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Kasz216 on 17 December 2011
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fastyxx said:
Kasz216 said:

I'd buy that arguement if it wasn't for the fact that Obama had 2 years of super majority, anything democrats agree on passes.

Aside from which, the behind the scenes talk suggests that it was actually the democrats unwilling to compromise on the deficit deal.


A.  It shouldn't take a super-majority to get things passed.  This has never consistently been the case until January 2009 and was not the intention of the Constitution.

B.  I actually take it as a postive that the Democratic party as a whole didn't just turn into a rubber stamp for the president and/or Pelosi and Reid.  A few hundred Congresspeople and Senators in one party should NOT be lockstep on every idea/policy/bill.  That's quite dangerous.  There are too many votes along party lines now, and though I disagreed with some of the no votes - and some of the yes votes - I respected that some people are willing to break form the party and cast their own votes.  That's their job.  (Now, the REASON for doing it at times was bad.  TO protect their jobs versus what they thought was right, but that's another discussion.)

C.  As for "compromise"  - - the GOP says we want $50.  The Dems say you can have $30.  Gop says "No. $50."  Dems say "$40".  GOP says " Still want $50."  Obama says, "Fine.  Give them $50 in exchange for a minor progressive policy point."  GOP says "Now it's $1000."    And then the GOP, especially Boehner and McConnell, says the Dems don't want to compromise.  We've seen this a hundred times during this administration.  It's completely disingenuous.  

A) I agree.  Which is why more reasonable bills should be proposed.

B) No arguements here again.

C) That's only true if you listen to purely democrat sources.  For example in the "Grand Bargain" if you listen to the Republican side, they say that after they had a deal, Obama insisted they double the amount of tax increases with zero increase in cuts.

As for the Supercomitee.  All i've heard about that is the Democrats were refusing to adress the structural problems of medicaid and medicare... and the republicans were unwilling to accept tax increases unless the democrats did do this.

Somewhere after the whole "Party of No" thing started, the democrats started intentionally obstructing things themselves for political reasons.

I mean, the republicans get blamed for Killing Obama's job bill... when Obama's job bill wasn't even popular with demcrats.  It had one sponsor, and that sponsor sponsored it on behalf of the president.

No one wanted to attach their name to it and a lot only voted for it, because they new the republicans were going to vote against it.

Consider this

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/05/obama-s-jobs-bill-vote-blocked-by-reid-over-lack-of-democratic-support.html