A refresher from last year's budget battle..

[kentuck]

It was mostly about filibuster reform, because Repubs were blocking everything, and also extending the Bush taxcuts...

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http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/12/07/senate-dems-push-filibuster-reform/
<snip>
Democratic lawmakers are ratcheting up a campaign to kill the filibuster after Republicans threatened last week to block any legislation until issues on tax cuts and the federal budget were resolved.

Senate Democrats, mostly junior members, are vowing next session to a majority vote that would eradicate the three-fifths vote requirement for legislation to move through the upper chamber.

Eliminating the filibuster, the preferred tool of obstruction by minority parties in the U.S. Senate, could make it easier for Democrats to pass President Obama's agenda. But the political complexion of the next Congress -- a Republican majority in the House and diminished Democratic presence in the Senate – complicates filibuster reform. Legislation that passes the GOP-controlled House might be preferable to a Republican minority in the Senate.

And in a twist of irony, some Senate Democrats are threatening to filibuster a deal that Obama cut with Republican leaders to extend the Bush tax cuts for all households, including the wealthiest ones, for two years and to renew federal unemployment insurance for 13 months.

[Drale]

1. They don't need to get rid of the filibusters but

they need to make it that if you want to filibuster something, you have to stand up there and continue speaking until you decided to end the filibuster.