• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Government by serial crisis

Puppycow

Penultimate Amazing
Puppycow
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
32,024
Location
Yokohama, Japan
Is this any way to run a government?

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bitterly divided and poll-battered Congress has nearly worked its way out of a nasty fight over disaster aid, but only by abruptly abandoning efforts to immediately refill almost empty federal disaster relief accounts.

Instead, with the administration assuring lawmakers that the immediate infusion of $1 billion in disaster money wasn't needed to avoid a cutoff this week, Senate leaders moved quickly Monday to jettison the money from a pending Democratic measure and instead pass bare-bones legislation to avert a government shutdown at week's end.

That measure, approved by the Senate on a 79-12 vote, would keep the government running until mid-November.
Click to expand...

So we'll do it all over again in 6 or 8 weeks. And then what? Another temporary stopgap measure to keep the government running for a few more weeks?

:mad:
 
No, it's no way to run a government. Things have gotten worse, but they've been really bad for over a decade. The government is both corrupt and incompetent, though not because government is inherently either of these things. Honestly, it's an international embarrassment.
 
The worst part is the fact people are upset, but they are also rather apathetic about things getting better. I think some of this is because we've been told for decades about how government is awful, so when it doesn't perform well a lot of people just assume it can't do better. That doesn't mean they are happy about things, but it does mean they aren't rioting in the streets and to a good extent accept the status quo.

I really don't know how bad things have to get here before change is forced upon the political system. We have a pretty significant recession, a government that can't handle it well and is full an infighting, major debt looming on the horizon that looks equally insoluble by the government, ridiculous polarization, lack of implementing policies the vast majority of Americans want, etc, etc, etc. Reaction from the average citizen? Unhappiness and a shrug (so it seems).
 
Drachasor said:
Reaction from the average citizen? Unhappiness and a shrug (so it seems).
Click to expand...
A result of the perception that one "side" is as bad as the other, perhaps. It's not a phenomenon unique to US politics, unfortunately.
 
Well isn't this precious.

Eric Cantor wants FEMA aid for his congressional district, even as he is holding FEMA funding hostage to offsetting cuts in Democrat-favored programs.

Clearly it's a bit rich that Cantor is trying to make sure disaster relief funds get to his district as quickly as possible given that he was perhaps the key actor in the Capitol Hill showdown which threatened to halt all of FEMA's activities.

There's another implication here, though, that Cantor may ultimately be responsible for the delay. If he'd just said nothing -- never insisted for emergency supplemental funds for disaster relief be offset -- then disaster aid wouldn't have gotten mired in a budget fight, and the funds might have been easier to come by.
Click to expand...
 
Skepticemia

I think both Democrats and Republicans are crooks
 
If only there were a way to replace them all with cardboard cutouts of the stars of 70s television! That would be a government by the awesome, for the awesome. And far more effective than what we've got now.
 
It's very simple, by using the big lie, over and over and over, the Republicans have sold the people in middle America who they are messing over the very worst the idea that all of their misery is due to the Democrats.

Since they seem convinced that this "center" will hold, they are now deliberately, intentionally, and willfully trying to create even more misery for even more people, all over the country, by engaging in deliberate mismanagment and forcing paralysis.

As such, they are in fact engaging in traitorous activities by the common, as opposed to legal, use of the word, because they are intentionally injuring the very people they are supposed to be helping.

And why are they doing this? They are keeping 10 million people unemployed in order to try to get one person unemployed. It's all about power, and about putting their own religious right radicals in positions of power. It's all about Christianizing this nation, in the same way the Taliban took over Afghanistan, and then thrived on the misery there.
 
While I agree the elected Republicans are worse than the elected Democrats, JJ, it is still a fact that the elected Democrats also suck and are awful.

They could have done the Public Option, they had the votes for it and the vast majority of Americans wanted it. They could have looked at Universal Health Care, again most Americans wanted it. They could have made a stimulus bill that was actually really focused on stimulus. They failed on all these points and didn't even manage to get Medicare able to negotiate prescription drug prices.

Democrats might be better than Republicans, but they are both corrupt and incompetent.
 
Drachasor said:
While I agree the elected Republicans are worse than the elected Democrats, JJ, it is still a fact that the elected Democrats also suck and are awful.
Click to expand...

Oh, absolutely. No argument there.
 
Puppycow said:
Is this any way to run a government?

So we'll do it all over again in 6 or 8 weeks. And then what? Another temporary stopgap measure to keep the government running for a few more weeks?
Click to expand...


Your system has become insane. I don't know how else to put it.
 
Here we go again! Right on schedule!

Dems Consider Dropping Demands As Republicans Risk A Shutdown

If it weren’t for the filibuster, Democrats would have the GOP neatly over a barrel. But Republicans believe they’ve regained the upper hand — and two developments suggest they’re right.

Senate Democrats are now considering dropping their demand that a payroll tax holiday for workers be offset by imposing a small surtax on millionaires, according to Democratic aides — resigning themselves to the fact that Republicans won’t lift their filibuster if the surtax stands.

. . .

But they have to make a decision soon. Having tied the issue to funding for the federal government, which is set to run out Monday, a significant delay would risk a government shutdown. In a bid to force the Democrats’ hand, House Republicans opted Wednesday not to move ahead with a short term measure to avoid a shutdown, and are instead considering moving ahead with a longer-term “megabus” appropriations bill, hashed out in bipartisan negotiations. If it passes, Republicans can scatter to the four winds, and leave Senate Dems with a choice between passing everything the GOP wants, poison pills and all, and allowing the government to shut down and the payroll tax cut to expire.
Click to expand...

"Meet all of our partisan demands, or the government shuts down."
 
If you are in congress and think that government can be made to work, or that it cannot, you are right. The republicons are all operating on the assumption that it cannot be made to work. Thus, until we get the morons out of congress, government is not going to work. They have proven themselves incapable of governing, and there is no reason to send any of them back after the next election.

The same goes for the blue dog Democrats. Purify the party to at least that degree.

Republicons want the government broken so that they can sell the assets off to "people who know how to run it." For instance, sell the BPA and TVA to the next ERON. Let Gorton's Seafood manage the fisheries. Did you see how well they managed the Atlantic cod?

Georgia Pacific can manage the forests better than the Department of Argiculture. Have you seen the money that the Koch roaches have squeezed out of it?

Government is broken because a bunch of immature punks decided to break it for fun and profit. I have seen tweakers act more responsibly.

If the republicons don't want to govern, don't let them.
 
Another story on the impending government shutdown

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are abandoning their demand for a surtax on millionaires to help finance payroll tax cuts in a sign that lawmakers are trying to broker a compromise on Congress' highest-profile year-end dispute.

Even so, there is no clear path to quick bipartisan agreement on the legislation, which would prevent an automatic Social Security tax increase on 160 million workers and the expiration of jobless benefits for people out of work the longest. Both would occur Jan. 1 without congressional action.

Lawmakers are also embroiled in a squabble over a huge, separate spending bill, a dispute that would force a shutdown of most of the government on Saturday unless it is resolved.

. . .

The pre-Christmas wrangling caps a contentious year in a capital hindered by divided government, with Democrats controlling the White House and Senate while Republicans run the House. Lawmakers have engaged in down-to-the-wire drama even when performing the most mundane acts of governing, such as keeping agencies functioning and extending federal borrowing authority, tasks that are only becoming more politically delicate as the calendar nears the 2012 election year.
Click to expand...
 
I hope Senator Reid holds his ground and keeps the Senate in session until a bill is passed. The republicons need to go home and convince their owners that they have fought and won for Wall Street.

The Democrats would probably like to hold some town halls to discuss what the republicons have done to screw them over, but that can wait until the government actually shuts down and the mobs start forming, looking to rip someone limb-from-limb.

This is why republicons don't hold town halls any more. It could be life-threatening.
 
Why has this kind of governmental crisis been allowed to go on so long? Is it just partisanship taken to extremes on both sides?
 
nvidiot said:
Why has this kind of governmental crisis been allowed to go on so long? Is it just partisanship taken to extremes on both sides?
Click to expand...
As I have pointed out frequently, one side is out to make government work while the other is out to break it.

I think it is time to give up on the idea that it is best to balance the power between the executive and legislative branches by electing a president from one party and a congress from another. It doesn't work when the leaders of one party have all gone bat crap crazy or totally sold out to the biggest campaign donors.
 
Do you really think its all one sides fault Lefty?

Who am I kidding of course you do.

Does anyone have a more substantive response not tainted by the obvious bias lefty shows?
 
Don't know if I'm tainted but I'll give it a try.

1. The number of filibusters by the Reps this session set a record.
2. The number of appointments held up this session set a record. At one point, Jeff Sessions (R-AL) threatened to put a hold one EVERY nomination if he didn't get a bit of pork for his state.
3. The Reps want the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Agency to be run by a committee of 5 instead of an agency head like EVERY other governmental agency. No one, and I mean NO ONE, who wants an efficient and effective organization (public or private) demands that it be run by a committee.

I don't know if that makes it all the Reps fault, but I would be willing to say that the majority responsibility lies with them.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom