with whom you are debating, disagrees. I think there's a name for that . . .

What is more difficult is to rebut was my actual argument that United States Representative Dr. John Barrasso, a radical right wing Republican from a radically right wing state, did not call for the CBO to review the Medicare for All Bill one day after it was introduced so that we can engage in "critical thought" as we discuss the pluses and minuses of this legislation. He demanded it because he hopes and prays that he can get some figures which he can use to (a) "nip [the bill] in the bud" before it gains EVEN MORE popular support than it has now and becomes something Democrats will run on to sweep to power in 2018; and (b) smear the people on our side who have supported it for supporting a bill which "lacks planning or logic," or for "thriving on ignorance," or for "not knowing how policies are constructed" in order to weaken them not only in 2018, but in 2020.

What is more difficult is to rebut was my actual argument that, when supposed loyal Democrats join him, they further these objectives.

What is more difficult is to rebut was my actual argument that, among the people who will be smeared if he succeeds are the three putative frontrunners for nomination as the 2020 Democratic Party candidate for President of the United States.

What is more difficult is to rebut was my actual argument that two of the three of these frontrunners, Corey Booker and Kamala Harris, who will be hurt if Barrasso succeeds are not just people of color, BUT people of color who one segment of this party, YOUR segment of this party, formerly (before they had joined in the fight for single-payer health care) argued were being criticized solely on the basis of their race and (in the case of Senator Harris) gender.

What is more difficult is to rebut was my actual argument that this sudden willingness to allow Harris and Booker to be cast as "supporting a bill which "lacks planning or logic," or for "thriving on ignorance," or for "not knowing how policies are constructed" for co-sponsoring this bill demonstrates the disingenuousness of that earlier support, or of a vendetta against the third of these frontrunners so irrational and so obsessive that it is willing to sweep away all three in order to pay back one, Senator Sanders, for the harm that he, in some imaginary world, has done.