Just who exactly is responsible for the gridlock in our Government?

It's really easy to blame Obama for everything, that seems to be the norm here on ATS. But let's look at Congress and what it's members are doing. Because after all that's where our laws get made.

The Republicans are not concerned whether or not the poor have something to eat, or whether Jobs are being created. Their top priority is to block any legislation by Obama and the Democrats so they can continue lying to the the American people and so they can continue to say that Obama has not accomplished anything.

I have read so many posters here saying that Obama and the Democrats enjoyed a super majority in Congress for over 2 years and they still couldn't get anything done.

That just can't be any more further from the truth, while it's true that they had a majority in Congress for 2 years they only had a filibuster proof majority for 133 days.

The Republicans have abused the Filibuster, in order to follow their plan of obstructionism so they can place the blame on Obama.

Host of Fox News, Chris Wallace, made the incorrect assertion during an interview Sunday that President Barack Obama had a filibuster proof majority (60 out of 100 votes) in the Senate for two years. The actual fact is Democrats only had a filibuster proof majority for 133 days, a far cry from the over 700 days that Wallace gleefully interjected.

Source

If you think that polarization is to blame for not getting anything done then you're right, but your beef should be with Republicans because they have gone so far right that they have completely alienated themselves from ordinary people and independents.

"The strategy of being obstructionist can work or fail. So far it's working for us."

- Trent Lott - Former Senate minority Whip

Cloture isn't a filibuster. The Democrats have spent the past two years automatically calling for cloture before the GOP even had a chance to either filibuster or not filibuster, then the Democrats have pushed that cloture as being the same as a GOP filibuster. The Democrats have killed their own bills under hopes of painting the GOP as obstructionist of everything.

ETA: at the absurdity of the modern Republicans being further right. Today's GOP is little more than a grossly liberalized and marginalized Republican party. There's very little difference between the GOP in 2012 and John Kennedy's Democrats of the 60s.

reply to post by muse7
The Bush family, The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Other factions aiming for a one world government "New World Order". Other dynastic Illuminati families. Free Masons, Jesuits, Khazarians.


"Who broke the world" is an interesting question...... Im still waiting for the rest of the global population to catch up and be as angry as me and demand real change. But nope people still believe the BS politicians say :/

HTFU people we haven't got much time left!

If I may add something......

I think there is plenty of blame for both sides to get a good healthy share of it. Bush had Congress to himself for a couple years...and Obama had Congress to himself for a couple years. Neither got anything of value done to the heart of what is destroying our nation. Both...played games with that unique opportunity and wasted it....

I'm personally not even going into how Democrats might be to blame...because they are. So are Republicans though, and that's the whole problem.

Democrats made sure Bush couldn't pass much more than bad gas during his term if they weren't in agreement...and so little got done. Pelosi and Reid both had leadership for a couple years under Obama and Republicans weren't even physically allowed in the ROOM for much of the Obamacare meetings and negotiations. I recall watching those reports live as both sides were giving their spin on the lock-outs that were happening. Repubs screamed, Dems laughed and reminded everyone that elections have consequences...among other snarky remarks.

Now Boehner is playing 'Payback'...and it's no better to see either side do it. They're dooming us ALL with these games.

What it amounted to, in my opinion, is little more than the same tired games that started under Mr. "No New Taxes", grew under Clinton, blew up under Baby Bush and now seems carved in stone for how it's going to be.

reply to post by muse7


F&S Muse, for your astute observation with respect to the obstructionist tactics adopted by the GOP.

What used to be a party of reasonably minded people who just happen to have an ideology I disagree with, has now turned into a party of obstructionist who would just as soon see America fail if they can't have their way on every issue and it's downright scary.

Gridlock is what you should hope for. How many more laws do we need? We can only hope Washington is rendered incapable of causing any more harm to us, our property, and our freedoms.

Here is the problem: both sides are playing a game rather then concentrating on what needs to be done to run things. They do everything they can do to paint the other party as bad. The democrats have killed legislation to paint Bush as evil, and so have the republicans with Obama.

Republicans and Democrats are no different. They are all the same group of people doing the same stuff over and over. It is more about power and money than actual government. Perhaps that is all government really is, power and money.

BAH!

reply to post by muse7


I think this says it all.




"The Grand Oligarchy Party, milking the populace since 1981"

I agree 100% with the OP!

reply to post by BritofTexas


The only bad thing about that is... What is Obama going to do differently in his second term to insure it won't be a repeat of the same GOP obstructionism? He thinks Mitch McConnell is going to play along now, since they failed at "making Obama a one-term president". Obama actually said that! I know he's not THAT naive, so I can only assume he doesn't have a real answer or isn't willing to share it.

Frustrating!

If he doesn't do anything differently, I'm afraid he's going to get the same results. The GOP is determined to make Obama seem like a failure. I think they're just still butt-hurt from the idiot they put in the White House the last time. They're sure not doing any better this time! Romney makes me think fondly of Dubya!

That graph shows far more clotures than filibusters.

Ironically.

reply to post by Benevolent Heretic


I don't think he really believes the Rabid Right are going to compromise, Or for that matter, do any work at all.

I think what he said in Russia is quite true. In his second term he will have more lea way to do what he needs to do

reply to post by muse7


I signed up for the Republican Party on my 18th birthday. I spent decades as an avid supporter on both the local and national level. There is no doubt in my mind that the Republicans (or to be more accurate those currently going by that name) are to blame for much of what is wrong in our country.

The Republicans have shamelessly sold us out to their corporate sponsors. They have no loyalty to their fellow citizens. Now, let me be clear, I don't believe in handing out the proceeds of my work to every lay about to be found, but I do believe that choices should made with an eye to the good of a nation and all its citizens instead of just a one time bottom line on balance sheet. The type of growth that the Republican corporate sponsors seek is unsustainable. They are gutting this country and trying to do everything that they can to hide that fact. Additionally, just in case somebody catches on they fill the air with all sorts of fear nonsense and say that anybody who doesn't step in line and see this (distracting) issue from their point of view lacks patriotism.

Poppycock.

What I find most unfair about their approach (beside the obvious slow bleed of the nation itself) is that they are playing on people's combined love of their country to do it. They lie. There is no way to deny that any longer. And that wasn't always the case. There was a time when the GOP as a whole had dignity. It no longer does.

Extremism is to blame. Both sides..... As a moderate it's rather disgusting to see. I believe Obama is intelligent with good intentions and Romney is nothing more than a corporate pirate with sociopathic tendencies...so put politics aside and look at the men we have to choose from. Actually look at who these men are. When you do that the choice becomes clear. For me that choice is Obama.

Either way with a growing lower class and shrinking middle class ; both parties better not forget about everyday folk or it will eventually lead to revolution.

Obama is a better person IMO, but we'll see how effective he is next term. He's lucky the republicans are so old, cold, unlikable, and have a bourgeois mentality... Otherwise he'd probably lose. Bush was not the brightest, but he seemed to be a good guy with good intentions.... Romney is a POS and should be treated as such.

Back to the point, extremism needs to stop, compromise is not a bad thing. Let's stop the tea party bastards and the dirty tree hugging hippies and actually look towards the future before there's not one for our crumbling empire.

the americans who do and dont vote,
because we keep putting idiots who dont represent us into office.