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Baucus to Blame for Brown Victory?

By Beacon Staff

The Washington Post‘s E.J. Dionne, the pundit who is basically the voice of the Washington D.C. Democratic establishment, spreads the blame around for Republican Scott Brown’s incredible win in Massachusetts yesterday. Had Senate Dems – particularly in the Finance Committee chaired by Montana Sen. Max Baucus – moved more quickly this summer with health care, he writes, it could have taken the issue out of this Senate race.

From Dionne’s blog today:

The United States Senate should take a lot of blame for taking forever to pass a health-care bill. The Senate Finance Committee in particular delayed and delayed, failing to produce a bill before Congress’ August recess. This allowed the raucous conservative protests to dominate the late summer news and prevented Congress from passing a bill this fall, which is when it should have been sent to the president. The longer Congress took, the worse the process looked. The ugliness of the process badly tarnished the bill itself. The excessive time consumed by health care prevented Congress from acting on other issues. And having still not passed it, Democrats now have to figure out how to get it done without that 60th Senate vote.