Right after the election I wrote a post suggesting an end to Senate Rule XXII, the filibuster. It garnered a few comments, most thoughtful and skeptical, some dotty-such as asserting that the filibuster is not un-democratic. We now need to take another look. The filibuster has to go or Obama’s program is DOA.
Let’s begin with the Times headline, “Auto Bailout Appears Halted in Senate as G.O.P. Resists. Lead sentence: “The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, spoke out against the bill, effectively dooming its chances.” The House passed the auto bailout bill 237-170 after Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi gave in to a depressing number of White House demands. Now, McConnell opposes the bill and it’s clear that the Senate Dems can’t muster 60 votes, so the bill is dead. Does Barney Frank enjoy being sucker-punched by John Boehner and Mitch McConnell? He sure keeps coming back for more.
Whether you were for or against the auto industry bailout, the real meaning of the way the Republicans killed the plan is that they can and will do this to every single one of Obama’s flagship proposals. Every one.
Despite the self-satisfied cliché that the Republicans can win, but they can’t govern, the GOP appears to have a solid game plan. It hinges on Rule XXII. But the Democrats have no sure solution to their immense problems of getting major changes passed. The political reality is that, even if Franken prevails in Missouri and Lieberman untypically behaves himself, the Senate Democrats do not have the votes to win on key issues that will be filibustered. Using Occam’s razor , the solution is clear: kill the goddamn filibuster. It only takes a majority vote.
Typical.
I’m glad the national Republicans are being so blatant about being obstructionists, because I was getting a lot of heat for favoring the ‘nuclear option’ a month or two ago… and now it’s becoming more and more popular. Just wait till they fake-filibuster health care!
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p>(I say fake filibuster because the democrats never actually make Republicans filibuster; I will hand one thing to your party, they’d actually have the cajones to make us filibuster and they’d go nuclear if we did it more than once or twice.)
Would you ever consider that there is often a good reason for the minority party having some power? Take the banking bailout… there was tremendous pressure to ram through this bill. $700 BILLION dollars and it was just jammed down our throats. After it passed there was far more discussion about “should we have done it…”, “it was a mistake..” and as I recall there was no shortage of criticism from BMG at how big of a mistake this bill was (no oversight…).
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p>Now we have a bailout bill for Detroit which the American public is overwhelmingly against. The Republicans (and many Democrats) have voiced a lot of concern about this band-aid not fixing anything and only prolonging the inevitable, unless true changes are made. They voted it down for good reason and thankfully they had a filibuster threat to end the vote. Without it we would have had another ill conceived waste of BILLIONs of dollars which our voices have shown “We don’t want”.
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p>Why, pray tell, is this wrong?
“Now we have a bailout bill for Detroit which the American public is overwhelmingly against.”
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p>Anyone got a current poll?
In reverse chronological order:
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p>MSNBC (12/9):
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p>CBS (12/8):
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CNN (12/3):
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Using the word “bailout” causes a drop of about 20 or 30 points. (As opposed to “financial assistance” or “emergency loans”) This was true of the financial “rescue” as well. When people were asked, “Do you support a $700 Billion Wall Street bailout?”, they overwhelmingly said no, but when asked something more along the lines of “The government is considering investing as much as $700 billion in financial companies to prevent their collapse. Would you support such an action?”, the response was much more positive.
Can we make that the standard? I’m sure the results of many of the polls asked about Republicans (like GW) might be different if we put the “warm and fuzzy” bias into the question.
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p>Bailout is the right word and should be used. How about “Do you support increasing the budget deficit to $1-2 Trillion so we can continue to pay UAW benefits?” Should the US taxpayers (the ~50% who actually pay taxes) burden their grandchildren and support GM (corporate jet and all) so they can build more Hummers?
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p>I guess the way you ask the question does make a big difference.
… a difference between a giveaway and a loan. Nobody is served by hiding this fact.
… a difference between a giveaway and a loan. Nobody is served by hiding this fact.
Why isn’t Congress calling it a loan? What assurances do we have that they will pay it back (the loan)?
Would your support change if the American public was one way or the other? If not, then who cares what the polls say?
… brought up the American people’s collective opinion. First it matters and now it doesn’t. Could you please add a little coherence to your rants?
I do believe the American people’s opinion does matter. My question was do YOU think it matters. If most Americans are against it, do you think it should have been defeated and if the majority were for it do you think it should have passed? The tone I was getting from Jasiu was that the opinion of the American public was changing towards supporting this bill and my belief is people who are for passing the bailout will not care what the majority of Americans think.
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p>So in summary, yes I do think the feelings of Americans (who will have to pa for mess) certainly do matter. Thanks for asking for the clarification. Now… do YOU think how Americans feel should matter for the vote?
… that it is a proxy measurement for the political price people may pay for voting one way or another. As for my own personal feeling, I’m not sure which is the most pragmatic and beneficial stance (loans, bailouts, no action, etc.). I just want the outcome to be good. If that means that legislatures need to go with the polls, so be it. If that means that legislators need to go against the polls, so be it. I won’t know which is better until after the fact, unfortunately.
I agree with you that whichever plan works should be the one we go with. I would prefer not giving/loaning this money to the automakers since I feel they will never pay it back (happens a lot with government handouts). They usually come up with some jobs program in lieu of payments…
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p>I also believe in following the will of he American people since I believe that is what our country is all about. Now obviously we don’t have to have a vote on every single issue that crosses the floor of the Senate but the big votes should certainly be in line with the people’s desires.
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p>Otherwise you’re lying.
the democrats are a bunch of cats; there’s plenty of room for conservatives to influence government. They just shouldn’t be able to stop it, especially with a mere 35 votes as they did the other day. The bottom line is the American people put democrats in charge by overwhelming numbers; that doesn’t translate into a government that runs at the beck and call of the Republican party. If you think so, you do not support democracy.
the filibuster is undemocratic, unnecessary and something that rarely ‘protects’ but frequently stifles. Bottom line: the founding fathers never used nor intended to use the filibuster; it wasn’t until much later that the maneuver became commonplace. Heck, I’d settle for the Democrats actually making Republicans bust out the dictionary and encyclopedia while preventing Americans from getting jobs or health care.
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p>Step one to any solution in the Senate is new leadership. Harry Reid has GOT to go.