“He says this “Phase 1” bill does as much as they were “allowed” to do, and that the next two phases will give them the opportunity to create what they want.
Why it has to be this way I really don’t understand. “
Almost the exact same text was uttered by the Dems in the House in 2010. They did not understand why the Senate with 59 votes could not give them what they wanted.
The answer to your query is this:
1) Forget this bizarre Ted Cruz pretense. He hates Trump and that’s his primary motivation for everything. Just like McCain.
2) The Senate has rules. One is the Filibuster. Invoking Cloture (stopping a filibuster) requires 60 votes.
3) A Reconciliation bill that just reconciles the budget aspects of other bills is immune to filibuster. So it can pass with 51 votes. Other bills that might be filibustered require 60 votes to cloture the filibuster to end.
4) The Dems had to use Reconciliation to get Obamacare passed. The bizarre stuff you hear elsewhere saying this isn’t true is itself not true.
5) Paul Ryan is a devout Catholic who did not want to be Speaker. He’s been Speaker less than 2 years. He became Speaker because there was no one else who could win a majority. He was in the House and watched Pelosi damn near mess up Obamacare with incompetence. She sent forward bills to the Senate that needed 60 votes and the Senate didn’t have 60. Ryan has put together something that can dodge the Senate constraints and get through with 51 votes, because he learned from her incompetence.
That’s the explanation. There is essentially no other explanation that doesn’t delve into evil conspiracies by Ryan, maneuvering his life to become Speaker by just pretending he didn’t want to be Speaker, and also the conspiracies suggest Ryan has somehow been Speaker even when Boehner was.
Thank you for your numbered explanation, Owen.