obama blasts congress for inaction
- Thread starter Don Quixote
- Start date
Over your pay grade too, huh ? Dude will most likely understand why the Senate is the way it is....ie, Harry Reid
Poor Onecell....
lol...
Massive majorities in both houses of congress, the WH...
He got what he wanted. Unfortunately what he wanted sucked for America and massive majorities didn't teach him how to lead.
you seem to forget how to count and the senate rules on filibusters
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
I agree....what has the Senate done in the last three years?....
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
has it dawned on you yet that he then should have compromised on his agenda?....
PostmodernProphet
fully immersed in faith..
lame excuse.....Senate didn't even pass a budget and you can't filibuster budgets.....the simple fact is, once the Republicans took control of the House, Reid decided that nothing will go to a vote in the Senate.....
G
Guns Guns Guns
Guest
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
You're rationalizing. You'd have to go back nearly 100 years to find a Congress which has accomplished less and was less popular than the 2010 congress. This nation is handicapped by a Republican party so far to the right that party loyalty is given a higher value than the best interest of our nation. We are also handicapped by a voting public that is both uninformed and apathetic.
H.L Menken was right. Democracy is the notion that the common man can get what he wants....and does....good and hard!
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Yes Dude, I know. You don't know what I mean by calling voters uninformed and apathetic and you don't care!
Cancel 2016.11
Darla
Truman won an election this way. I don't know if it can as effective because of the polarization we have among the voters now (which I'm not entirely convinced is all that much worse than it always has been, but I'm not certain). But it has worked in the past.
I consider that once in awhile, as well. It's so easy to say everything is more partisan now, but then I think about the Happy Days episode where Richie voted differently from Mr. C, and Mr. C wouldn't speak to him for awhile; and then the '60's, where the country was crazy divided over the war, and then pretty much every decade since.
One thing that seems clear is that Congress IS more divided. Congresspeople have been saying for the last few years that it's much more partisan than it used to be. Gradually, due to overuse of redistricting power, the people getting elected represent the extremes of their parties. The compromisers & moderates are gradually retiring & getting voted out.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
That's absolutely true but what's the solution? Go back to the day when the party bosses called the shots in smoke filled rooms?
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
Our parties are becoming as partisan as those in parliamentary democracies generally are, but our system is still built to require consensus in a divided government. In most countries, a situation like this would demand the dissolution of government and the election of a new one in order to solve the gridlock. Ours just crosses its fingers and hopes everyone can work together. What about when they can't?
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
There was a great deal in the Democratic legislative agenda that all got tripped up after they spent many times the amount of time they had planned fumbling the health care legislation. After the stimulus and the healthcare legislation, essentially nothing passed, because by that time people were already gearing up for the 2010 election. At it's core, the Democratic party is a coalition, a traditional American party, whereas the Republican party is a unified ideological front, like those in parliamentary democracies.
Mott the Hoople
Sweet Jane
Kill them all and let God sort them out?
Reid decided. That's awesome. It's not as though the Republicans have required record-breaking numbers of cloture votes on pretty much everything.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
There should be a constitutional amendment to do away with midterm elections. If the voters hate the old administration, they should vote in a new one. If you try to simply give them the ability half way through to simply render the functioning of government impotent, it's playing with fire. Again, America has survived this long because of the broad nature of our parties, we've usually had a supermajority of relatively nonideological people willing to work together in some form. Now that we're highly ideological, highly partisan forces emerging, this kind of division could greatly weaken the country, perhaps even bring it down into anarchy.
FUCK THE POLICE
911 EVERY DAY
It's not like it's just the politicians. One problem with democracy is that the people take part in decision making, and yet refuse to take any of the responsibility. You can't elect a proxy to make your decisions for you, and then later absolve yourself of all responsibility when things don't go well. The increasing partisanship in the parties is simply a symptom of the overall growing partisanship in America itself.
Hard to say. Representative democracy as it's practiced in America isn't really working that well, in general.