For Some in the GOP, Party Trumps Country
From the Wall Street Journal:
“>Some Republicans Take a Scorched-Hill Tack Leaving Budget Decisions To Democrats Could Disrupt New Leadership’s Agenda
Like a retreating army, Republicans are tearing up railroad track and planting legislative land mines to make it harder for Democrats to govern when they take power in Congress next month.…The unstated goal is to disrupt the Democratic agenda and make it harder for the new majority to meet its promise to reinstitute “pay-as-you-go” budget rules, under which new costs or tax cuts must be offset to protect the deficit from growing.
…The White House is watching with alarm, as are many Senate Republicans, who have a greater stake than the House in maintaining relations with Democrats.
“There are individuals who want to blow up the tracks, and there are more of those individuals in the House,” said one Senate leadership aide.
Partisans might see this as simply the way the game is played. But I see it a sad corruption of elected representatives who see their roles as champions for their party rather than for their country.
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29 Responses to “For Some in the GOP, Party Trumps Country”
Of course. This is exactly the behavior one would expect from an extremist group. The term “neo-con” wasn’t coined without reason. They don’t care about America. For them, no one lower than a corporate board room member are real Americans. Take note America! Watch and learn.
I hate to say it, but I’m really not at surprised. This has been their governing style for some time. I’m just sorry it was obscured by 9/11 and its aftermath.
The damage Osama caused only started on that date.
And this is different from the last few dozen changes in power balance in Congress how?
Yes, that’s the way the game has always been played. By both parties. Forever. That’s not a “partisan” evaluation, but an accurate historical one. It’s also the way the game is usually played while Congress is in session, or the “Gang of 14″ would never have been formed.
Yes, it’s still sad.
If that’s true, I’ve never seen it before. Tully- do you have any examples to back up your claim? But from now on I really don’t want to hear them questioning the Democrats’ patriotism.
It’s really too bad we don’t have a viable third party, or more for that matter. That won’t happen until we get the money out of campaigns.
I think the time is right to start the movement to publicly fund all elections. Money doesn’t equal free speech for one very important reason: voices are 1 person, one voice. 50+% of the wealth is concentrated in the top 2% of the population. How is the working stiff supposed to compete with THAT?
I don’t mind paying an extra $5 a year to create an election fund that would pay for all House, Senate, and Presidential campaigns. Since all the airwaves belong to We The People as well, we can require the TV stations to give equal amounts of airtime to candidates. That’s a tiny price to pay for the huge asset they’re allowed to use for next to nothing in fees.
Just think — nobody would have a money edge on anyone else, so their message would have to be the deciding factor, not just getting a lousy message out hundreds of times to get name recognition. Plus these candidates would have to do lots of footwork to get themselves on the ballot: no more automatic Dems and GOPers every cycle. They would have to earn their spot just like everyone else.
Australia has a brilliant system of Instant Runoff Voting (IRV). IRV allows you to rank your preferred candidates, so you can vote for a third party without sabotaging the next-closest party (IE, you really like the Libertarians, but you don’t want to take votes away from the Democratic candidate.) I think it would be a great idea to implement that system here… that would also allow more effective tertiary political parties to spring up overnight.
Like Leonard Cohen sang: “Democracy is coming to the USA”.
Had they tried to resolve many of these issues BEFORE the turnover to the Democrats, the complaints we’d be hearing instead would be “how dare those nasty Republicans try to pass GOP policies during the lame-duck session”.
I mean, come on folks. If the GOP congress voted to extend a package of tax breaks immediately after losing control of the Congress, before the incoming Democrats can take over, wouldn’t everybody be complaining that they were trying to ignore the results of the election?
Tell you what… all the Democrats promise to stay home for 2 legislative days, and I promise the GOP will pass bills on all these issues rather than leave them for the next Congress.
That’s not to say I approve of individual GOP members delaying these particular bills. In fact, as a Louisianian, I’m very upset that some interests are stalling the bill which would let Louisiana and other coastal states share in some of the federal revenue produced by offshore oil leases. But it’s hardly a “scorched-earth” tactic.
Look at the subhead of the article “Leaving Budget Decisions To Democrats Could Disrupt New Leadership’s Agenda”. In other words, the Democrats want to be able to blame the Republicans for all the tough decisions that have to be made on budget issues, so they can have more time to play with THEIR favorite policy issues. Nothing terribly evil, just politics as usual.
Actually, it reflects very poorly on the outgoing Republicans. Here they were voted out because of high levels of corruption within the party and a lack of oversight over the executive on Iraq, and just today a report surfaced stating that work habits in the House included a 2 1/2 day work week under Denny Hastert. Aren’t most reasonable people going to assume that they could have made time for something as important as budget decisions? I guess they were too busy coming up with ideas for all those negative campaign ads and figuring out their cover stories on the Foley scandal.
Do you actually know any congressmen, Kim? Have any idea what it is that they do when they’re not in D.C.? When they’re back home in the district, I can assure you they are still working, and very hard. They’re meeting with local leaders, constituents, talking on the phone to colleagues elsewhere, tracking down administration problems to solve constituent problems. That they are not in Washington does not mean in any way that they are not working.
Pat,
When Congressmen are home in the district, they’re usually doing constituent service. That usually means administering and watching out for some sort of pork in their district. “What bridge do you need built?” “What project do you need money for?” These aren’t exactly farmer-politicians of the past who till the fields between votes.
I don’t place too much premium on how much time Congressmen spend in Washington, but clearly there is a correlation between the total lack of accomplishments of the 109th Congress and the time spent in Washington.
Elrod
I have taken time to look at a lot of that pork. What I found was Democrats funding police anti-gang units, school development and other such useful services. With republicans I find things like pig farming foundations with empty buildings, the famous bridge to no-where and general wasteful crap. Not even a single veterans concern of note funded buy the BIG patriot republican party. Granted there are some Democrat boondoggles, but by comparison to the republicans, not very damn many. The republicans often point out a visceral Democrat attitude toward them. Its no wonder.
Excellent comment from Nancy Pelosi about this:
“It’s a demonstration of the irresponsibility of Republicans that they would leave this country with this mess,” said the next House speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.). “But we won, we will deal with it.”
The Wall Street Journal article was nonsense. The Republicans are not cutting budgets. The FY 2007 budget is just postponed until January. The real issue is that the Democrats under Pelosi will not be able to grandstand and pass feel good legislation but instead will have to do what the Constitution says it will do and pass budgets.
I wonder if next October that a Democratic Controlled Congress will have al of its budget bills passed and signed off or will the federal government be functioning under another round of continuing resolutions.
If that’s true, I’ve never seen it before. Tully- do you have any examples to back up your claim?
1994 and 2000. Both left big chunks of unfinished business on the table after a balance of power shift in one or both houses. That’s just recent. It also happened in 1970, 1980, and 1982. In one of those the change of power was in the White House, in the other two it was an incumbent (Dem) majority holding back bills they didn’t want the opposition President to get credit for–or get vetoed before they could lobby the new opposition members for the support needed to overcome their own internal party opposition. If you read the article closely you’ll see that’s a big factor this time as well.
IOW, it’s a staple of Congress in almost any contentious environment, which is as often as not. Some of the very worst of it was in 1942 and 1944, where the GOP and the Southern Democrats united to block huge chunks of Roosevelt’s non-war agenda. They left more on the table those sessions than vegans do at a barbecue cookoff.
No, it’s not pretty. But it’s hardly unique.
And the up side–not passing the bills that were waiting eliminates over ten thousand pork earmarks. That’s a lot of bad baggage to leave behind. No wonder Robert Byrd is so sad!
I can’t help but recall the outrage, sheer outrage! Republicans voiced when the Clintons were accused of “destroying” the White House on their way out of office. Doing terrible things to America like removing the Ws from computer keyboards – all of which was later acknowledged to be bullsh**, of course.
Where’s the outrage from the 101st Keyboarders now?
Do you know how long it took to bring back decency to the Whitehouse, Mike P.? I’ll tell you: 2 weeks, and about 6 semi trailers. They dropped it at the loading dock, but no one seems to have seen it since because all of the staffers were busy looking for non-missing ‘W’ keys. It may now be in that big government warehouse depicted in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Mike P
lol, I remember that. Like a bunch of children these neo-cons have proven to be. Mr.Gandelman may have the right idea with this “moderate togetherness” thing, but its really difficult considering the past fifteen years of hate attacks from the right.
the current crop of the gop never cared about the country or the people. they have been about disruption, personal greed and partisanship.
They are a disgrace and I hope in 10 years they look back and feel proud of themselves as no one else will be.
Tully, I wonder if now the Democrats can lay in their own earmarks but for a lower total amount and claim credit for reducing the GOP pork fest?
I think Tully is largely right; outgoing majorities always do this sort of thing.
PatHMV- Maybe they do constituent work at home—-but then it would seem that they would have been more in touch with the voters, wouldn’t it? That was one of the biggest complaints of the last election. They ducked the big issues-like the budget, ethics legislation, immigration, and a war that was spiraling out of control, in order to pass- what was it— right before the election? Oh, a bill to ban the sale of horsemeat abroad. Now I’m an animal lover, but I just don’t think anyone believed they were working all that hard between Tuesday afternoons and Thursday mornings.
As I stated elsewhere, they need 4 day weekends to be in touch with the constituents. Then, they need an endless cycle of long recesses to be in touch with the constituents because they can’t be in touch with them when Congress in session.
I agree that returning to the home district is a big part of the job. So is being in Washington to draft, discuss, review, and vote on legislation. You can’t have it both ways. Either work a full week and take the frequent long recesses or work a short week and cut back on the recesses.
I agree with Ryan, also agree with those who state they can communicate with constituents by e-mail or 1-800#’s, mass mailings, etc while in Washington. Aren’t their low approval ratings in the polls due to a poor work ethic, the view that they are largely out-of-touch with the lives of average Americans, and their tendency to put their partisanship ahead of what’s best for the country????
I accept that it is somewhat standard operating procedure for the outgoing party to dump controversal crap and unfinished business on the incoming party.
But I don’t think it is right. It believe that they have duty and made a committment to represent their constituents by working as hard as they can to make even incremental improvement in our quality of life.
Paul, just what I was thinking. It’s like a kid saying “Timmy did it first!” It’s about time they grow up and act like adults. Instead of trying to score political points, they should try doing their jobs. Maybe if they focused on doing their jobs in the first place, their constituents wouldn’t be upset enough with them to vote them out in the first place.
This goes for Democrats, too. If they get voted out in 2008 and dump things on Republicans, I’ll be saying the same thing of them. At some point, we need real adults who know how to act like adults running this country.
That’s the worldwide figure. To make the top 2%, your assets less liabilities only need to total about $6700 to make you a part of that top 2%
Yes. It’s much better in the United States, where the top 1% hold 32.7% of the wealth and the top 5% hold the top 57.7% of the wealth. The bottom 50% hold an amazing 2.8% of the wealth. (Numbers as of 2001. Given trends over the past 2 decades, wealth is likely even more concentrated now.)
Elrod
Well the Democrats were on C-Span this morning calling the repubs out on that accusation. The republicans declined to defend themselves for their actions. Did not happen in 1994 Elrod. The Democrats set up the republicans quite well as they left.
However the republicans are indeed tearing up the tracks as they leave in an apparent FU to the American voter. Well, FU too republican party.
Maybe the GOP will be come a permanent minority, instead of the permanent majority party. By moving to the right after the midterms (about 10 moderates in the House lost their seats), they will fail to appeal to moderates and independents, who will still be blaming them for Iraq and giving carte blanche to an incompetent president for 3 1/2 years.
They are getting a lot of advice from Tom Delay-who moved to the DC area, so count on more scummy tactics to come. A lot of what they did to win in the short run turned off a lot of people in the long run. Many who had never voted for a Democrat before crossed over this year. They will have an uphill climb in ’08. Ain’t democracy grand???