WhyI'm leaving the Senate

[piercehawkeye45]

BASEBALL may be our national pastime, but the age-old tradition of taking a swing at Congress is a sport with even deeper historical roots in the American experience. Since the founding of our country, citizens from Ben Franklin to David Letterman have made fun of their elected officials. Milton Berle famously joked: “You can lead a man to Congress, but you can’t make him think.” These days, though, the institutional inertia gripping Congress is no laughing matter.

Challenges of historic import threaten America’s future. Action on the deficit, economy, energy, health care and much more is imperative, yet our legislative institutions fail to act. Congress must be reformed.

There are many causes for the dysfunction: strident partisanship, unyielding ideology, a corrosive system of campaign financing, gerrymandering of House districts, endless filibusters, holds on executive appointees in the Senate, dwindling social interaction between senators of opposing parties and a caucus system that promotes party unity at the expense of bipartisan consensus.

Many good people serve in Congress. They are patriotic, hard-working and devoted to the public good as they see it, but the institutional and cultural impediments to change frustrate the intentions of these well-meaning people as rarely before. It was not always thus.

While romanticizing the Senate of yore would be a mistake, it was certainly better in my father’s time. My father, Birch Bayh, represented Indiana in the Senate from 1963 to 1981. A progressive, he nonetheless enjoyed many friendships with moderate Republicans and Southern Democrats.

.....

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/21/op...=1&ref=opinion

This will obviously not accomplish much if not anything but symbolic none the less.

[SamIam]

Congress is evolving into some Byzantine creature that acts against the good of the nation in general. Filibusters and bi-partisan bickering keep it in a state of inertia. It is most effective as a cash cow for its members. I suppose it will change around the time of the fall of the American empire. Right now it has some entertainment value, but fails badly as an instrument of government.

[Griff]

The fun part is that us bitching about an ineffective legislature probably leads to a more powerful executive i.e. Caesar / Hitler.

[SamIam]

Yep, I was thinking the same thing. People will reach the point where anyone who is actually able to get things done will seem attractive.

[tw]

A curious feature of gerrymandering: only extremists and party 'devote' faithful can vote for the guy who is elected. Gerrymandering means the elected official is selected in a primary - not in the general election. This further entrenches the party extremists at the expense of moderates, centrists, independents, and other free thinkers. Just another reason why the American Congress is so confrontational. Worse, more work only for a political agenda and even less for America.

Despite the partisanship and rancor...and far more filibuster attempts by the minority party than any time in history...the first year of the 111th Congress was as productive or more than any recent session of Congress....or as Norm Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute wrote recently:

....this Democratic Congress is on a path to become one of the most productive since the Great Society 89th Congress in 1965-66, and Obama already has the most legislative success of any modern president -- and that includes Ronald Reagan and Lyndon Johnson.

The productivity began with the stimulus package, which was far more than an injection of $787 billion in government spending to jump-start the ailing economy. More than one-third of it -- $288 billion -- came in the form of tax cuts, making it one of the largest tax cuts in history...

....leveraged some of the stimulus money to encourage wide-ranging education reform in school districts across the country. There were also massive investments in green technologies, clean water and a smart grid for electricity, while the $70 billion or more in energy and environmental programs was perhaps the most ambitious advancement in these areas in modern times. As a bonus, more than $7 billion was allotted to expand broadband and wireless Internet access, a step toward the goal of universal access.

Any Congress that passed all these items separately would be considered enormously productive. Instead, this Congress did it in one bill.

Lawmakers then added to their record by expanding children's health insurance and providing stiff oversight of the TARP funds allocated by the previous Congress. Other accomplishments included a law to allow the FDA to regulate tobacco, the largest land conservation law in nearly two decades, a credit card holders' bill of rights and defense procurement reform.

Certainly, the quality of this legislative output is a matter of debate. In fact, some voters, including many independents, are down on Congress precisely because they don't like the accomplishments, which to them smack of too much government intervention and excessive deficits. But I suspect the broader public regards this Congress as committing sins of omission more than commission. Before the State of the Union, the stimulus was never really sold in terms of its substantive measures; it just looked like money thrown at a problem in the usual pork-barrel way. And many Americans, hunkering down in bad times, may not accept the notion of "countercyclical" economic policies, in which the government spends more just when citizens are cutting back.

Most of the specific new policies -- such as energy conservation and protection for public lands -- enjoy solid and broad public support. But many voters discount them simply because they were passed or proposed by unpopular lawmakers...

If the midterm elections in November turn out to be more like 1994, when Democrats got hammered, than 1982, when Republicans suffered a less costly blow, the GOP will probably be emboldened to double down on its opposition to everything, trying to bring the Obama presidency to its knees on the way to 2012. That would mean real gridlock in the face of a serious crisis. Given the precarious coalitions in our otherwise dysfunctional politics, we could go quickly from one of the most productive Congresses in our lifetimes to the most obstructionist.

And voters would probably like that even less.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...012902516.html

Health reform, more than anything else, has clouded and poisoned the environment and this is not all that unusual. To some extent, the debates in Congress in the past over similar major legislative initiatives (Social Security in the 30s, Medicare in the 60s) were rancorous and partisan. The difference being that in the end, the final votes were less partisan.

IMO, more than anything else, it has been a failure of communications for which Obama and the Democratic Congress are now facing the backlash.

[tw]

80 Presidential nominations from last year have been held up on Congress by one man - for a political agenda.
From ABC News on 4 Feb 2010:

What's Holding Up Security Nominees? Alabama Pork
We learned why Thursday when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid asked again to have votes on the nominees and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell objected, he said, on behalf of Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Al.

The reason? Shelby is concerned his state might lose some (very) lucrative defense contracts.

In other words – pork. Shelby calls them “unaddressed national security concerns.” McConnell called it “an issue with which I'm not terribly familiar.” ...

It all has to do with Alabama-based defense contracts.

First and foremost is the large ($35 billion, so large does not do the contract justice) government contract to build a new generation of refueling tankers for the air force. ...

He’s also frustrated that an FBI explosives lab planned for Huntsville, Alabama, and appropriated for with $45 million in 2007, hasn’t been built yet

Only days after ABC News made that a lead story, Sen Shelby relented to a block that has been ongoing since last year - even though he got no resolution. Sen Levin defined the problem:

Sen. Carl Levin, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, gave a frustrated speech on the Senate floor.

“They've been sitting on our calendar since December 2, over two months, while these positions go unfilled and we're in the middle of two wars,” said Levin of five total defense department nominees Shelby has held up (civilian positions only, points out Shelby’s office).

In this one case, government obstruction for political purposes was that overt and self serving.

In a followup article on just this one incident, ABC News (8 Feb 2010) notes:

Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby Says He's No Longer Blocking All Obama Nominees
Last month, the president chided GOP House members for saying no for the sake of opposing his initiatives, then turning around and benefitting from them.

"A lot of you have gone to appear at ribbon cuttings for the same projects you voted against," he said.

But for now, the president is striking a more bipartisan-sounding tone.

Did the groundhog see his shadow, or will the ice refreeze? A thaw is not yet apparent.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by abc

First and foremost is the large government contract to build a new generation of refueling tankers for the air force. ...

better than buying ham?

[tw]

Originally Posted by tw

Did the groundhog see his shadow, or will the ice refreeze?

From the NY Times of 22 Feb 2010:

5 Republicans Help Advance Jobs Measure in Senate
Five Republican senators broke ranks with their party on Monday to advance a $15 billion job-creation measure put forward by Democrats, a rare bipartisan breakthrough after months in which Republicans had held together to a remarkable degree in an effort to thwart President Obama’s agenda. ...
Senator Scott Brown, the newly elected Republican from Massachusetts, was the first member of his party to cast his vote for the measure.

[Elspode]

The days of working for the good of American citizens are long gone. The only thing that matters now is making sure that the laws and appropriations are directed into the pockets of those who can make our elected officials rich in turn.

I'm going to keep saying this until something happens to convince me that I'm wrong: It's all about the money. It isn't about anything else, ever, period.

I'll not be holding my breath while waiting for it to change.

[classicman]

amen

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Elspode

I'm going to keep saying this until something happens to convince me that I'm wrong: It's all about the money. It isn't about anything else, ever, period.

You're wrong... Oh wait, your not... nevermind.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by Elspode

The days of working for the good of American citizens are long gone. The only thing that matters now is making sure that the laws and appropriations are directed into the pockets of those who can make our elected officials rich in turn.

I'm going to keep saying this until something happens to convince me that I'm wrong: It's all about the money. It isn't about anything else, ever, period.

I'll not be holding my breath while waiting for it to change.

It is also about holding on to power and position. Other than that I have to give you an "amen".