From the New York Times:
“Earlier this month, during one of his new across-the-aisle good-will tours, President Obama pleaded with Senate Republicans to ease up on their record number of filibusters of his nominees. He might as well have been talking to one of the statues in the Capitol. Republicans have made it clear that erecting hurdles for Mr. Obama is, if anything, their overriding legislative goal.
The Republican Party is the party of deep, consistent and continual irony. First, the GOP advances economic policies that drive millions of Americans into poverty. They then show their disdain with their rhetoric for the very poor they created. The irony comes in when you realize that the GOP was so successful in driving people into poverty with their economic policies, that those in poverty now make up a sizable chunk of the electorate.
The House GOP released its budget today to avoid the March 27th government shutdown. (A shutdown that just like the last five “crises” is Republican manufactured and does not have to occur at all). Their budget restores a lot of the spending cuts from the sequester to the Defense Department and keeps all of the cuts to America’s social safety net.
“At the same time, the size and trajectory of the U.S. deficit is poorly understood by most Americans, with 62 percent saying it’s getting bigger, 28 percent saying it’s staying about the same this year, and just 6 percent saying it’s shrinking. The Congressional Budget Office reported Feb. 6 that the federal budget deficit is getting smaller, falling to $845 billion this year — the first time in five years that the gap between taxes and spending will be less than $1 trillion.”
“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.” – Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) 10/25/2010
With that statement, Sen. McConnell kicked off an era of obstructionism in Washington DC never before seen in American history. The Republicans stood by their word too. Forcing virtually every bill in the Senate to have to garner 60 votes just so the bill can be brought to the floor to be voted on. (Some of the bills McConnell and his cronies filibustered ended up passing unanimously when the Republicans finally allowed a vote). The bills that passed the Senate then went to die in the House.
Update at the end of this article:
On the night of November 6th 2012, the Republican Party was stunned at the loss of the presidential election, and stupefied that they actual lost seats in the Senate and the House of Representatives. In fact, if it weren’t for the gerrymandering of House districts that the Republicans did after the 2010 elections, they would have lost the majority in the House of Representatives. As it was, Democratic candidates in the House got 1.1 million more votes than did the Republican House candidates.
