The Republicans have publicly and on-record stated that their primary objective is to stop all legislation proposed by Democrats. When the Democrats offered them more than they were asking for, the Republicans refused and said it’s not enough. The Democrats have bent over backwards to try to come to an accord with Republicans. The Republicans have made it quite clear they have no interest in doing the countries business, and that they are willing to damage the country as long as they don’t have to compromise.
It’s high time the Democrats stopped dropping trou and bending over for the Republicans.
The Republicans have not stated that, and have passed legislation in a bipartisan fashion regularly.
Back to BrainGlutton, why is governing from the left important? I don’t think governing from the right is important. It’s the goals that matter. If centrist means are used to achieve left-wing goals, who cares? Bill Clinton did more to combat inequality and poverty than any President in the post-war era in terms of results.
It’s the goals I’m thinking of. Any good leftist’s goals would have included holding Wall Street’s feet to the fire and cracking down on corporate malfeasance. If Obama ever thought that way, he appears to have forgotten it.
That doesn’t seem like a goal in itself. Obviously, any society with strong law and order values will crack down on malfeascance, but I get the feeling that you are referring to what is legal, not so much what is illegal.
If the goal is to make people who are being left behind better off, then no ideology has a proven method of doing that yet. It’s one of the big unsettled issues of our time, the best way to help people enjoy the opportunities this country has to offer. But so far, the most successful Presidency in that regard has been Bill Clinton’s, and until we try his method of governing again and it fails, I’ll assume that’s the best way to go as far as reducing poverty.
‘The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.’ – Sen. Mitch McConnell, National Journal, 10/29/2010
And then there are the calls to ‘starve the beast’. The grown-ups in the room know that bringing about recovery requires investing in it and helping citizens to get through the hard times so that they can contribute later. The children in the room are saying ‘We have them on the ropes! Give us more money and take more away from the country!’
So they block productive legislation – and again, I point out that they blocked legislation that gave them more than they asked for – and they put their energy into defeating Democrats. Their primary goal is not to help the country. It’s not to help the American people. It’s not to rebuild the economy. Their primary goal is to block the Democrats.
An often misunderstood quote, although understandably so. It in no way implied that the Republicans wouldn’t be willing to pass anything, and they have in fact passed things.
Starve the beast is admittedly a bad idea, although government does need to be shrunken and even Democrats now agree with this sort of, by refusing to ever consider middle class tax increases. A government funded mainly on the backs of the rich is by definition a small government.
This simply isn’t true. They got elected to do very specific things and they are doing those things. It’s Democrats who haven’t gotten the message. They have not been willing to seriously negotiate. They want their priorities right now in exchange for Republican priorities later.
That is nice, but it does not contradict at all that the plan was to make Obama a one term president, as that came from a congress critter it is silly to conclude it was not to constantly oppose productive legislation.
THat’s a policy disagreement. You were saying that they oppose productive legislation, yet they’ve passed a lot more legislation than the Senate. The Senate democrats are the ones practicing obstruction.
Legislation like more abortion restrictions and removing funding to the ACA… we know already, what you painfully do not know is how pandering passing legislation that is useless eventually is.
They’ve also passed budgets. But that’s not even counting what they’ve passed that the President has signed: repeal of the CLASS act, two free trade agreements, the student loan fix, and the sequester.
The GOP has relied on the American voter being dumb enough to vote against their own best interest. Have any of you been watching the news clips from republican town hall meetings were the GOP house members are getting raked over the coals for not agreeing to “shut down the government” unless ACA is repealed? At least half the angry screamers in the room are sr. citizens who won’t get their government hand out (social security) bargain basement priced healthcare (Medicare) if the government totally shuts down. And the blame will fall squarely on the GOP.
What these folks don’t get is that Red States get more back from the Feds than they send in tax revenue. That those federal jobs and military bases create jobs in their states. I don’t hear any of them advocating the repeal of Medicare or Social Security. And just about 100% of those who are opposed to serious healthcare reform already have excellent health insurance and these same people seem to be clueless as to who it is who pays for the uninsured – they do! With higher premiums and hidden taxes on everything from their beer to their cable TV bill. I totally understand why rich white men are overwhelmingly republican, seeing as they believe they have the most to lose. But when will “Joe the Plumber” realize that the GOP has stacked the deck and is screwing him at every turn.
I hear so many people parrot back the garbage that Rush, Hanity, O’Reily and Beck spew out – all of whom, by the way, have great health insurance paid for by somebody else.
This country is now and will likely be socially moderate and fiscally conservative for some time to come. When democrats realize that fact and stop trying to poke people in the eye with a stick, clean up the waste in government, respect the views that are deeply held while at the same time making the case for justice and compassion for all Americans then they won’t need the Tea Party crazies to nominate sure loosers in order to win house and senate races.
For the time being democrats need better candidates and the kind of grass-roots organizing at the local level that got Obama elected twice. And a few more nut-jobs for the TP won’t hurt.
That is no more than a rocks-for-jocks level of performance. Congress is supposed to pass a budget every year. And lately, the GOP’s grade on that score is F. Not even D.
Not at all. There are directions I’d like to see the country moving in. But if we’re not going to move in what I consider the right direction, I’d rather we stood in place than move further in the wrong direction.
On the whole, the post was excellent, one of the best I’ve read in some time. The only paragraph that I disagree with is the one above. I don’t think the country is socially moderate, at least anymore. Gay rights are now mainstream. Most people do not want to ban abortion. People (with the notable exception of the right wing buffoons) are more tolerant of other races. I don’t think Democrats are trying to poke people in the eye with a stick. But I do concede that the Democrats made a critical mistake with the ACA. Not with the law itself, but by neglecting to explain and promote it. For every dollar spent promoting the ACA, a thousand has been spent in trying to demonize it. If you pass a complicated bill and make no effort to explain to the average guy what the hell you just did for him and let the other side go unchallenged for four years in demonizing it, you aren’t doing yourself any favors.
What’s your take on the recent gun-control brouhaha? Since the legislation wasn’t going to pass, they irritated the gun-rights crowd while accomplishing nothing; sure, they didn’t sell the ACA, and it’s still maybe not polling well – but at least they got the ACA out of it. What did the loud stand on gun control get them?
Let’s preface that with the realization that hard core gun advocates have not, do not, and never will vote Democratic. So there really was little for Democrats to lose in this battle. What I think they accomplished was in exposing just how radical the NRA has become. Take background checks. Ten years ago, the NRA would have been like “Cool, background checks. We don’t want guns in the wrong hands, either.” Now it’s like “OH MY GOD BACKGROUND CHECKS?!? FIRST STEP TOWARD CONFISCATION!! RUN FOR THE HILLS!” Take magazine size. The school shooting may have led some reasonable gun owners to think, “Hey, maybe I don’t really need to be able to fire fifty rounds in ten seconds.” The NRA is more like “OH MY GOD MAGAZINE LIMITS?!? STEP TOWARD CONFISCATION!! RUN FOR THE HILLS!”
So nothing got passed. But I think it did show that it’s possible to broach the subject of gun control and not turn into a pillar of salt. Let’s see who the NRA targets for defeat and if they survive it. Then, we’ll be able to judge if a price was paid.
Let’s not forget that after Citizen’s United, nearly all the top donors are PACs that support the GOP- that’s why you see things like Bachman outspending her opponent 12 to 1. Meanwhile there has been an ongoing campaign to destroy the unions- not on the merits of the case for doing so, but because they used to be big donors to the dems, and destroying them undermines support for the democratic party.
