...this is how it works. You don't get to just sail into town and get whatever you want. People who point to the Bush tax cuts and say "why can't we do that" miss the point: it's always easier to destroy than create, and even then they went through reconciliation instead of the normal process (which is why they're going to sunset and spare us the trouble of having to legislate a huge tax hike to keep the deficit from going supernova). The Democrats made a decision long ago: play it straight, play it big-tent, and you know what? If they hadn't, you'd still be looking at less than 60 votes.
This is how it works. You grind these things out like Johnny Cash: one piece at a time. You bleed and sweat and suffer, and frequently pass things by one vote (ask Al Gore, and Chelsea's future mother-in-law, about the 1993 budget a.k.a. the "Clinton Landslide") and you don't get everything you want. The point is, you pound away at the coal face to get what you can, and then? You come back the next day and do it again. And again. You don't ever get to declare victory and go home in triumph, but that's not how it works.
Grow up, kids. Politics is the art of the possible. If you want to dream, go be a theater major.
