I mean, jeez, look at the list: DADT repealed, New START ratified, a budget resolution, tax cuts (although I didn’t like some of the details), and healthcare for 9-11 responders. Wow. Congress can get stuff done when they really try.
Not that I’m feeling too optimistic about the next session. And you?
Really, though, Congress just managed to pass a bunch of reasonably popular and not terribly controversial legislation. DADT repeal had 65 votes, and the defense authorization bill had unanimous support once DADT repeal was removed, for example, but the two together was some sort of huge issue for the Senate. Are we going to just accept that two months out of every 24 will be the only time when legislation with clear majorities in favor of it isn’t obstructed on general principle?
To those who believe that Obama “gave up too much” in allowing the tax break to extend for those over $250K - please realize that this humble list resulted out of that deal. Not too bad a set of chips at the end of the night. And next Congress everyone antes up again and some new hands get dealt out … with the president’s opposition getting better cards than they do now.
It looks that way, doesn’t it? A lot of stuff got done the last few weeks, and it’s good that it was accomplished at all, but much of it should have been done earlier. It’s absurd that it was almost impossible to get the Senate to vote on anything, and that the Democrats decided they wanted to wait until after the election to try to move on so many major pieces of legislation.
This is what happens when Obama actually tries to be bipartisan. Republicans got what they wanted on tax cuts and stopped obstructing a lot of legislation in return.
The Republicans have also promised to allow Obama’s judicial nominees to go through the Senate.
This is what happens when Congress takes a couple of minutes to try to do its job, which is apparently only possible when they think nobody is watching.
He was always trying to reach across the aisle. He was shamelessly bipartisan to a group that filibustered everything. The Repubs wanted to make sure the rich got more money and power. They did so all is well.
I hate to point this out, but the vast majority of Congressmen and Senators were re-elected. Maybe some of them gave in because they’re leaving anyway, but it’s not enough to explain the passage of this many bills.
Same with the general elections, it’s not the base that decides elections, it’s the independents (or in this case those that no longer owe their souls)
Call me cynical but I think once the Republicans got the tax cuts for the rich, they pretty much got everything on the list that they cared about so they stopped enforcing party discipline on all the other issues.
Think of it this way: When I go to vote for my representatives, I vote for someone who I think will make my life better.
However, the reason that we have representatives is because we need people with the time and intellect to really get into the nitty-gritty of issues, the practical realities and the philosophical arguments. We want people to make reasoned decisions. Quite often, these decisions have nothing to do with anything that the general public is even aware of when they voted for the legislator. And more importantly, there often is a single best answer that’s recommended by all experts in the field (or whatever), but the general public has no idea what that is, wouldn’t understand it if they wanted to, and they’d probably shout it down as ivory tower nonsense.
A freshly elected (or re-elected) legislator has the freedom to actually do his job. He’s smart enough and philosophical enough to realize that gay people aren’t any risk to the rest of the population and that there’s nothing worse about a gay person today than there was with a black person in the 60s. This is the right answer, and he can vote that way (or “trade” to allow it to happen). But as he approaches the end of his term and is up for re-election again, he has to forget all the philosophy and practical realities, and pretend like the voters aren’t a group of uneducated morons. He has to vote (or stall any voting) according to the uninformed opinions of the general voters of his party. If he doesn’t, he’s out of a job.
So why did stuff get done? Because we’re at the start of the cycle, not the end.
Some of the stuff is notable, I honestly thought DADT repeal wouldn’t ever pass, even with the courts clearly indicating it would get struck down if it wasn’t repealed.
Most of it is typical. If there wasn’t a showdown of sorts between Obama and the Republicans, START and healthcare for 9/11 responders would never have been an issue. Both would have sailed through easily. While people make a huge deal about the Bush tax cuts, it actually isn’t that big of a deal either way. In the grand scheme of things, within a few years no one will even remember that fight. So that stuff isn’t so much a win as it is a lesson in how spending a couple years telling the minority to go fuck themselves can cause problems even for simple things. A lesson in what REAL bipartisanship looks like, where both sides actually get something they want.
However, you’re giving Congress credit for passing a budget resolution when it should have been done in JUNE? Seriously? Having a Congress manage to do something months after they were supposed to is a win for you? Jesus, how low are your standards?
As for next term, it all depends. If Democrats have FINALLY learned they have to actually negotiate with Republicans, and if Republicans don’t actually mean the stupid shit they said around election time, then I expect a year of reasonable compromises. Much like Clinton’s term after Republicans took control. If Democrats still think a middle finger is ‘compromise’ or Republicans actually meant the moronic crap they said, next year will be full of cockblocks and bullshit just like this year was.
I know you’re wrong here because all they did was extend the tax cuts until 2012. That means they’re going to have the same fight again in two years. The rhetoric is going to be almost identical and the players will be, too. The only difference is the deficit will be around $500 billion greater.
Shall we start drinking heavily now, or would you rather wait until Congress gets back in session? It’s also going to be two years, not one.
I really wish somebody would tell me who is propagating this “Democrats didn’t compromise” talking point, so I could punch him in his stupid fucking face.
Yep, that’s going to be a huge issue in the 2012 presidential election. It goes without saying that the Republicans will blame Obama for increasing the deficit by half a trillion dollars. :rolleyes:
If I was inclined to get drunk because of things politicians do, my liver would have been destroyed years ago.
Anyway, I think even in the best circumstances, we get one year of Congress doing shit. 2012 is election season after all. You can’t expect Congress to actually do anything while they’re busy scoring cheap political points off each other. Which probably explains why it’s December and Congress has finally gotten around to doing such mundane shit as passing a budget.
Telling Republicans to sit down and shut the fuck up because Dems don’t have to negotiate with an opposition party is not ‘compromise’. Democrats compromised with other democrats, but that’s not even close to the same thing as compromising with the opposition party.
See, a compromise means you actually work with the other side. When one political party does not compromise, we get things like year long fights over health care where democrats had to blatantly buy off votes of other democrats to get jack shit done. However, when a party does decide to compromise, we get things like threads praising how much a lame duck session has accomplished.