Seventy Percent
Paul Krugman, from an as-usual great column in the New York Times this morning:
"The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation....after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent."
We are dealing with an unprecedented event in our country's history- the utter refusal of one of the major political parties to engage in any real effort to deal with the nation's problems. I am not sure that this nation can survive the subversion which has become the go-to solution of the Republican party. But I am sure that it will not survive if Democrats do not start answering dirty politics with hardball politics.
Doing away with the current filibuster rules, as Krugman advocates, is one possible answer. Whether that is the solution, or just forcing the Republicans to really filibuster every time they want to thwart democratic rule, until the country becomes terminally disgusted with them, or something else- the Dems need to find some answer to this problem. We as a nation cannot afford eight months of threats, tantrums, talk of secession and murder, lies, smears, phony demonstrations, and every other crude manipulation on earth, on every important issue, before the majority can make progress.
"The political scientist Barbara Sinclair has done the math. In the 1960s, she finds, “extended-debate-related problems” — threatened or actual filibusters — affected only 8 percent of major legislation....after Democrats retook control of Congress in 2006 and Republicans found themselves in the minority, it soared to 70 percent."
We are dealing with an unprecedented event in our country's history- the utter refusal of one of the major political parties to engage in any real effort to deal with the nation's problems. I am not sure that this nation can survive the subversion which has become the go-to solution of the Republican party. But I am sure that it will not survive if Democrats do not start answering dirty politics with hardball politics.
Doing away with the current filibuster rules, as Krugman advocates, is one possible answer. Whether that is the solution, or just forcing the Republicans to really filibuster every time they want to thwart democratic rule, until the country becomes terminally disgusted with them, or something else- the Dems need to find some answer to this problem. We as a nation cannot afford eight months of threats, tantrums, talk of secession and murder, lies, smears, phony demonstrations, and every other crude manipulation on earth, on every important issue, before the majority can make progress.
Comments
Have you ever thought that maybe it is because the legislation being presented is terrible?