Let The (Finger-Pointing) Games Begin
A page one story in the Washington Post describes the acrimonious finger pointing going on between House and Senate Democrats over failures to pass many pieces of legislation in the past year. The bitterness is becoming very harsh and quite public, with relations between Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid deteriorating rather rapidly. The Post probably makes it sound better than it really is.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) accuses Senate Democratic leaders of developing "Stockholm syndrome," showing sympathy to their Republican captors by caving in on legislation to provide middle-class tax cuts paid for with tax increases on the super-rich, tying war funding to troop withdrawal timelines, and mandating renewable energy quotas. If Republicans want to filibuster a bill, Rangel said, Reid should keep the bill on the Senate floor and force the Republicans to talk it to death.
Reid, in turn, has taken to the Senate floor to criticize what he called the speaker's "iron hand" style of governance.
Democrats in each chamber are now blaming their colleagues in the other for the mess in which they find themselves. The predicament caused the majority party yesterday surrender to President Bush on domestic spending levels, drop a cherished renewable-energy mandate and move toward leaving a raft of high-profile legislation, from addressing the mortgage crisis to providing middle-class tax relief, undone or incomplete.
"If there's going to be a filibuster, let's hear the damn filibuster," Rangel fumed. "Let's fight this damned thing out."
In the past few weeks, the House has thrown wave after wave of legislation at the Senate — on energy, Iraq war policy, the housing and mortgage crisis, and middle-income tax cuts offset largely by tax increases on the wealthy.
Most of it has died quietly, a predetermined fate that both sides could foresee before the first vote was cast. Yet they went ahead anyway. Just last night, the House, for a second time, passed legislation to stave off the growth of the alternative minimum tax, to be paid for by a measure to stop hedge fund managers from deferring compensation in offshore tax havens. Like the previous House version, it has virtually no chance of passing in the Senate.
Much of what the Democrats in the House are complaining about amount to the exact, same tactics the Democrats used over and over to block things in the Republican-controlled Congress. They act as if this is a surprise. They came to power promising bipartisan relations and have, instead, turned everything they touch into a partisan battle without even a hint of trying to gain Republican votes - other than by promising lavish pork-bribery now and then. Instead, they offer theatrics, as even their own party members acknowledge:
Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) noted that, this summer, Reid employed just the kind of theatrics Rangel and other House Democrats are demanding, holding the Senate open all night, pulling out cots and forcing a dusk-till-dawn debate on an Iraq war withdrawal measure before a vote on war funding. Democrats gained not a single vote after the all-night antics.
"I understand the frustration; we're frustrated, too," Bayh said. "But holding a bunch of Kabuki theater doesn't get anything done."
The entire reason this nation was set up as a constitutional republic was to avoid the tyranny of the mob, where a slim majority could impose their will over a large majority. For all their talk, bluster and finger-pointing, the Democrats hold the slimmest of majorities in both houses of Congress - which should lead them to seek compromise. Instead they have chosen the Kabuki - with really bad makeup. Watching them turn on one another and squabble publicly is another form of theater for those of us watching. The makeup still sucks, though.
UPDATE: This Ain't Hell, But You Can See It From Here has a roundup on this story and a great punchline playing off mine.
Other Links to this Post
-
This ain’t Hell, but you can see it from here » Porcine mud wrestling — Thursday, 13 December , 2007 @ 7:55 am
By David M, Thursday, 13 December , 2007 @ 10:02 am
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the - Web Reconnaissance for 12/13/2007 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
By martian, Thursday, 13 December , 2007 @ 1:55 pm
It strikes me that Pelosi and Reid as majority leaders of the House and Senate are really just trying to do a remake of “Dumb and Dumber”. Which one is which, you ask? Honestly, I’m not sure - they may be interchangeable!
By Americaneocon, Thursday, 13 December , 2007 @ 2:05 pm
Great post! I wrote about this too:
“David Mayhew argued in Congress: The Electoral Connection, that Members of Congress are “single-minded seekers of reelection.”
Perhaps we’re seeing a bit of that dynamic here: While party’s policy-making record is a disaster, the expansion of congressional pork-barrelling has hit records. Obviously Mayhew’s right: These folks care nothing about pragmatic policy change and accomodation with the White House on the big issues of the day. Members in both chambers of Congress badly misinterpretated the electorate’s message in 2006, and they’ve been beholden the Democratic Party’s hardline antiwar base (remember “General Betray Us”?).”
http://americanpowerblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/democratic-finger-pointing.html