Remember this? (2:50 mark)
Joe Biden – “Washington, right now, is broken,”
Back in February when he uttered those words the Democrats has majorities in the House and the Senate. But still they complained they couldn’t get anything done. They then passed Socialized Health Care. Took over companies they had no business taking over. Passed a treaty with Russia that makes us infinitely less safer. Pushed through a stimulus for “shovel ready” projects that did absolutely nothing for the economy. But still they whined they couldn’t get anything done.
Byron York:
Democrats and their partisans in the press complained about Washington being broken only at those times when their agenda was imperiled. Vice President Biden’s statement, for example, came after the election of Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown took away the Democrats’ filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Just a few weeks later, when Barack Obama signed the national health care bill into law, Biden was all smiles.
Now, after the lame-duck session, Democratic leaders are happy again. But it’s only temporary. As the new year approaches, get ready for a new round of Democratic Washington-is-broken grumbling.
~~~It’s also why you’re hearing new rumbling about what many Democrats consider the ultimate fix for the Washington-is-broken problem: eliminating the filibuster. A perennial complaint, unhappiness with the filibuster is likely to reach new heights among Democrats in the next few months. Already, the entire returning Democratic caucus has signed a letter by Sens. Carl Levin and Mark Warner calling for rules changes that will make it easier to kill filibusters. Some are also hoping to make it possible to change the Senate’s rules with a simple majority vote, rather than the two-thirds vote required now. That way, Democrats could do anything they want, even without that 60-vote majority.
It won’t happen; there aren’t the votes. It could even be that Democrats are pushing the anti-filibuster argument so loudly because they know it won’t happen. That way, they can position themselves as favoring “filibuster reform” with the comfort of knowing they’ll still have the filibuster the next time they’re in the minority, which might be soon.
Meanwhile, new voices are taking up the Washington-is-broken crusade. At the recent New York rollout of the Democratic-leaning group No Labels, speaker after speaker pushed the idea that “hyperpartisanship” in Washington has prevented elected leaders from “getting things done.” They’re looking for some still-unspecified new approach to break the partisan deadlock.
But Byron makes the point that it SHOULD be difficult to pass legislation that will fundamentally change millions of American lives. The last two years Democrats had enough members to pass whatever the hell they wanted and look where it got us. Rising interest rates, increasing unemployment, and rising consumer prices. They printed money and passed bills that spent more.
We got screwed.
…in a divided government, there must be some agreement between the parties before legislation can move forward. And if there isn’t agreement, then maybe the legislation shouldn’t move forward. When that happens, Washington isn’t broken. It’s working.
Amen.
Of course Obama will be too busy this year to compromise on anything since he will be in campaign mode….if he ever left that mode: (h/t JammieWearingFool)
President Obama will spend more time outside of Washington, D.C., next year engaging with he public, according to a top White House adviser and close friend of the president.
One year before Obama faces reelection, he is expected to make a greater effort to connect with potential voters after facing charges being too aloof during his first two years in the Oval Office. The president’s “biggest regret” was that because of economic turmoil, ”He had to spend almost every waking hour in Washington working on solving that crisis,” senior adviser Valerie Jarrett said during an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “And what he missed sorely was engagement with the American people.
Sooooo….he spent every waking hour in Washington because of the economy and his solution to the problem now is to NOT pay any attention to it and instead go schmooze with voters 2 years before the next Presidential election. But wasn’t it just three days ago that he pledged a “singular focus” on the economy?
He’s getting out of town because he knows the days of being able to force any agenda item down the throats of Americans are long gone. Instead of actually becoming a somewhat mediocre President and working towards REAL bipartisanship he will flee, shake hands, and whine that Washington is again, broken.
A leader this man is not.
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