A dysfunctional government.

[kentuck]

What can be done when one of the two political Parties filibusters everything that is proposed by the majority Party? Their sole mission is to block and obstruct. No matter how serious condition our country may be in, nothing can get passed.

That is where we are today. The Republicans have filibustered over 100 times. The government no longer works as our Founders suggested. They never envisioned the partisanship that we have today.

Where did this "partisanship" come from? Some would argue it started with talk radio, with characters like Rush Limbaugh, and has now spread like a contagion to FOX TV and other cable television networks. It has always existed in the print medium, to some extent.

What is the solution? What can be done? Can the Senate pass anything? We are in dire economic straits as a country and we need our Congress and Senate to work together. But it does not seem possible? Obviously, they don't even have enough votes to change the rules. Where do we go from here?


(I apologize ahead of time to those who accuse me of being negative)

[H2O Man]

1. Interesting.

I tend to think it is functioning quite well, for the very small percentage of the population that it represents. It is absolutely betraying the vast majority of us, though.

[Ganja Ninja]

2. Yup it's functioning just fine.

If the goal is to screw the poor and middle class.

[H2O Man]

3. I can think of no

evidence that suggests that is not their exact intent.

[doc03]

4. I would like to see Obama take it to the Republicans

in his SOTU message. Just tell it like it is that the government is totally dysfunctional when you have one party that just refuses to participate in anything. I remember back in the Clinton years when they shut the government down, that backfired on them big time. When Bush was in there he had a free pass on everything, they just pulled the "in time of war" card.

[kentuck]

5. Both Parties seem to think if they stall a little longer...

everything will get better. Forty-three states had higher unemployment last month.

The Republicans don't even try. They don't care about anyone. They only care about maintaining power and looking out for the wealthy. Too bad their simpleton supporters cannot see that. With that said, that is not to excuse the Democrats for their lack of opposition to these charlatans.

[lib2DaBone]

6. I think it all started on 11-22-1963....continued with Ronnie St. Reagan...

right on through with Grover Norquist, corporate ownership of all media to where we are today... with Goldman Sachs as the non-official POTUS.

And it was all sold to the American people via the religious nut-balls and the financial media who convinced America that they were going to be "investors"... trickle down.. that they would be part of the investor class and get part of the crumbs that fell on the floor.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Their goal was/is to crush the middle class and working people. The Evangelicals and Conservatives have quite a surprise coming when they discover that NOTHING is going to trickle down to them.. no stocks, no bonds, no derivatives.

The wingnuts will be living in tents like everyone else.. let's see how righteous they act then...

[bemildred]

7. End the filibuster, problem solved. nt

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Actually, they have NOT filibustered. They've only threatened to

filibuster and that got us shaking in our boots.

IMO, if they DID actually filibuster every time they threatened to and shut down the congress, people would start getting pissed at THEM.

We need to force them to play their hands. When they threaten filibuster, MAKE them filibuster. Put the onus on THEM.

[Cleita]

9. Well, the founding fathers didn't envision political parties at all or

they might have introduced a parliamentary system of many parties instead. This way in order to reach a majority, parties have to form coalitions. So in order to pass HCR, the DLCers, the Democrats, the Social Democrats and perhaps Marxist parties would have to reach a compromise to pass it. It probably would be far more progressive than the so-called compromise reached with our Democrats because the DLCers would probably have thrown in with the various conservative parties because of the abortion issue and public option. But there still would have been enough votes for a majority with what was left and we would have gotten a good public option and women's health would not be compromised most likely.

On the conservative side, they would become an even smaller coalition because the extreme right, religious and tea party factions probably wouldn't join the moderates and stand alone at the right wing fringe as the obstructionists that they are. This is why Canadian conservative PM Stephen Harper is trying to suspend parliament indefinitely because he knows the conservatives won't get anything passed in parliament otherwise. The only way conservatives win is through election dirty tricks. When they are given too much power by a two-party system it's easier for them to get away with it.