Senate Republicans killed a small business assistance bill as the New York Times reported today, reinforcing Republicans putting politics before policy and sound governance.
Right now, the swing has been running the Republicans' way in the upcoming mid-term elections. I think that's going to change though, because G.O.P now stands for Grabs Of Power. The Republicans have stonewalled a necessary summer jobs bill, stonewalled energy legislation, and now have blocked, by a 58-42 vote along party lines, the small business legislation designed to give tax relief to America's small businesses.
The Democrats gave the minority Republicans several amendments to the bill, but they would not give them enough amendments to fundamentally derail the bill. GOP legislators filibustered a bill that had the backing of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business, and which was co-authored by Republican legislators.
It's a familiar theme. Republicans will help author a bill to claim when they're running that they were for the legislation, then filibuster to kill it to blame the Democrats for not bringing them to the table. It's a Fox News-aided slight-of-hand that the GOP and their news organization are hoping will spin into a win in August for their slate of candidates for federal office.
What it really indicates is how weak the Republican position is. After nearly two years of stonewalling, their record of actual governance is a near zero . Every piece of major legislation has seen them block-vote "no" without regard to the public policy or public service that these bills address. They've even voted down bills like the health care plan which fundamentally are Republican plans. What they call "Obamacare" is actually mostly "Romneycare," but even the former Governor is acting like he knows nothing about any connections to his own plan because he thinks he can make hay with a political electorate which has trouble repeating what Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly drill into their brains daily.
The bigger problem is not Republican intransigence, but the weak-kneed response to it by Democrats at the local level.
Kenrdrick Meek (D -FLA.) has been more concerned with Jeff Greene passing him up in the polls than the platform that he should be running on. Both Democratic candidates have largely been mum on the no vote of Senator George LeMieux (R - FLA) who helped draft the bill, then killed it. Had LeMieux voted in favor of the bill that he co-authored, it would have passed, the fact of which both Democratic Florida hopefuls missed, but which Rhode Island Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D) had no problem calling out.
"Half the truth is no truth at all," LeMieux shot back to the Times.
Of course, that door swings both ways, and the Republican half-truths have a lot more to do with politics than policy. They are banking on an angry, scared white electorate that was denied John McCain in the last general election to lash out against Obama and his supporters.
Let us all hope that those in small business who support local and the U.S. Chambers remember who actually killed the bill that was set to give them aid come August.
The only way that will really come to pass, though, is if the Democrats get that message in front of the voters. Is that happening?
If you go to the window now, and witness a flock of pigs flying South, there is hope. Otherwise, the GOP will employ its usual barrage of mendacities to smoke screen the damage they are causing to public policy and the economy in the name of getting re-elected, and the Democratic candidates will tattoo "WELCOME" on their chests so the muddy footprint of their Republican challenger walking all over them makes them feel like the doormats that they are.
My shiny two.
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fiasco, the Obamacare fiasco, the financial non-reform fiasco, the Sherrod fiasco, the Massa fiasco,
the Maxine Waters fiasco, the Rangel fiasco, and Obama's do-nothing fiasco with Arizona., yeah,
we just love it when our president sues one of our states. We'll remember That, for sure!
Obamacare has been anything but a "fiasco." Perfect? No. Lots to criticize from both sides of the game? Yes. But he got the ball rolling, which, as Teddy Kennedy pointed out, sometimes is the best that you can hope for. Work hard to get people who aren't bought and paid for by the insurance industry to craft it better.
As for Rangel, Obama is not his keeper, anymore than I would tag George Bush for his politicos doing the Texas two-step in the men's room to attract a date.
I think the word "fiasco" is appropriate for virtually everything done by the Obama administration. BO thought the waters would part in front of him, but wow...he actually had to MAKE DECISIONS and RESPOND TO CRISES! Who would have thought it? Virtually all his decisions have been to pacify the unions, who hold him tightly in their back pocket.
And every time they sing it, the Democrats just stand there. For such intelligent people, why oh why don't they gather up those talking point that the GOP hand them on a platter and fling it back at them? And do it over and over. Or at least do it once with such a zinger that it becomes as memorable as "Where's the Beef?" Unlike them you don't have to lie or smear about their record - just use theirs against them.
I'm an Independent and I cannot tell you how it frustrates me. Messaging, never letting the sun set on a faux pas, taking pictures of them with their foot in their mouth or their hand in the cookie jar and making it go viral. There's really not much to do, or any outrageous display to make - you just have to make something of what they do and did and either thump it like a drum or make it go viral and let it do its own damage.
The Republicans are very very good at this. Be better at it. Because if you don't? You're going to be handing us over to those low lifes. Are you listening DNC? Prominent Democrats? Campaign managers? Anybody?
When you have a whole media organization to promote your political agenda, you can say and do most anything and some of the public will believe they're hearing THE TRUTH.
I want mine to be all Democrats, the others? we have had them and it wasn't pretty.
One more Republican President and we will need to bring the military home to run the soup kitchens.
Yes, States with Democratic Governors will have soup kitchens, the others? Bread lines, bread and water only and bring your own bread.
Because I don't. I think we'd have about what we have now, but with different excuses. I think the democrats' job is to talk the part of the left and vote the part of the corporatist oligarchy. Isn't it funny how many votes are EXACTLY on the nose for passage or defeat? You know why that is? Because they round up just exactly as many votes as they need to beat the stuff they don't want, and everyone else votes for it so it looks like there's democracy at work.
But you give the Dems 65 votes and they'd come up with whole new ways to do the bidding of their corporate masters as they put on their little song and dance and try to make it look like they actually care about the American public.
David Stockman provides a very convincing argument in today's NYT on how the Republicans are destroying our country's economy through its outrageous ideas on managing this country's finances, debt, etc.
Example: "IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing. The nation’s public debt — if honestly reckoned to include municipal bonds and the $7 trillion of new deficits baked into the cake through 2015 — will soon reach $18 trillion. That’s a Greece-scale 120 percent of gross domestic product, and fairly screams out for austerity and sacrifice. It is therefore unseemly for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, to insist that the nation’s wealthiest taxpayers be spared even a three-percentage-point rate increase."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?_r=1&ref=opinion
Thank you.
The problem is, very few people look beneath the surface. The GOP issued a budget with no numbers, decry government spending while spending like drunken sailors and present no alternative actions, only stonewalling. And the Democratic Party sits there and lets them run the show.
Maybe a few more years of Republican misrule is what it takes to really get people mad and put some steel in the fire for the Democrats to forge and we can get an invigorated progressive party again. If the country still exists after a few more years of GOP misrule, that is. Maybe we'll be too busy at our "Mandarin for Business" classes our corporate masters tell us is a requirement for employment.
I am still hopeful that Americans can see through this garbage but will it be enough to get people into the voting booths during the mid-terms? If you don't vote in November, then you will have a majority with no ideas, no solutions and no willingness to work with the President. It will be the congress that we deserve.
the dems have been the majority since 2006...
how are the republicans ruling from the minority....
http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1545310/20061108/story.jhtml