I’ve read several threads that touched on this issue, but all devolved into sarcasm and shouting matches. I do believe there should be cooperation on major policy initiatives, and I’d really like to know how this bill was actually made.
Republicans claim they weren’t consulted at all, in any way. “Rammed down our throats” is something I’ve heard repeated. However, the final bill contained a lot of compromises to Republican demands, such as large tax cuts, removing provisions for food stamps, and others.
So what’s the truth? Were Republican lawmakers included in the discussions, or was it just some of their presumed ideas were incorporated into the bill for political benefit? (Not that much of that benefit was actually realized. No House Republican votes at all, and only three in the Senate.)
I can look up the cite if you want (short on time) but last week I quoted from a Washington Post article on Collins which said that, at the inital Senate meeting to compromise on the bill, only six Republicans showed up (and twelve Democrats). Three of the six quickly left when they found that the Democrats didn’t want to make radical changes to the bill, leaving Collins, Snowe and Specter as the sole GOP voices in the room.
To me, for the Senate at least, it sounds as though the GOP shut themselves out of the process largely out of spite. They could have pressed for more changes even if they weren’t going to cut the bill by half or anything.
To many ,the definition is that they should have allowed the Repubs to write the whole bill. They lost for a reason. They have no mandate and their ideas were wrong. But in order to play nice ,the dems included even more tax cuts in the bill. Them the repubs voted against it. They are going to fight every dem move. The senate will require 60 votes for practically every bill. I just remember how they wanted to nuke the filibuster to get their way the last 8 years.
Ah, yes. Bill Frist and his claims of the “Tyranny of the Minority”.
Although, even when the Democrats were in the minority seat, I was all for ending procedural filibustering. If someone wants to filibuster, let them read from the phonebook for thirty hours. Afterwards, we can take a vote.
Jophiel, yes I’d like a cite if possible. tagos, that wasn’t really helpful. I’m not asking for what should have happened, but what did happen. It could be a GQ, but I have a feeling it’s going to me more at home here.
“Roughly a half-dozen” sounds pretty rough, to me. If there were that few of them, then let’s see their names, and then count up those names to see whether there are 5 or 6 or 7 of them. Why weasel on such a small number?
The problem is that if you have three or four senators to filibuster, then they can take shifts reading the phonebook while the others sleep. Then it lasts forever…
The best I could find offhand was a list of names in this blog (including the comments):
[list=“1”]
[li] Ben Nelson[/li][li] Susan Collins[/li][li] Mary Landrieu [/li][li] Olympia Snowe[/li][li] Mel Martinez[/li][li] Jim Webb [/li][li] Evan Bayh [/li][li] Michael Bennett [/li][li] Jeanne Shaheen [/li][li] Mark Warner [/li][li] Mark Udall [/li][li] George Voinovich[/li][li] Claire McCaskill [/li][li] Joe Lieberman [/li][li] Kent Conrad[/li][li] Arlen Specter[/li][li] John McCain[/li][li] Max Baucus[/li][/list]
(Republicans in bold)
But this is exactly what needs to happen, so people can see the obstructionism that’s going on. Anyone who has only been paying attention to the news for the last couple of years probably thinks the Constitution requires a 60-vote majority to pass any legislation in the Senate, because the media have treated it like that.
(It’s worth pointing out that another rule involving the “Budget Act” has the net effect of making it necessary to have a 3/5 majority when a bill is going to add to the deficit. It’s just another procedural issue, but it’s more than just the filibuster.)
I hate to say it but the mainstream media needs to do something that I am not 100% convinced they can do - and thats report. I don’t think the OP would have a problem identifying his quarry had the media done their job properly. I wish I could name the republicans present and I wish their names were made known from the news I turn on in the morning. But thats not what draws the ratings and we all know it.
During the making of this disaster which party controled congress??? Neither party are the friends of the people. We had an Idiot for Pres, and bozos on both sides of the aisel.
Look, if you read contemporaneous news accounts, it’s plain that the Administration had tons of discussions with the GOP, the Senate majority slightly less, and the House majority somewhat less than that, but in every case Republicans were invited to participate. Eric Cantor has admitted he’s patterning his behavior on Newt Gingrich, when GOP obstructionism to Clinton’s budget caused a mini-recession, which got the populace pissed off at the incumbents, and therefore swept the GOP into power. This is not controversial history, and this is what the GOP is planning now. And it’s not irrational for them to do so. It is immoral but it’s not irrational – if the economy picks up under President Obama, then he’ll get the credit for putting right what President Bush fucked up. If it fails, then he’ll get blamed, and his party will not fare well as the ballot box.
But I’m more interested in why you think it’s intrinsically valuable for parties to cooperate on major policy initiatives. This isn’t a sport. People who are Democrats and people who are Republicans these days are in those parties because they have vastly different ideas of how government should be run. Whichever party is correct (and the evidence of the last decade makes this a no-brainer, IMO), a first-order desire for compromise just means that neither approach will be properly tried. Instead, we’ll get half-measures. Bipartisanship is for cocktail parties. When you’re trying to keep people from getting kicked out of the homes or losing their jobs, you should be fucking gunning to do whatever you think is the best way to help them.
Cliffy, not everyone in each party is an extremist. There are centrists that can work well together. And keep in mind that there are conservative Democrats and liberal Republicans.
One reason that I would like to see more bi-partisanship is because this administration has promised change. We’ve lived in an atmosphere of hostility and hatred in Washington for at least 16 years now. That doesn’t mean that it’s always been that way or that it has to be that way now.
I say that as a 44 year member of the party in power.
