Yeah, things used to be rougher, but they also used to actually get something done on occasion. Can you see the current congress accomplishing that?
I don't mean to call out the Republicans for being uniquely unpleasant in this regard -- there have been periods when the Democrats have been just as calculatingly obstructive.
Hmm.
The House passed a budget this year. The Senate hasn't for almost three years.
The House passed an extension to govt financing/ operations. The Senate hasn't.
The House passed an extension to the payroll tax cut. The Senate refuses to even vote on it.
I wonder which party controls which branch of the legislature.
I didn't really mean for this to be an unpleasantly partisan post, just a statement of facts about the situation in Washington as I see it. The current Democrats in power have many flaws, but I see no reason to think their goal is to avoid action, because a lack of action would provide no benefit to them.
To argue that the House has genuinely tried to get things done during this session, I would think you would have to assent to one of the following two things:
1. Even with a divided Congress, it is not required for both parties to work together in a bipartisan spirit of compromise to pass meaningful legislation.
2. The current House of Representatives has genuinely tried to work closely together with Senate Democrats and the President in a bipartisan spirit of compromise to pass meaningful legislation.
Do you believe one of these things?
> a bipartisan spirit of compromise
I see that the repubs have given the dems some things that the dems want and the dems have refused "the deal" because they didn't everything that they wanted. How does that translate to "the repubs won't compromise"?
For example, the Dems claim to want an extension of the payroll tax reduction. The Repubs gave it to them. Is it unreasonable for the Repubs to get something as well?
I'm not saying that the Repubs are blameless, but it's absurd to claim that they're the only ones to blame.
You disagree, so please define this "bipartisan compromise" that the Dems are (at least somewhat) willing to do and that the Repubs are unwilling to do. Do you agree that this definition should be somewhat symmetric?
Note that the payroll tax extension package that passed the House did get some Dem votes. Do you interpret that as "some Dems were willing to compromise" or "Repubs offered a package that was acceptable to some Dems"? How, exactly, did you come to your conclusion?
You're not paying attention. Obama and the Dems DEMANDED a specific payroll tax cut, which the Repubs provided.
During those two years, the House was controlled by Dems and Dems had 60 votes in the Senate (until Kennedy died). How did the Repubs block things then?
Still, until Lincoln was elected and states started seceding, they did manage to pass routine funding bills. So that puts them one ahead of the current bunch of goons.