Thread: House rejects President's budget 414-0

We shouldn't do anything without consensus and that's how the system was designed. We should not undertake major legislation with mere 51% support. I'm not talking about the filibuster either, just all the veto points in the system. You need a majority in both chambers and the President's signature, and the law has to stand up to judicial review.

Originally Posted by adaher

How can you hold a party accountable when they won't back ANY budget?

It is a sign of terrible governance, regardless of your position on public policy.

Originally Posted by adaher

We shouldn't do anything without consensus and that's how the system was designed. We should not undertake major legislation with mere 51% support. I'm not talking about the filibuster either, just all the veto points in the system. You need a majority in both chambers and the President's signature, and the law has to stand up to judicial review.

What we need is a system that works, and addresses the problems that need to be addressed, and we used to have that, because congress lived in DC and socialized, and R and D weren't bars to contact.
Gingrich changed that with the tuesday to thursday schedule, allowing representatives to fly in tuesday, fly out thursday and spend tuesday and wednesday night in a group apartment with members of the same party.
That's not all, the technology to gerrymander, the science of polling has created a situation where the winning platform isn't the belief and conviction of the candidate, but it constantly changes and emerges in polling numbers, witness Willard Mitt Romney, the master of this.

I think those are passing phases, not a new trend. Republicans don't normally nominate Mitt Romney types. Not only is he a flip flopper, he's also a moderate and we all know he's a moderate. But no one better wants to run, so we're stuck with him. Well, we could have picked Huntsman, but nooooooo, he was somehow perceived as being even more liberal even though in the real world he was one of the most conservative in the field.

Gerrymandering is actually down since a lot of states adopted redistricting by nonpartisan commission or even computer programs. We've seen a lot of turnover in the last few cycles and I think part of that is less gerrymandering, more competitive districts.

It does seem that Congressmen get along less, but I don't think keeping them in session is the answer. For most of our history, Congress was not in session for the vast majority of the year. What we need is to elect more adults rather than pure activists. I think better knowledge of candidates' positions has resulted in voters voting for positions on the issues rather than personalities, which we once thought was a good idea, but now it seems that was a mistake. Honorable people that disagree with me are better than charlatans or immature idiots who do agree with me.

Originally Posted by adaher

We shouldn't do anything without consensus and that's how the system was designed. We should not undertake major legislation with mere 51% support. I'm not talking about the filibuster either, just all the veto points in the system. You need a majority in both chambers and the President's signature, and the law has to stand up to judicial review.

Well technically it wasnt designed with political parties in mind. The constitution allowed congress to set their rules. But I agree that the spirit of the constitution is that the minorty should be protected.

The President submits these stupid ignorant budget plans so the house will vote it down and he can say the republicans are impeding progress. Like everything Obama does it is underhanded and despicable.

The Democrats would LOVE to vote for Owebama's plan.

All you have to do is make the votes anonymous. That way they won't lose their jobs (those in districts that aren't ironclad liberal that is).

FYI the timetable in law for the Senate to submit a budget resolution is April 1. A budget is supposed to be passed by April 15. The Pres. and the House at least did their job.

Originally Posted by jviehe

FYI the timetable in law for the Senate to submit a budget resolution is April 1. A budget is supposed to be passed by April 15. The Pres. and the House at least did their job.

What's this, year 4 without a Senate one?

Yep. They are violating the law. Voters should punish them for that regardless of political leanings.

The talk here is so simplistic.

Harry Reid is fucked and we all know it because of the polarization of the members in gov't in Washington.

And things are polarized now because the right has turned into fucking morons who are now representing the lowest common denominator in America.

The right passed COBRA in yesteryear. As well as AMNESTY for illegals. As well as TAX INCREASES on the wealthy. And those were all done under Reagan and they got passed in bi-partisan fashion.

Washington is polarized now because retarded people who now make up what used to be a thoughtful Republican party can't even agree on whether funding highway construction is constitutional.

Republicans of yesteryear are now corporate-friendly Democrats.

The Teabagger agenda is to give voucher coupons to the elders in your family, forcing them to join the free market like the rest of us, where premiums and other things would fucking kill them with debt. They propose giving them a health care gift certificate worth less than half of what we now know their costs to be so that they can join a market with costs that would be at least double where they are now when you factor in their heart problems, cancer, lung problems, cataracts, and every other little thing that happens when you age.

Paul Ryan, architect of the voucher coupon idea from Medicare, wants to make it so that people not so far away from Medicare age will get a voucher that's worth about a quarter of all your costs altogether, creating the hugest donut hole in American history that the rest of us would naturally have to cover.

I'm appalled by the fact that there doesn't seem to be any other judicious or conservative folks like me on here who agree that passing the "Republican" budget plan would be a total disaster for America. Quotations because they're not even Republicans anymore. They're something else entirely.

And yet people come here and bitch about Harry Reid not proposing anything.

The guy wants to rubber-stamp a compromise deal where taxes go up modestly on millionaires and billionaires, while spending cuts are spread around evenly so that no one gets hurt more than anyone else. Pretty fucking simple, right? Of course not, because we're dealing with America here, a country that can't actually agree anymore on things both sides used to agree on every single year, and I directly blame the extreme wing of the Republican party for making that so. It's not Harry Reid's fault that he follows a long line of both Democrats and Republicans who were willing to make tough decisions during tough times.

What they propose on Medicare (two years in a row now) will be looked upon in shame by our children and grandchildren.

Please vote out the extreme element of the Republican party in November, or vote for a moderate Democrat in your district, because this is no longer the Republican party I used to respect.

I have a great deal of empathy for Harry Reid, a moderate Democrat himself who, based on his positions, would obviously have been a thoughtful Republican from yesteryear, except what that party has become is no longer friendly to bureaucrats like him who just want to help the country move along in a sensible, balanced way.

With Teabagger imbeciles in the Senate making sure to never give him a 60-vote majority, of course the Senate can't come out with a budget.

The people who continue to troll here with the constant "When's the last time the Senate passed a budget" crap should know better, but that's where we're at these days, with the very same folks who want to pass the Ryan Medicare nonsense complaining why the Senate won't just propose the same idiocy and just "go along".

Get with it, folks. Get real. Read the House Republican budget. No thoughtful Republican in America still left thinks it's any good. Even the Church is against the House Republican budget.

What you actually want is for the old corrupt GOP to come back. At least Democrats could buy them off with taxpayer money.

Originally Posted by adaher

What you actually want is for the old corrupt GOP to come back. At least Democrats could buy them off with taxpayer money.

I guess....but all things being fair, Harry Reid is what the old-time Republicans used to be.

You look at all the guys that came before and Reid is a total Republican!

So are a whole host of other Democrats now.

But I look at the Republicans and I see John Boehner being forced to put up a gimmick budget that was voted down 414-0 because he had to put it up without anyone knowing what the details of it were, so of course no one voted on it, even the Democrats.

And what it does that prove, other than the fact that what passes for Republican now is just this silly bullshit that signifies nothing, or voucher coupons in place of Medicare that would be a disaster?

The best way in my mind to deal with it is if thoughtful people (who share disagreements but who can get things done like in the old days of the 80's-90's) simply vote a straight Democratic ticket in November so that the entire country can fuck over the Tea Party and let them have their lonely 30 or 40%.

With a supermajority of thoughtful people in the Democratic tent, sensible things that used to not be controversial can actually get done, like a transportation bill for chrissakes.

With a supermajority of thoughtful people in the Democratic tent, we can actually pass debt reduction that is meaningful rather than this nonsense about totally doing away with Medicare and giving people food-stamp versions of health care coupons. Totally ridiculous.