[wanorris]

The current Congress can't get anything done because one of the political parties has decided that it isn't in their interest to get anything done, to keep the other party from getting credit for it.

I don't mean to call out the Republicans for being uniquely unpleasant in this regard -- there have been periods when the Democrats have been just as calculatingly obstructive.

[anamax]

> The current Congress can't get anything done because one of the political parties has decided that it isn't in their interest to get anything done, to keep the other party from getting credit for it.

Hmm.

The House passed a budget this year. The Senate hasn't for almost three years.

The House passed an extension to govt financing/ operations. The Senate hasn't.

The House passed an extension to the payroll tax cut. The Senate refuses to even vote on it.

I wonder which party controls which branch of the legislature.

[wanorris]

Absent a 60-member supermajority, passing a bill in the Senate requires both parties to at least agree to let it come to a vote. Passing a bill in the House does not require it to be palatable to the other party, the Senate, or the President, nor is it required for it to have any realistic hope of ever becoming law.

I didn't really mean for this to be an unpleasantly partisan post, just a statement of facts about the situation in Washington as I see it. The current Democrats in power have many flaws, but I see no reason to think their goal is to avoid action, because a lack of action would provide no benefit to them.

To argue that the House has genuinely tried to get things done during this session, I would think you would have to assent to one of the following two things:

1. Even with a divided Congress, it is not required for both parties to work together in a bipartisan spirit of compromise to pass meaningful legislation.

2. The current House of Representatives has genuinely tried to work closely together with Senate Democrats and the President in a bipartisan spirit of compromise to pass meaningful legislation.

Do you believe one of these things?

[anamax]

The Dems didn't even bring any of those things up for a vote (even on cloture), so how did the Repubs keep them from passing? (Actually, there were two Senate votes on budget proposals. One was an Obama proposal and it went down something like 97-0. The other was what passed the house, and it went down 47-53. Yup, the Senate Dems haven't voted yes on a budget proposal for three years....)

> a bipartisan spirit of compromise

I see that the repubs have given the dems some things that the dems want and the dems have refused "the deal" because they didn't everything that they wanted. How does that translate to "the repubs won't compromise"?

For example, the Dems claim to want an extension of the payroll tax reduction. The Repubs gave it to them. Is it unreasonable for the Repubs to get something as well?

I'm not saying that the Repubs are blameless, but it's absurd to claim that they're the only ones to blame.

You disagree, so please define this "bipartisan compromise" that the Dems are (at least somewhat) willing to do and that the Repubs are unwilling to do. Do you agree that this definition should be somewhat symmetric?

Note that the payroll tax extension package that passed the House did get some Dem votes. Do you interpret that as "some Dems were willing to compromise" or "Repubs offered a package that was acceptable to some Dems"? How, exactly, did you come to your conclusion?

[jbooth]

The idea that Republicans are "compromising" by passing a tax cut really says it all here.

[anamax]

> The idea that Republicans are "compromising" by passing a tax cut really says it all here

You're not paying attention. Obama and the Dems DEMANDED a specific payroll tax cut, which the Repubs provided.

[anamax]

Which reminds me, for two of the three years when the Senate didn't pass a budget, the first two years of Obama's presidency, the House didn't pass a budge either and the Senate didn't even try a vote.

During those two years, the House was controlled by Dems and Dems had 60 votes in the Senate (until Kennedy died). How did the Repubs block things then?