Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

Right on, Bucco!

About the only time I'm seen some cooperation between the parties recently, compromise if you will, seems to be what's going on right now on the financial regulatory reform bill negotiations. From what I've read, the POTUS is involved and there is a clear but behind the scenes give and take in a joint effort to get a bill that can be passed by both the GOP and the Democrats, with support from the President. Maybe even more encouraging--if I'm interpreting what I read correctly--both sides seem to be stiff-arming the entreaties of the lobbyists for the banks. Congress seems to be refusing every effort by the special interests to gut the bill being negotiated. It's not done until it's done, but I'm hopeful on this one.

The question I have regarding a similar situation is: why couldn't such negotiation and compromise have happened on the healthcare bill? The problem facing the nation was at least as critical. Virtually everyone agreed that something needed to be done. But what was passed was a Rube Goldberg bill, heavily influenced by virtually every healthcare lobby that there was, which produced a bill which had only limited "reforms" and will have to be fixed--many times probably--by future Congresses.

What happened between the passing of the healthcare bill and what seems to be happening now on financial regulatory reform?