…so I wrote a long one instead.
This really is the worst Congress in my memory. Perhaps in history.
13 thoughts on “I Didn’t Have Time To Write A Short Bill”
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…so I wrote a long one instead.
This really is the worst Congress in my memory. Perhaps in history.
Comments are closed.
I feel so special to be alive at this moment in time sometimes. Other times… not so much.
Perhaps someone zealously in favor of the passage of cap and trade, and the House and Senate health care bills, can summarize what is in each that makes them so important.
The authors can’t.
While I am not trying to offer any defense of Congress, one important reason that this congress is so very bad is that it is entirely without balance. The enormous Democratic majority (many of whom have no real electoral opposition, and thus can govern free of any serious restraint) is living down to its worst impulses. While I won’t excuse their behavior, it isn’t difficult to imagine the same sort of behavior by the GOP if they were in the same situation.
This is why divided government is such a very, very good thing…
“While I won’t excuse their behavior, it isn’t difficult to imagine the same sort of behavior by the GOP if they were in the same situation.”
Yeah, we have a very recent example…the Bush administration before the 2010 elections. That’s arguably why we have a Democratic Congress now. These things always swing back and forth, it’s rare for a President to maintain a majority in Congress beyond his first midterm election.
Ethan, you mean the 2006 elections. It’s worth noting that necessary leadership changes in the Bush administration (like getting rid of Rumsfeld as the Secretary of Defense) didn’t happen until after the Republicans lost control of Congress.
I see that Nanny has decided to let you play again Ethan…
Lets be clear, I will NOT act as a defender of the GOP from 1994-2006, as much of their behavior was unconscionable, and led to their (richly deserved) electoral reverses. To suggest, however, that the GOP EVER enjoyed the sort of margins of control that the current Democratic party does shows (once again) your sad ignorance of even recent history. The GOP certainly did enjoy a majority in the house of representatives, though this majority was rarely more than 20 votes (half of what the Democrats enjoy), and their majority in the Senate never exceeded 55 seats (for comparison, the Democrats have 60). Hence the GOP always needed to swing votes in the Senate (to avoid filibusters), and was limited by a Democratic president during the 1990s, preventing their worst excesses at that time.
From 2001-2006, the GOP ran wild on spending, engaged in a host of reprehensible rules changes in the House, and generally behaved in an appalling fashion. The senate was less subject to excess as a result of a defection in 2001 (Vt) to the Dems, which gave the Dems a working majority from 2001-2002. Let us also remember that during this time, when the GOP held a far thinner and less commanding margin of power in both houses of congress, we heard endless whining from the Democratic party as to how we were heading into a dictatorship because the GOP controlled the government.
Fast forward to today. We are looking at Obama and the Democratic congress (the latter is more fairly to blame) generating more debt in a single year than Bush did in his first 7, massive restructuring (or at least attempts to restructure) significant portions of the economy despite polls showing overwhelming opposition, and an almost complete abdication of any sort of responsibility in terms of national security. One might reasonably find some basis to criticize both the democrats and the republicans as flawed vessels, but to pretend that the Dems in 2009 can simply point to the GOP and say ‘they did it too!’ as if their behavior was truly comparable says more about the spinner than the spin.
Simply put, the Democrats enjoy far larger majorities than the GOP has seen in recent memory, and cotrol of the White House (which itself has arrogated new powers unto itself with its massive use of ‘czars’ and administrative fiat)to boot. This was NOT what the founders had in mind, and with very good reason. They understood that with no real fetters upon them, those in government would in fact live down to their worst impulses.
If you truly want to compare the Democrats in 2009 with the GOP from 2003-2006 and pretend that they are equal, you simply reveal yourself more interested in cheap point scoring than serious debate. Go find Mark and play like good little boys, the adults want to talk seriously….
Christ, Ethan, I sure hope you are less than 20 years old. Only youth could possibly excuse such a combination of arrogance and ignorance. My 17-year-old daughter exhibits more understanding of history — or simply of people — than you do. If you’re only 16, I guess you’re OK, although you have a lot of growing up to do. But if you’re not still in school — maybe a hothouse plant still nestled in the tender nursery of graduate school? — then you’re an embarassment to your parents.
So revise the year I mentioned downwards by about three years and you’d agree with me, more or less? And I get insulted like this? You guys is dicks.
You still haven’t told us your age or lack therof Ethan.
I have to say that I think Ethan is being treated unfairly here. Is there anything wrong with the last statement he made?
Yeah, we have a very recent example…the Bush administration before the 2010 elections. That’s arguably why we have a Democratic Congress now. These things always swing back and forth, it’s rare for a President to maintain a majority in Congress beyond his first midterm election.
Aside from the date, I agree wholly with this particular statement.
Yeah. It reeks of simplistic overgeneralized smartassery. I’m one with the underlying obviousity that power corrupts, but going on to sigh cynically that all political parties and ideologies are ipso facto equally criminal is the sort of lazy pop-Marxist postmodern slacker attitude that brings us messianism in general and The Obamanation in particular.
This is why I can only tolerate the potheads at Reason for a short time; all the they’re all corrupt refusal to make adult choices between greater and lesser evils is tiresome, eventually.
Spot on Carl! The folks at Reason seem to believe that all needed to bring an end to all of mankinds troubles is to legalize dope!
Seriously though, the GOP didn’t cover itself with glory from 2003 – 2006 (before that too), but to suggest that there is no difference between them and the Dems of 2007+ is simply to ignore reality…
Happy New Year!
Seriously though, the GOP didn’t cover itself with glory from 2003 – 2006 (before that too), but to suggest that there is no difference between them and the Dems of 2007+ is simply to ignore reality…
Scott, let me refresh your memory. You were claiming that it would be difficult to imagine the GOP behaving like the Democrats currently are. Ethan merely pointed out a time in history, in the very recent past, where the GOP did have that power and did behave extremely irresponsibly. At this point, your argument seems to be that this was a totally different situation because the Republicans didn’t quite have the commanding lead that the Democrats had. The problem with that argument is that the Democrats have considerable trouble with party discipline both then and now. It wasn’t hard for the Republicans of 2003-2006 to get a few Democrat votes for cloture. In comparison, the Democrats of now have trouble getting all their members to vote for cloture now and they have to offer generous bribes to get past filibusters. I think the situations were a lot more comparable in level of power than you claim.
Having said that, I think the key difference is that the Republicans of 2003-2006 were less greedy or independent of the president. For all of Bush’s flaws, he never let Congress bully him. I don’t see Obama managing even that level of influence with Congress. That meant both that Congress of now was more blatant in its pursuit of wealth and ideology than the Republican Congress, and the Executive Branch hasn’t been acting to brake those ambitions.