Congress is widely viewed as having accomplished nothing. That’s half perception and half truth. Guess why they haven’t accomplished much?
The chart is hard to read, so here’s the gist. The reason why Congress can’t get a lot going is because the GOP won’t let it. It filibusters, or threatens to filibuster virtually everything. They are very open about their obstructionism.
In fact, the Senate Republicans are so accustomed to blocking measures that when the Democrats finally agreed last week to their demands on a bill to repair the alternative minimum tax, the Republicans still objected, briefly blocking the version of the bill that they wanted before scrambling to approve it later.
yeah…and the Dems are playing this all wrong.
(note the irony, though, that the Repubs threatened to do away with the filibuster).
What they should be doing is:
1. MAKING the Republicans filibuster. Don’t let them get away with just ‘threatening’. Make them stand up for the asses they are.
2. After each vote gets blocked, every member of Congress should be hitting every talk show they can and announcing the newest attempt by the republican MINORITY to halt the desires of the MAJORITY of the country. They should also then list off every single time the republicans have done this.
They need to let people know that the will of the people is being foiled by the will of the minority again and again
(note: obviously, our democracy has been set up to prevent the majority from trampling the rights of the minority…but it was NOT set up to allow the minority to get their way over the majority)