Tag: bipartisanship

…[T]he thing that Mitch McConnell figured out on Day One of my Presidency [is that] people aren’t paying that close attention to how Washington works. They know there are lobbyists, special interests, gridlock; that the powerful have more influence and access than they do. And if things aren’t working, if there’s gridlock, then the only guy that they actually know is supposed to be in charge and supposed to be helping them is the President. And so the very deliberate strategy that Mitch McConnell and the Republican Party generally employed during the course of my Presidency was effective. What they understood was that, if you embraced old-fashioned dealing, trading, horse-trading, bipartisan achievement, people feel better. And, if people feel better, then they feel better about the President’s party, and the President’s party continues. And, if it feels broken, stuck, and everybody is angry, then that hurts the President or the President’s party.

President Barack Obama, talking to David Remnick of the New Yorker. This is, perhaps, the most important concept for the remaining Democrats in Congress to read, read again, memorize, and carve into some very hard rock in each of their offices. It may sound nice to “work with” a President Trump, but helping him only will make things worse. Work the edges. Minimize the pain, but Trumpism and the GOP must be seen to fail, and badly. Short-term bipartisanship is the worst possible reaction to 2016. You must oppose and be clear on the meaning and import of that opposition. You’re going to lose anyway, at least lose in a fashion that is productive long-term and helps shape your desired policy outcomes if and when the Trump era can be brought to an end.

[The Hastert] rule is completely dead. The Democrats now effectively control the floor because nothing ‘big’ will come to the floor without knowing in advance that lots of Democrats support it. That gives the Democrats tremendous power in a body where the minority is not designed to have much power.

Unnamed Republican Aide, likening the appropriate and intended function of the House to “tremendous power.” How we can have an MSM that drones on and on about “reaching across the aisle” in the face of a reality that includes a de facto rule stating that nothing moves unless it will pass with only majority votes is and long has been beyond me.

Even still, former Speaker Hastert’s own reaction to the weakening and even ending of his “rule” is all the more telling:

Maybe you can do it once, maybe you can do it twice, but when you start making deals when you have to get Democrats to pass the legislation, you are not in power anymore.

So, then, making a deal at all is tantamount to surrendering all power. Breathtaking.

Source: rollcall.com

Shocking News about Gang of Six

A bipartisan effort to rein in the national debt stalled Tuesday, as members of the Senate’s so-called Gang of Six signaled that an agreement is unlikely to come this week in time for the start of White House-led budget talks.

Also unlikely to come in the weeks following the start of White House-led talks. And in the months and years after that. And, you know, forever. Just like the Baucus-led Gang of Whateveritwas on healthcare reform, these talks were never going anywhere. Ever. They were solely an attempt to get >50% of the Ryan plan and then stamp it with the Broder-approved Seal of Bipartisanship. And then demand another 20-30% on top of that “bipartisan” plan when the mess hit the floor. Period. That is all that was ever going on in there. All that is going on in there.

Though never mentioned in the mainstream media, there is one party, the GOP, that has categorically ruled out any revenue increase from any source and intends to “balance” the budget by eliminating Medicare, fundamentally ending Medicaid, and then passing those “savings” on to the very rich in the form of more tax cuts. And then, of course, raise the debt ceiling to pay for it by borrowing ever-more. This is their plan. Magically, they also plan to reduce all government spending to levels below what just the military consumes today. And this all seems likely to the Serious People. Sensible and courageous, even.

Notable that Tom Coburn, one of the vanishingly few people with ® after their name that actually accepts revenue probably has to increase, has suddenly left town. Shocking. I’m sure it’s truly pressing business back home.

Can we finally be done with time-wasting and air-sucking idiocies such as the Gang of Six and, for that matter, all these other “Gangs of” now and forever? I know Serious People love their Gangs, but there simply is no middle ground, or anything approaching “middle ground” between Ryan and the status quo. There just isn’t. And though Serious People will never, ever accept it, sometimes doing nothing is indisputably the best way forward when faced with intransigent and unthinking opposition such as that presented by the modern GOP.
In this case, doing nothing fixes at least half of our budget problem. But let’s not talk about that. Everyone knows that Medicare has to go away. Anything less would destroy America.

All I have to say is: All hail gridlock!

Shocking News about Gang of Six