As this article suggests recent Congressional actions suggests the insane gridlock of the past few years may be starting to ease a bit…http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/01/is-washington-getting-less-dysfunctional/272652/
I doubt that things are improving if we’re going by immigration reform. About 70% of Hispanics voted for Barry in the election. That’s a message loud enough to get through no matter how tone deaf you might be (and when you live in a bunker, that’s pretty tone deaf).
I don’t mean to paint every Republican or even Neo-con with that brush because I know that they’re normal people and therefore have something called “sense.” This however ends at the beltway event horizon - apparently.
Of course it wouldn’t surprise me for Boehner to carefully load up 2 9mm, take aim at his feet and empty the clips and I’m still not putting the odds of that at zero. I’m just saying if he doesn’t, I don’t think it’s because he gives a shit about anything beyond political logistics.
I think I’m starting to sense some relief in the gridlock, too. “Change”!
Kerry was confirmed pretty easily, it looks like the immigration reform is moving along pretty well with legitimate input from both sides, there has been markedly little recreational outrage at Panetta’s lifting of the ban on women in combat, and the gun issues is making progress, too.
Maybe the Republicans have finally gotten over their loss, 4 years later. I think it took Obama’s reelection to show them that the whole thing wasn’t a fluke or just a temporary bad dream.
They R’s have played badly and I suspect they may pay for that for a while. Both of my kids are under voting age, but they are repulsed by some of the more extreme Republican/conservative rhetoric they have seen and don’t think highly of that side of the aisle. It is said that many people develop their political leanings early and if that is true, the R/conservatives have mightily damaged their brand with almost all the young people I know.
They’re just lulling us into a sense of security. They had to send Kerry through on greased skids after all the bluster they made about Susan Rice. They all but said, “No. Not her. Kerry!” If they would have re-swift-boated him it would have screwed the chances that Scott Brown makes it back to the senate out of Massachusetts.
They’re already starting to make waves over the bi-partisan Immigration Reform coming down the pike. Sure they want to do something … just not whatever it is that Obama wants to do.
With the exception of Hurricane Sandy relief, the examples cited in the article–Immigration Reform, Filibuster Reform, the Fiscal Cliff deal, Debt Ceiling–all either originated in the Senate or were triggered by individual GOP Senators. Recall that the House had to be called back for a Jan 1st fiscal cliff vote after the Senate hammered out the deal, and it wasn’t until Senate Republicans like John Conryn publically called for a debt ceiling increase that GOP Reps got on board.
IMO this illustrates the dynamics of how Obama and Congress plan to end legislative gridlock: Obama and the Dems will pretty much ignore Boehner and the House GOP caucus, and instead negotiate with the Senate Republicans who will then be expected to influence the House and the Republican base. Immigration Reform is the big test of this strategy. The Senate plan ties the “path to citizenship” portion of the reform to more border security, and IMO that’s included mainly to appease the Tea Partiers in the House. I’ll also note that Sen. Marco Rubio was on Rush Limbaugh this past week, and by all accounts managed to convince the talk show blowhard of the merits of reform–or at the very least redefine the fight in the GOP base as “Senate plan vs. Obama plan” (which are remarkably similar) rather than “Deportation vs. Amnesty” (which would lead to gridlock).
Totally agree with the above. I think it is mostly a fluke that House Republicans got boxed in on a couple issues (debt limit and Sandy relief) and that those two matters shouldn’t be taken as Congress turning over a new leaf.
On the flip side, nothing has been done about sequestration other than to delay it by two months. The economic numbers out today show that the US economy contracted, and one key reason for that is that defense spending slowed down. We’ve gotten a preview of what is going to happen if government spending is suddenly cut by 10% on March 1, and it isn’t going to be pretty. Any claim that Congress has gotten its act together can’t be taken seriously until Congress fixes that issue.
Immigration reform isn’t a partisan issue. Partisan issues pit one party against the other. Immigration reform pits both parties against the American people. Increased immigration is generally unpopular. To such an extent that neither party can risk being the pro-immigration party. So yeah, I don’t think that’s a reliable weather vane. Lets see how things turn out at the end of the term.
Note that the Sandy bills and the fiscal cliff bill (from the last day of the last Congress) were passed in the House with DEMOCRATIC-led majorities, with enough moderate Republicans joining in to pass it.
Is increased immigration on the table? Is either party the pro-immigration party?
I’ve known people who had to deal with INS and ICE. Some liberalization seems in order to me.
I wouldn’t throw a party yet either. Let’s see how the next stage of debt ceiling talks plays out, at least.
Heh. Perhaps you’re forgetting that Kerry was Obama’s second choice and Senate Republicans killed the idea of nominating Susan Rice while more or less proclaiming “we would approve Kerry.” He was confirmed easily, but secretaries of state usually are. I assume Hagel will be confirmed but it doesn’t sound like his confirmation hearing went very well.
It’s not about the amount of immigration, it’s about reforming the immigration system and creating a way for at least some illegal immigrants to gain citizenship. It’s not about the amount of immigration. Generally Democrats and moderate Republicans have favored doing these things for a long time, and conservatives have killed it in its tracks whenever it’s come up.
I was responding to** 2sense.**
I remember how the GOP Congress reacted when W wanted a guest worker program. It’s one of the things I dislike about conservative politics.