Senate The Future of the Republican Party

You're acting as if the Republicans ever intended on cooperating. They didn't. They've said this. It's not a secret. "Aiming high" would not have fixed anything.

 

Obama campaigned on being a post-partisan uniter and compromiser, and so he did just that. And what was the Republican response? To try to undermine his presidency even before he took office. Why? Because they believed their own rhetoric, they believed the Republican Party = America. And so when they lost they simply couldn't stand it.

 

The New Yorker articled ridiculed her because she was attacking Obama for exactly what he wanted and did that her party so vehemently opposed. Obama has repeatedly said our priority should be jobs and, when we get people working, the deficit and debt will start to come down. Hence the JOBS bill the GOP won't pass. But, instead, we have to continue to negotiate with the GOP over their desire for austerity which is the opposite of more jobs.

The conventional wisdom that Obama was soft and 'lacked leadership' on the stimulus is the typical narrative but it is completely wrong. There is even a book about Obama's handling of the stimulus and what was in it titled exactly what you were asking for: "The New New Deal" from a Time reporter that got great reviews.

The truth is that he aimed as high as he could - and got as high as he politically could. He got a stimulus of $800 billion which was the general consensus from Summers, Orzsag, and Romer at the time (the reason it wasn't big enough to satisfy our 'employment needs' is that we thought the economy was contracting at 3% of GDP before he took office. It was contracting at 9%). Also, the 3 Republicans (Snowe, Collins, Specter) who voted for the stimulus set their absolute limit at $800B - any more and they would have jumped shipped. Moderate Democrats (Baucus & co.) put their limit at roughly the same. And that was the only way to get over McConnell's filibuster.

The stimulus was a little heavier on tax cuts that most on the left would have preferred, but that again was the terms of condition to get the necessary moderate Dem/GOP votes to break McConnell's filibuster.

However, the infrastructure projects it included were also maxed out. There are only so many "shovel ready" infrastructure projects that were already on the DoT or the states' radar and they included nearly ever one; hence they would have had to either just paid people to fill potholes or thrown money at unnecessary and inefficient projects just to pay someone. They were hoping to go for more after a year, but the GOP refused to even consider new stimulus and McConnell again wouldn't let anything pass the Senate.

So, yeah. He got the absolute highest he could get through the filibuster-prone Senate (and the target his top economists were hoping for) but it wasn't high enough because GDP was 3x as worse as they thought it was. And it included nearly all of the infrastructure projects possible, and the GOP blocked any future projects. Also, it was never designed to completely 'fix' our employment needs but it stopped the bleeding and reversed the downward spiral. Without the demand injected into the economy from the stimulus, we'd likely be calling 2008-201 'The Second Great Depression.'

 

Meh. Politics is analogous to a very high level team sport, and it isn't exactly convincing to say "But the other team stymied me!" when your performance is poor.

Still, the "blame it on the Republicans" narrative is par for the course for Obamapologists. It obscures two actually important issues: "What did Obama actually want before he warned us all to "curb our expectations"?" and "Why are the Democrats so singularly incapable of acting as a blok the way the Republicans do, day in and day out?"

 

Democrats actually have a more diverse party, that is the big difference between them. You have the blue dogs in conservatives states/districts and then the liberals in California and New York, moderates in Virginia etc.

And the GOP is simply more organized.

 

It's called the filibuster and the unprecedented use of it by McConnell.

 

Yeah...just his candidacy three times.

 

Homogenized you mean. No, they're not all old, whte, and rich, but that that constiuent makes up a bulk of their support I'd say that's why they're able to act with better coordination. They all have the same goal: save whitey.

 

EBB, that actually strikes me as a pretty poor reading of the dynamics in Congress. The Republican caucus is actually pretty wildly disorganized. They have failed to pass bills that even their own membership and core constituencies feel is critical, like the Agricultural omnibus. Likewise, a major feature of the debt ceiling negotiations in the summer of 2011 was the inability of the Republican leadership to corral their own members into backing the deal under any circumstances, and the extensive educational campaigns and pressure tactics that ultimately had to be deployed to facilitate this. By contrast, both the Senate and House Democrats have been better at staying together as a group with minimal defections.

What you are instead witnessing is an artifact of parliamentary procedure. To break a Senate filibuster, all of the Democrats have to vote affirmatively for a piece of legislation. To sustain a filibuster, the Senate Republicans only need to convince their colleagues not to vote against it. Thus, a bill with 54 Democratic "Ayes" and a single "Nay" will fail, when combined with Republicans offering 40 "Ayes" and 5 "Nays." 5 defections is clearly more than 1, but the Republicans are nonetheless successful thanks to the asymmetric rules.

 

So Merk, according to your worldview, when the republicans are in power, the democrats are powerless to stop anything they do, so it's the republican's fault. But when democrats are in power, they're still powerless to stand up to the GOP, so it's still the republican's fault. This is no matter what the topic is or who is President... I mean, it couldn't be that the administration lost its momentum during the first term by becoming obsessed with "legacy," could it? Or that arrogance is driving the scandals of the start of the second term? I don't know who this is suppose to reflect more poorly on-the crushing strength of the GOP, or the paralyzing ineptitude of the democrats. Of course, I don't think your view accurately reflects the political realities, but if it works for you, I guess stick with it. Along with that, here's another political cartoon which the Chicago Tribune ran today:

 

Well, yeah, when you have an intransigent governing body which won't work and makes stupid demands, then yeah...it's really their fault. And you're being obtuse. Which isn't so much of a shocker. The real shocker here would actually admitted that the GOP is doing anything wrong at all. The 60 vote rule? A Republican rule. Who controls the House? Republicans. Who let the tea party derp in? Republicans. Now, Obama's not been great by any means, but if you think it's his failure to get these bunch of morons in line then http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/washington-inside-out/eric-cantor-s-caucus-thwarts-his-push-for-an-alternative-agenda-20130516]you[/url] http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/ted-cruz-i-dont-trust-republicans?ref=fpb]are[/url] http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/05/21/cnn-exclusive-oklahoma-senators-on-disaster-relief-funding/]dead[/url] http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/treasury-secretary-to-boehner-raise-debt-limit-cleanly?ref=fpb]wrong[/url].

 

I honestly have no idea what this even means.

The arguments that the administration "lost their momentum by becoming obsessed with legacy" and arrogance led to the scandals are both vague and a misguided view of the facts. Your first argument I actually am clueless as to what you're trying to say. Your second is about as informed as my opinion on Japanese politics. We can go through one by one, if you like, but it might just boil down into vague accusations against me of partisanship and you unwilling to provide examples because I'll "discard" them anyway.

The intransigence of the GOP basically boils down to two things: (1) the filibuster and McConnell's unprecedented use of it to require anything in the Senate to get 60 votes (this is a fact) and (2) a major wing of the House GOP being uncooperative, even with their own leaders, and not being focused on anything besides trying to obstruct Obama. The debt ceiling debacle(s), the 38 attempts to repeal Obamacare, the Hastert Rule, Boehner's 'Plan B' failure, the list goes on are all instances where Boehner and the sane Republicans were willing to work out a deal but the Tea Partiers derailed his efforts. For the debt ceiling, Boehner was willing to reach a deal but was stuck because the Tea Party were refusing to raise it and wanted to default. You can't work with someone when half their caucus wants to throw the economy over a cliff to prove a point.

If you disagree with either of the two points above, please explain. I'd love to hear.

 

I'm not even sure that he does either.

 

Nah, I'll just wait for Merk as part of a larger, detail-focused exchange.

On a side note, my respect for Code Pink, at least Medea Benjamin, who is a member of Code Pink, went up a bit. Not because of who she specifically heckled, but because she stayed focused on her personal issues regardless of the person at the podium.

 

So? Democrats were trying to beat George W. Bush from the get-go as well. Both sides do that stuff. Bill Sammon wrote in Fighting Back how Democratic strategists, including James Carville, were talking political strategy on the morning of September 11 before the Twin Towers were hit. Carville even uttered the same "I hope he fails" that you liberals pilloried Rush Limbaugh for saying.

Merk, let's put it this way... I get real sick of liberals who act all sanctimonious about stuff then their guy is in power, but work against the Republican president. They say "dissent is patriotic" - then who turn to use the IRS against political dissenters - when they aren't playing the race card.

There are really only two ways to go with the IRS thing:
1. Obama's administration has seen abuses of government power at a level not seen since Richard Nixon. I don't think there is evidence of direct orders, but at a minimum, Obama's speeches point to comments along the lines of those a British king uttered about one Thomas Becket.

2. The Tea Party is so dangerous, it warranted the use of the IRS against an organization that was protesting domestic policies of the President.

Which is it?

Let;s cut through the BS and hypocrisy. Tell me where you stand. Is the Tea Party the victim of the misuse of government power, or are they so dangerous, they need to be suppressed by any means necessary?

 

3. These Tea Party political organizations are corrupt, and political, and should not be given tax exempt status. The IRS was trying to contend with a legitimate problem, but handled it very poorly.

 

4. Only liberal groups are dangerous, and therefore, any investigation of conservative ones under any circumstances must by definition be inherently political.

 

The Tea Party is mostly a threat to their own party. The GOP would probably control the Senate by now, or at least be damn close if the Tea Party didn't force them to put up unelectable candidates.

 

No more corrupt or political than the NAACP (remember the James Byrd ad from 2000?), Sierra Club, AARP... or Accountable America.

If you want to deal with the "problem" of 501(c)4s, deal with it in an equal manner. Don't discriminate against one side or the other.

So, their political views aside... why should they have less of a right to 501(c)4 status than a liberal group?

 

They shouldn't, and I think most people agree with that.

 

The fact is that the Democrats never used the filibuster the way the GOP currently is to block Obama's agenda, they never used the Boehner or Haster rule to block compromise in the House, and they never had an entire faction of their caucus that was hell-bent on destroying Bush (or Reagan) at any cost and refused to see compromise even on painstakingly plain issues (the debt ceiling).

Boehner wanted to compromise on the debt ceiling; the Tea Parties wouldn't let him. The 'fiscal cliff' could also have been solved much sooner if the Tea Party didn't hold Boehner hostage to their insane demands. Much more legislation would have gotten through the Senate as well if McConnell didn't filibuster literally anything that Obama supports - even his SecDef nominee. The Democrats were partisan, of course, but they never approached this level of obstructionism.