How to Pass a Law

Ok, I'm an amateur when it comes to passing legislation, but here's my interpretation of how you go about things.

In the US:

1. Have an idea, preferably one that can be synopsized to a single sentence. This sentence will usually be vague and aspirational so as not to tie you down to any specific proposals. Something like "Make America safer for Americans" if you're Republican or "Make Poverty History" if you're Bob Geldof, or "Abortions for some, miniature American flags for others" if you're somewhere in between.
1a. Get some photos of the President and other high ranking politicians in compromising positions. This will be very useful later.
2. Win an election. Easy enough if you have the right friends.
3. Make up some draft proposals. Get flamed by the opposition. Get flamed by the public. Get your office, home, car, child's school, mother etc. blockaded by angry protesters. Expect farcical and fanatical opposition.

4. Negotiate with the opposition to try to find a solution more amenable to the masses. As long as the bill still conforms to your initial vague aspirational statement, then you can't be accused of running away from your ideals. Just remember that a large amount of the opposition are convinced that you are either an elitist, baby-killing communist or a knuckle-dragging, inbred racist, so you're not going to get everyone on your side no matter how much you give in.
5. Try to pass the bill in the House. Use of the materials obtained in step 1a can be useful here.
6. Repeat steps 3-5 until you get it passed.
7. Try to get it passed in the Senate. Again, use of the materials obtained in step 1a can be useful here.
8. Repeat steps 3-7 until you get it passed in the Senate.
(In general, these phases are the most annoying and you may have to cede authorship/sponsorship of the bill and sacrifice all chance of doing anything else in your political career.)
9. Get the President to sign it. This is easy of the election you won in step 2 was the presidential election. Otherwise, step 1a comes in handy again.

In Ireland

1. Get enough seats to be needed in a coalition.
2. Have an idea. Commission a consultant to write a report about it.
3. Wait for a scandal to happen.
4. Comment that action on this scandal is imminent. Commission a report on the report in view of the specific scandal.
5. Introduced the bill to the Dáil in the last two days before a break to limit debate. Force the bill through the Dáil and Senate in record time through your use of the whip.

Dermot Ahern version


1. Put together some version of your religious beliefs that look vaguely like legislation.
2. Use your influence to push it through.

Wait, You mean we have to PAY for it?

Last night, the Massechit, Massachusetss, American voters decided to give a big f*** you to Barrack Obama on the anniversary of his inauguration. For me, the worrying things is not that the Democrats have lost the supermajority in the Senate; it's that arguably the most Democratic state in the country returned a Republican a little over a year after the Democrats swept into power in a very convincing fashion.

To me, it seems like the US electorate liked to hear Obama talk about saving them and their families from massive healthcare bills, but when push came to shove the idea of someone having to pay for it through taxes seemed anathema to them.

From my basic reading of the plans before the House and the Senate, the proposals don't really look that redical at all. The vast majority of people will still pay their own health insurance or their employer will. Medicaid would only be available to those earning less than $30,000 (rough figure based on 4 person family). Yet still, Republicans get away with scaremongering; claiming that Obama is "socializing" healthcare.
I have two rebuttals:
(a) Compared to Public Health Insurance models, he really, really isn't.
(b) If there was one thing in the world to socialize; it's healthcare! You generally don't have an option about getting sick; and you can't say that this person or whatever "deserved" to get sick due to their lifestyle alone and therefore deserves to pay for it. Not only that but health is the most important thing to get right for people for without that they would be unable to access any of the freedoms they enjoy by living in the US.

I am confounded that the American people would vote again for the Republicans, who royally messed up their time in power in the last decade. This blow and the presumably heavy losses that the Democrats will endure in House elections in November will yet again freeze all hope of progress on this and the issue of social security. Huzzah for democracy, indeed.