Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
From where I'm sitting in the middle I see both major parties playing that game..
Party hardliners amaze me. How can they be so blind???
This is SO BEYOND that issue now.
Government has grown to become a cancer.
49% have at least one great society benefit.
We used to have 1 - 100 working for government on tax payer dollars and now we have 1 - 9.
This is unsustainable.
We are not talking less taxes and giving this or that.
We are talking slashing the size and scope of government and only covering the disabled and elderly for social programs. The rest need to go to work and become TAX PAYERS.
Do you kind of see what I mean that we are SO BEYOND the tiny issue you mentioned.
It's like talking about starting the BBQ when the whole house is on fire and you need to put it out so someone can still inhabit it.
Government has grown to become a cancer.
49% have at least one great society benefit.
We used to have 1 - 100 working for government on tax payer dollars and now we have 1 - 9.
This is unsustainable.
We are not talking less taxes and giving this or that.
We are talking slashing the size and scope of government and only covering the disabled and elderly for social programs. The rest need to go to work and become TAX PAYERS.
Do you kind of see what I mean that we are SO BEYOND the tiny issue you mentioned.
It's like talking about starting the BBQ when the whole house is on fire and you need to put it out so someone can still inhabit it.
No. Because the root cause of what you mentioned is a bi partisan effort to grow the gov. Until people start holding those in their own party equally accountable and looking at them with the same critical eye that they use to focus on the other we can not begin to repair any damage.
I agree with you that we need to slash the gov. I post it all the time. But to say that party hardliners are not a part of the problem or at the root? I disagree. We give the elected SOB's the power to screw us and our country by giving free passes.
We need a new president who, in his honeymoon period, will slash spending. Only after the cuts are done should we begin to restructure taxes. We need a president who understands business and finance. We need someone who believes that our free market system can be as successful as it has been for generations of Americans. We don't need someone who wants to make wholesale changes to our capitalist system, just wholesale changes to our government.
No one has to be "good" at filibustering. Senators can keep a bill from going to vote via the filibusterer and it takes a super-majority to overcome that. So unless a party has that 60 vote super majority and straight-party voting you cannot get legislation through the Senate without bi-partisanship.
This rule combined with they hyper-partisanship created after Obama's election has made the Senate a broken body.
It seems to me that maybe you weren't aware of how the Democrats stopped some important legislation during the Bush administration. Oh yes, Dirty Harry made good use of that filibuster all the time and now is crying his head off because the GOP uses that threat.
Today's filibusters are nothing but declarations of same and nothing has to be done beyond that declaration. The old way I liked so much called for the speaker on the floor to talk until he couldn't go any further. One old Democrat once read from the DC phone book for hours. Another one read favorite cooking recipes like how to make Pot Likker, whatever that is.
Oh the old time filibusters when the majority party brought in cots and kept some on the floor while the other slept to keep the speakers going were something but those today are just a parliamentary manner of playing the game.
If the cowardly inept Senate Democrats thought the GOP would attempt to filibuster something, then pass it and see if it happens.
Plus, you cannot filibuster a budget. But keep shilling for the Democrats, it's quite entertaining. I feel sorry for you for having to shill for such an abysmal record. They haven't given you much to work with.
Most of these left leaners don't understand about the filibuster and budgets just as they don't understand that all budgets have to originate in the House and then be approved by the Senate.
The funniest part of this budget stuff is that there is no way to get a compromise for a budget when Dirty Harry won't allow any debate or let committees try to work out compromises. It is too obvious that he doesn't want a budget.
I just want to be clear, the republicans are saying its NO EXCUSE that the democrats don't have 60 members to avoid a filibuster. They should still try to put the budget up to vote. Fine, if that is how you feel, I'll except it. The funny thing is, that is the arguement republicans use when they say they couldn't tackle entitlement reform when they had control of the oval office, the house and the senate.
You are very right. Dirty Harry declared a filibuster if any kind of discussion was to involve private funds for Social Security. That was done to keep something like that happening since so many younger people favored it. Also, he didn't want to see the GOP managing to do anything to save Social Security. That, of course, was because Dems consider SS to be their baby and aren't going to allow the GOP to "save it". The funny part of that one is that when they took over the Congress in 2007 they failed to make an effort to clean up SS so as to save it. Hmmmmmmmm, that old man really doesn't give a damn about the nation and the people in it. He cares, only about keeping power.
The following was a letter to the editor of the arizona daily sun newspaper last year, that i have hanging in my office.
To the editor:
Extremists of both the left and right seem to have forgotten that the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing.
The framers of the Constitution consciously created an entirely new system of government, a self-contained system that did not look to heaven or a royal court for authority, but to "We, the People."
That was a truly revolutionary idea in 1787, but the Framers knew that their radically new concept, if it were to survive, would have to accept what we the people were really like, and build on that reality.
What was that reality? The unfortunate fact that human beings, faced with choices, will always act in their own self-interest, the common good be damned. As Madison put it: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
Accordingly, the Framers established a system that would, they hoped, harness America's amazing drive and ambition by encouraging compromise so that, as Hamilton put it, the few could not oppress the many, nor the many the few.
In their system, composed of conflict within consensus, representation, checks and balances and tolerance of debate, the core of it all is compromise.
No compromise, no America.
DAVID RICHARDSON
Flagstaff
Compromise is not a bad word. It is what made America.
If you want a one sided government, there are plenty of dictatorships for you to choose from.
How hard has Harry Reid tried to compromise in order to get a budget? He tables every bill that comes from the House because his party didn't manage to control what came over. He won't allow any attempt at compromise by allowing committees to discuss the proposed bills and won't allow any discussion on the floor.
The only compromise I have seen lately has between Obama and Boehner, more than once but it has been Boehner who did all the compromising and Obama who has used the My way or the highway kind of dealing.
Your post is outstanding for what it says but not all the faulty about compromise rests with the GOP.
The following was a letter to the editor of the arizona daily sun newspaper last year, that i have hanging in my office.
To the editor:
Extremists of both the left and right seem to have forgotten that the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing.
The framers of the Constitution consciously created an entirely new system of government, a self-contained system that did not look to heaven or a royal court for authority, but to "We, the People."
That was a truly revolutionary idea in 1787, but the Framers knew that their radically new concept, if it were to survive, would have to accept what we the people were really like, and build on that reality.
What was that reality? The unfortunate fact that human beings, faced with choices, will always act in their own self-interest, the common good be damned. As Madison put it: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary."
Accordingly, the Framers established a system that would, they hoped, harness America's amazing drive and ambition by encouraging compromise so that, as Hamilton put it, the few could not oppress the many, nor the many the few.
In their system, composed of conflict within consensus, representation, checks and balances and tolerance of debate, the core of it all is compromise.
No compromise, no America.
DAVID RICHARDSON
Flagstaff
Compromise is not a bad word. It is what made America.
If you want a one sided government, there are plenty of dictatorships for you to choose from.
How hard has Harry Reid tried to compromise in order to get a budget? He tables every bill that comes from the House because his party didn't manage to control what came over. He won't allow any attempt at compromise by allowing committees to discuss the proposed bills and won't allow any discussion on the floor.
The only compromise I have seen lately has between Obama and Boehner, more than once but it has been Boehner who did all the compromising and Obama who has used the My way or the highway kind of dealing.
Your post is outstanding for what it says but not all the fault about compromise rests with the GOP.
You also failed to mention that President Obama's budget failed 99 to 0.
And 414 to 0 in the HOuse. Not one person voted yes on that supposed attempt. However, the Senate didn't debate it at all and I doubt that the House did either.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
