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When did not having 60 senate seats become an excuse for not working out a budget? Are the republicans that great at filibusters? Or do the dems melt at the mere mention of the word?
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.
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.
That's bullshlt.
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.
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.
Ya know, I believe a little electoral education is due here:
We elect people to do OUR will. We, the People don't want the crap dems are shoveling. If our elected reps fail to do our will, they will be history.
Compromise with idiotic dems is not an option.
Get it now?
This country was founded on compromise.
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.
Five budget proposals were shot down in the senate but no democrat budget was proposed. In this time of devastating deficits at least the republicans are out there trying to find a solution. Where are the democrats on the most important issue of our time? It is now 3 1/2 years without a democrat budget proposal. BTW Obama's political budget was defeated again 99 - 0. Now that's leadership. We need a new president.
The first thing wrong is to declare Simpson-Bowles "bi-partisan." While there were an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, the committee was stacked with conservatives, like Sen. Max Baucus and Sen. Kent Conrad on the Dem. side. Bowles himself is a small-government conservative. So, essentially, B-S was a compromise between the center-right and the hard-right.
We can see how bad the proposal was on day-one. The co-chairmen released a document outlining their proposal which started with the declaration of “Our Guiding Principles and Values.” Among them is, “Cap revenue at or below 21% of G.D.P.” This is a guiding principle? Why was a commission charged with finding every possible route to a balanced budget setting an upper (but not lower) limit on revenue?
It got worse. “Lower Rates” was the first bullet point; “Reduce the Deficit” was the second.
So how, exactly, did a deficit-cutting commission become a commission whose first priority was cutting tax rates, with deficit reduction after that?
On taxes, B-S recommended a mixture of tax cuts and tax increases — tax cuts for the wealthy, tax increases for the middle class and poor (e.g. "broaden the base".) They suggest eliminating tax breaks that matter a lot to middle-class Americans — the deductibility of health benefits and mortgage interest — and using much of the revenue gained thereby, not to reduce the deficit, but to allow sharp reductions in both the top marginal tax rate and in the corporate tax rate.
B-S was nothing innovative and recommended the same dry tax-cut for the rich that conservatives always present. The proposal clearly represents a major transfer of income upward, from the middle class to a small minority of wealthy Americans. And what does any of this have to do with deficit reduction? Nothing. Because B-S ended up not reducing the deficit. Their major way of reducing the deficit, holding down medical costs, has no specifics.
Do you know how far left you are? Even the super lefty Pelosi supports Simpson Bowles. When reading your posts we need to remember we are reading from someone who is left of Nancy. Nancy Pelosi Says She'd Back Simpson-Bowles Plan (VIDEO)
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.
They couldn't pass it because, at it was explained, they couldn't overcome the Republican filibuster.
Do you know how far left you are? Even the super lefty Pelosi supports Simpson Bowles. When reading your posts we need to remember we are reading from someone who is left of Nancy. Nancy Pelosi Says She'd Back Simpson-Bowles Plan (VIDEO)
What I didn't mention was that Republicans were for Simpson-Bowles until Obama signed on too. Then, they were against it. Simpson-Bowles Plan Rejected By House
Simpson-Bowles failed 382-38 in the House, so I am with lots of company that thought it was bad.
Last edited by MTAtech; 05-26-2012 at 04:04 PM..
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