Former Bush speechwriter David Frum pens an excellent column on how politics has changed from the 1950's to the 1980's to today:
"Under the old rules, there were certain things that political parties did not do -- even though theoretically they could. If one party controlled the Senate and another party controlled the presidency, the Senate party did not reject all the president's nominees. The party that controlled the House did not refuse to schedule votes on the president's budgets. Individual senators did not use secret holds to sway national policy. The filibuster was reserved for rare circumstances -- not as a routine 60-vote requirement on every Senate vote.
It's incredible to look back now on how the Reagan tax cut passed the Democratic House in 1981. The Democratic House leaderships could have refused to schedule votes on Reagan's tax plans. Instead, they not only allowed the tax plan to proceed -- but they allowed 48 of 243 Democrats to break ranks on the key procedural vote without negative consequences to their careers in the Democratic party. (Rep. Dan Glickman of Kansas, for example, who voted for the tax cuts would rise to become Secretary of Agriculture under President Clinton.)
Hard to imagine Speaker John Boehner allowing his Republicans to get away with similar behavior on a measure proposed by President Obama."
Although I personally think he conveniently avoids the issue of how usage of the filibuster has became so prominent (Republican senators after the 2006 Democratic takeover of both Houses of Congress), the column is an excellent read on how our politics got to where it is today.
Showing posts with label John Boehner. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Boehner. Show all posts
Monday, September 26, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
CBS News: Hot mic catches Boehner and Biden talking about golf
So a guy named 'Joe' and a guy named 'John' were talking about golf one day when a little speech happened:
I'd love to be the staffer whose voice we hear at the end say "the mics are live".
I'd love to be the staffer whose voice we hear at the end say "the mics are live".
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Playing chess among checkers players...
The details of the budget cuts are coming out and the Right isn't happy about it. A key blurb from the article:
"The full details of Friday's agreement weren't being released until overnight as it was officially submitted to the House. But the picture already emerging is of legislation financed with a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially "score" as savings to pay for spending elsewhere, but that often have little to no actual impact on the deficit.
As a result of the legerdemain, Obama was able to reverse many of the cuts passed by House Republicans in February when the chamber passed a bill slashing this year's budget by more than $60 billion. In doing so, the White House protected favorites like the Head Start early learning program, while maintaining the maximum Pell grant of $5,550 and funding for Obama's "Race to the Top" initiative that provides grants to better-performing schools."
Before everyone jumps off the deep end, this is actually the first example of true compromise in a long time. One important aspect of negotiation is to allow your adversary to back out of the deal without losing face. The adversary for Obama here wasn't the Rebpublican leadership but rather the Tea Party. This deal allowed John Boehner to get it passed with the votes he needed and the votes Harry Reid needed in the Senate without Boehner having to rely upon the Mike Pences and Michele Bachmanns of the world.
This also allowed Pence and Bachmann to continue kowtowing to the Tea Party by voting 'Nay' on the continuing resolution.
See, everybody wins!
"The full details of Friday's agreement weren't being released until overnight as it was officially submitted to the House. But the picture already emerging is of legislation financed with a lot of one-time savings and cuts that officially "score" as savings to pay for spending elsewhere, but that often have little to no actual impact on the deficit.
As a result of the legerdemain, Obama was able to reverse many of the cuts passed by House Republicans in February when the chamber passed a bill slashing this year's budget by more than $60 billion. In doing so, the White House protected favorites like the Head Start early learning program, while maintaining the maximum Pell grant of $5,550 and funding for Obama's "Race to the Top" initiative that provides grants to better-performing schools."
Before everyone jumps off the deep end, this is actually the first example of true compromise in a long time. One important aspect of negotiation is to allow your adversary to back out of the deal without losing face. The adversary for Obama here wasn't the Rebpublican leadership but rather the Tea Party. This deal allowed John Boehner to get it passed with the votes he needed and the votes Harry Reid needed in the Senate without Boehner having to rely upon the Mike Pences and Michele Bachmanns of the world.
This also allowed Pence and Bachmann to continue kowtowing to the Tea Party by voting 'Nay' on the continuing resolution.
See, everybody wins!
Saturday, April 9, 2011
"What's mine is mine and what's yours is negotiable."
Great column in The Week. Some important questions it raises:
• Do you really want to replace Medicare with vouchers for private insurance?
• Do you really want to lose guaranteed coverage – and pay more and more for less and less?
• Do you really want to exchange Medicare for a market that puts profits ahead of people?
• Do you really want to slash Medicaid so the sick are left without help in order to lavish tax cuts on the wealthy?
• Do you really want to let Republicans get their budget-cutting hands on your Social Security – because that’s the next target?
• Do you really want to let insurance companies cancel the coverage you paid for across the years once a loved one gets cancer or some other serious illness – and the bills mount up?
Unless you answered 'Yes' to all of these questions, you'll never fully understand what it is the House Republicans are fighting for.
• Do you really want to replace Medicare with vouchers for private insurance?
• Do you really want to lose guaranteed coverage – and pay more and more for less and less?
• Do you really want to exchange Medicare for a market that puts profits ahead of people?
• Do you really want to slash Medicaid so the sick are left without help in order to lavish tax cuts on the wealthy?
• Do you really want to let Republicans get their budget-cutting hands on your Social Security – because that’s the next target?
• Do you really want to let insurance companies cancel the coverage you paid for across the years once a loved one gets cancer or some other serious illness – and the bills mount up?
Unless you answered 'Yes' to all of these questions, you'll never fully understand what it is the House Republicans are fighting for.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Bipartisanship? Easier said than done. Easier dismissed than done too.
Joe Scarborough had a column in Politico earlier this week about bipartisanship. The column itself contained much recycled verbiage from the final chapter of his most recent book. In fact, I even cited this incident in my review of the book on Amazon.com. It still is a lesson in how a determined person with a curious mind can overcome the most opinionated of obstacles.
Which brings us to something that happened on Wednesday in Chicago. After a contentious Senate race that was determined by less than 2% of the votes, the Republican Senator-elect Mark Kirk and the Democratic runner-up Alexi Giannoulias decided to meet up for drinks. I'm sure this will soon be followed by the "Merlot Summit" between President Obama and the presumptive Speaker-to-be John Boehner.
The only issue is politicians have to work together and do so much less begrudgingly than people think. They are in it to get re-elected and if pandering to hate-mongering is the way to do it, so be it. However, that is not in their nature. The conventional wisdom is it's not in human nature either. But I'm starting to question that conventional wisdom when, after e-mailing the Scarborough column to a close friend of polar opposite political leanings, I received the following reply:
"Read it, don't agree with it. When a side wins it won't be wise to let their 'enemies' off the hook."
This reply came from someone I know pretty well and someone I know well enough to know that this individual did not feel the same way after the 2006 and 2008 election results. Where have our politics gone when common sense advice is dismissed by common sense people solely because it requires them to suspend their own political opinions long enough to listen to someone else's point-of-view?
Which brings us to something that happened on Wednesday in Chicago. After a contentious Senate race that was determined by less than 2% of the votes, the Republican Senator-elect Mark Kirk and the Democratic runner-up Alexi Giannoulias decided to meet up for drinks. I'm sure this will soon be followed by the "Merlot Summit" between President Obama and the presumptive Speaker-to-be John Boehner.
The only issue is politicians have to work together and do so much less begrudgingly than people think. They are in it to get re-elected and if pandering to hate-mongering is the way to do it, so be it. However, that is not in their nature. The conventional wisdom is it's not in human nature either. But I'm starting to question that conventional wisdom when, after e-mailing the Scarborough column to a close friend of polar opposite political leanings, I received the following reply:
"Read it, don't agree with it. When a side wins it won't be wise to let their 'enemies' off the hook."
This reply came from someone I know pretty well and someone I know well enough to know that this individual did not feel the same way after the 2006 and 2008 election results. Where have our politics gone when common sense advice is dismissed by common sense people solely because it requires them to suspend their own political opinions long enough to listen to someone else's point-of-view?
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