As the Superbowl hype moves out of our minds and half the US population is shoveling out of “snowmageden”, what will our federal government do next? With so many things on our minds just to survive the day-to-day challenges, not many average citizens really pay attention to our elected officials and what they are doing (or not doing).
Prez Obama is being characterized as a lame duck president because the Democrats lost the Massachusetts Senate seat, thus eliminating the Democrats 60% super majority. But that doesn’t necessarily make him a lame duck. His leadership was pretty lame before the super majority was lost. It means he and his party will have to start negotiating legislation.
What’s interesting is that the Democrats had a “super majority” for a year. What did they pass? What did they accomplish? What problems did they solve? I don’t know, but I know they spent a shit load of money that we didn’t have.
In the Senate there was virtually no reason for a Republican to even show up for work during the past year. The Democrats called them the “Party of No”. They actually proposed bills, but the Democrats wouldn’t even let them be brought up for a vote. The Democrats wouldn’t even talk to the Republicans. In fact they did all their negotiations among themselves; behind closed doors so even “we the people” wouldn’t know what they were doing.
The Democrats got pretty arrogant and cocksure. They didn’t need no right wing conservative Republicans to tell them what the country needed. They knew what was best for all of us. Then about a week before the Massachusetts special election the tide started turning. The people got sick & tired of the arrogance, the spend thrift policies and the unemployment rate that went out of control.
They elected a Republican; a traditionally Democratic state elected a Republican to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat.
The Democrats were the ones that couldn’t agree on a health reform bill. They disagreed between themselves. They didn’t need a single Republican vote. They had the voting majority in the House and Senate for a year and still couldn’t agree and pass a bill. What does that say about the Democratic leadership?
It demonstrates the inexperience of our president. As I predicted a year ago, Obama was unable to control his congressional leaders. It wasn’t Obama’s Health Bill. It was Nancy Pelosi and Harry Ried’s Health Bill. Why would any one believe that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, from the practically bankrupt State of California, would come up with something affordable? It was like Obama gave her the government credit card and said, “Give us a health bill that covers everyone, and get it passed before anyone knows what’s in it and what it’s going to cost”.
They could have passed a bill, but they couldn’t agree among themselves. Pelosi & Ried failed! It will be another year of “nothing accomplished”.
Obama is now begging for bipartisanship and says his priority now is the economy (a little late with over 10% unemployment). I think it will take awhile before we see any bipartisanship. The Democrats shut the door on the Republicans for a year.
The Democratic congressmen who are up for reelection this November are running scared. They know their constituents are pissed at their spending ways, at least those that pay taxes are pissed. The over 45% of Americans who pay no Federal income taxes aren’t pissed. They want whatever they can get from the government for free; “Obama Dollars” for all.
What we really need in our government are people who know how to negotiate and compromise. It’s done every day in our average lives. It’s done every day in business. It should be done by our elected officials. They need to move from the extreme right & left and meet in the middle!