Worst Congress Ever: 112th

Jul 27, 2011
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I fully agree this is the worst congress ever. Poor leadership with more and more ridiculous political games. Then there is the Tea Party wierdo influence.

NORM ORNSTEIN of the American Enterprise Institute quite literally wrote the book on congressional dysfunction. So it is profoundly depressing to see that he has now labelled the 112th Congress the worst one ever. More discouraging still, this is not a temporary problem brought about by transient phenomena such as the recent recession and the advent of the tea-party movement. It is the culmination of a long period of realignment in American politics, encompassing sharper ideological conflict between the parties, the extinction of the Boll Weevils and the Gypsy Moths, the simultaneous balkanisation of the mass media, the advent of the permanent campaign and a new way of thinking and operating on Capitol Hill. Moreover, it is going to become even worse:
CONTINUED: Governing America: Worst Congress ever? | The Economist
 
I fully agree this is the worst congress ever. Poor leadership with more and more ridiculous political games. Then there is the Tea Party wierdo influence.

NORM ORNSTEIN of the American Enterprise Institute quite literally wrote the book on congressional dysfunction. So it is profoundly depressing to see that he has now labelled the 112th Congress the worst one ever. More discouraging still, this is not a temporary problem brought about by transient phenomena such as the recent recession and the advent of the tea-party movement. It is the culmination of a long period of realignment in American politics, encompassing sharper ideological conflict between the parties, the extinction of the Boll Weevils and the Gypsy Moths, the simultaneous balkanisation of the mass media, the advent of the permanent campaign and a new way of thinking and operating on Capitol Hill. Moreover, it is going to become even worse:
CONTINUED: Governing America: Worst Congress ever? | The Economist

Ornstein is plugging a book. Even the most partisan political observer would not label a congress in 7 months but Ornstein was working on a deadline. Obviously his words were written before the 112 congress forced the administration to face cutbacks in spending. For that reason alone the 112 should be viewed as the congress that saved the Country from socialism.
 
I think Congress showed its best this time. Yeah, it was a bit of a battle, but that's just how Democratic Republic politics works out: everybody gets what nobody wants.

Even so, it's better than being lorded over by a harsh dictatorial King who taxes but doesn't pay any attention at all to subjects living in a foreign country.
 
Granny says, "Dat's right - dey a buncha do-nothin's wastin' America's taxes...
:eusa_eh:
Americans Sour on Congress After Debt Standoff
August 05, 2011 - Americans are losing patience with U.S. lawmakers following political infighting that brought the nation to the brink of default.
A New York Times/CBS News poll finds 82 percent of Americans disapprove of the way Congress is handling its job. The Times says that is the highest disapproval rating in the more than 30 years it has conducted the survey. The poll found more than four out of every five Americans thought the debate over raising the country's borrowing limit had more to do with gaining a political advantage than about what was in the country's best interest. And almost 75 percent said the political wrangling hurt America's reputation around the world.

The poll found Americans were more negative about the behavior of Republicans than Democrats. Seventy-two percent of those surveyed said they disapproved of the way Republican lawmakers behaved, compared to 66 percent disapproving of the way Democrats conducted themselves. Public opinion of the conservative Tea Party movement also diminished. The poll found 40 percent of the American public now views the Tea Party unfavorably, compared to just under 30 percent in mid-April.

The survey found Americans were less negative about President Barack Obama. Forty-seven percent said they disapproved of the way he handled the debt crisis, while 46 percent said they approved. The New York Times/CBS News survey spoke with 960 adults from across the U.S. and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Source
 
Granny says dey just making' bad things worse...
:eusa_eh:
Poll: 87% in US disapprove of Congress
Aug 25,`11 WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans are plenty angry at Congress in the aftermath of the debt crisis and Republicans could pay the greatest price, a new Associated Press-GfK poll suggests.
The poll finds the tea party has lost support, Republican House Speaker John Boehner is increasingly unpopular and people are warming to the idea of not just cutting spending but also raising taxes - anathema to the GOP - just as both parties prepare for another struggle with deficit reduction. To be sure, there is plenty of discontent to go around. The poll finds more people are down on their own member of Congress, not just the institution, an unusual finding in surveys and one bound to make incumbents particularly nervous. In interviews, some people said the debt standoff itself, which caused a crisis of confidence to ripple through world markets, made them wonder whether lawmakers are able to govern at all. "I guess I long for the day back in the `70s and `80s when we could disagree but we could get a compromise worked out," said Republican Scott MacGregor, 45, a Windsor, Conn., police detective. "I don't think there's any compromise anymore."

The results point to a chilly autumn in Washington as the divided Congress returns to the same fiscal issues that almost halted other legislative business and are certain to influence the struggle for power in the 2012 elections. They suggest that politicians, regardless of party, have little to gain by prolonging the nation's most consequential policy debate. And they highlight the gap between the wider public's wishes now and the tea party's cut-it-or-shut-it philosophy that helped propel Republicans into the House majority last year. The survey, conducted Aug. 18-22, found that approval of Congress has dropped to its lowest level in AP-GfK polling - 12 percent. That's down from 21 percent in June, before the debt deal reached fever pitch.

The results indicate, too, that the question of trust remains up for grabs - a sign that the government's stewardship of the economy over the next year will weigh heavily on the fortunes of both parties in the elections. Republicans and Democrats statistically tied, 40 percent to 43 percent respectively, when respondents were asked which party they trust more to handle the federal budget deficit. Nearly a third of independents said they trust neither party on the issue. Much about the next election hinges on independent voters, the ever-growing group fiercely wooed by campaigns for years. These respondents, the poll found, were the least forgiving toward incumbents and shifted substantially toward the need to raise taxes as part of the deficit and debt solution. Among them, 65 percent say they want their own House representative tossed out in 2012, compared with 53 percent of respondents generally.

This group, too, is helping fuel the shift toward raising taxes as a way to balance the budget. The poll found that among independents, 37 percent now say that increasing taxes should be the focus of the fiscal dealmakers, over cutting government services. That's up nine points from March, the poll found. The backlash was personal, too. Boehner, the congressional veteran from Ohio who struggled to win enough members of his own party to pass the debt deal, won approval from 29 percent of the poll's respondents. That's the lowest such level of his tenure and also the first time his rating is more negative than positive. Forty-seven percent of Republican respondents said they approve of Boehner; only a fifth of independents have a favorable opinion of him.

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Tea Partyers havin' their effect in Washington...
:eusa_eh:
House freshmen push bills that benefit big donors
30 Aug.`11 WASHINGTON – Several House freshmen who swept into power vowing to change Washington's ways are pushing legislation that could benefit some of their most generous campaign contributors, a USA TODAY review of legislative and campaign records shows.
Five months after taking office, Rep. Stephen Fincher, a cotton farmer from a mostly rural swath of Tennessee, introduced a bill to mandate swift federal approval of genetically modified crops for commercial sale. Fincher has received more campaign money from agribusiness than any other industry. Two months after he filed the bill, the political action committee of the Minnesota-based agricultural giant Land O'Lakes' staged a $500-a-head fundraiser to benefit the Republican's re-election campaign. The company spent more than $740,000 on lobbying last year on a range of issues, including federal regulation of its genetically modified alfalfa seeds.

Other freshmen who have crafted legislation backed by the industries helping to underwrite their campaigns include Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., and Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. Duffy, who gets a significant portion of his campaign funds from financial services companies, is the lead sponsor of a measure that would dilute the powers of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Gosar would end health insurance companies' protection from anti-trust provisions, a step applauded by doctors, dentists and health professionals who have donated nearly $74,000 to his campaign in the first six months of this year.

For the most part, the lawmakers, who were elected on a wave of voter discontent with Washington, say their measures are aimed at advancing a small-government agenda and promoting free-market ideals, not helping donors. Eighty-two Republicans and 11 Democrats were elected for the first time to the House last year. Craig Holman of the watchdog group Public Citizen said the proposed legislation is a sign that "the incoming freshmen have learned business-as-usual on Capitol Hill. They are very quickly moving into the ranks of normal incumbents." They also are setting fundraising records. House freshmen collected $37.2 million during the first six months of the year, a 34.3% jump over the campaign money raised by new House lawmakers at the same point in the 2010 election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission data.

A third of the donations this year to House freshmen who have joined the Tea Party caucus came from political action committees, a USA TODAY analysis shows. Fincher, one of 15 freshmen in the House Tea Party group, has received more than $87,700 from agribusiness interests between Jan. 1 and June 30, according to data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics. In July, Land O'Lakes hosted a Capitol Hill dinner to aid Fincher's campaign. Its subsidiary, Forage Genetics, had been at the center of a protracted legal battle over commercial cultivation of a genetically altered alfalfa seed it helped develop. It won final federal approval this year.

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I fully agree this is the worst congress ever. Poor leadership with more and more ridiculous political games. Then there is the Tea Party wierdo influence.

NORM ORNSTEIN of the American Enterprise Institute quite literally wrote the book on congressional dysfunction. So it is profoundly depressing to see that he has now labelled the 112th Congress the worst one ever. More discouraging still, this is not a temporary problem brought about by transient phenomena such as the recent recession and the advent of the tea-party movement. It is the culmination of a long period of realignment in American politics, encompassing sharper ideological conflict between the parties, the extinction of the Boll Weevils and the Gypsy Moths, the simultaneous balkanisation of the mass media, the advent of the permanent campaign and a new way of thinking and operating on Capitol Hill. Moreover, it is going to become even worse:
CONTINUED: Governing America: Worst Congress ever? | The Economist

Use your noodle, noodle. The 112 is barely 8 months old and Obama still controls the other 2/3 of government. If your self described giant noodle was working you might realize that what you are complaining about is freedom. Barry had a super majority for two years and he blew it big time. Thank God for the 112 or we would be sliding down the slope to 3rd world status while crazy democrats were still spending our great-grandkids money like a community activist junkie with a stolen ATM card.
 
I fully agree this is the worst congress ever. Poor leadership with more and more ridiculous political games. Then there is the Tea Party wierdo influence.

NORM ORNSTEIN of the American Enterprise Institute quite literally wrote the book on congressional dysfunction. So it is profoundly depressing to see that he has now labelled the 112th Congress the worst one ever. More discouraging still, this is not a temporary problem brought about by transient phenomena such as the recent recession and the advent of the tea-party movement. It is the culmination of a long period of realignment in American politics, encompassing sharper ideological conflict between the parties, the extinction of the Boll Weevils and the Gypsy Moths, the simultaneous balkanisation of the mass media, the advent of the permanent campaign and a new way of thinking and operating on Capitol Hill. Moreover, it is going to become even worse:
CONTINUED: Governing America: Worst Congress ever? | The Economist

Not even close. This Congress has done almost nothing. Which to me is much better than what the last one did.

You guys are fucking clueless.
 

The Greatest Generation survived the Great Depression and a World War to go on to build
a life that favored the middle class over the wealthy, while having enough children to
pay for their social security in their later years.

Their baby boom offspring, as a generation, have squandered the legacy of their
parents with greed for the almighty dollar, and by forgetting about the class
they grew up in, while placing wealth over their fellow Americans. Greed and
selfishness are what the babyboomers have wrought for their generation,
and that is why this once great nation is in peril.

Americans will need to stop the wealthiest and their mission the past 30 years or so
of massive wealth redistribution out of the middle class and into the top 1%.
That is, if America is going to be strong again. A large solid middle class is what
made this nation strong, and it can be again, if we all stop pandering to the
rightwing propaganda and misguided policies that favor the wealthy over the middle class.
 
This Congress STYMIED a lot of the irrational leftist agenda of the Nancy Pelousy's of the world, and it STYMIED President Obama dreams for a utopian socialist government.

So if the 112th Congress accomplished DAMN little, that's actually a GOOD thing.
 
Freshman Congressmen learnin' the ropes of Washington...
:eusa_eh:
Passage of sponsored bills belie power of House freshmen
1 Sept.`11 - The freshman class that swept Republicans into control of the House has sponsored more than 400 pieces of legislation since January, ranging from bills that would dismantle President Obama's health care law to minting coins to honor mothers and the National Basketball Association.
Only a handful have become law. They include a measure that praises the nation's intelligence community for "bringing Osama bin Laden to justice" and another that aims to protect trains and subways from terrorist attacks. Freshman members of Congress often spend their initial years learning the process and slowly working their way up to positions of influence. About 65% of all bills passed through Congress are sponsored by chairmen of committees and subcommittees, so it's hard for regular legislators, let alone freshmen just establishing themselves, to pass legislation, said John Wilkerson, a political science professor at the University of Washington.

But freshman groups that have stormed into Congress in waves — such as the "Watergate babies" of 1974 that sent Democrats into the House following President Nixon's resignation and the "Republican Revolution" — of 1994 have had more success in other ways. Analysts note that the current crop of first-timers, made up of 82 Republicans and 11 Democrats, already has made its influence known when Tea Party-inspired freshmen held enough votes and influence to force the debt-ceiling deal that may cut the deficit by up to $2.4 trillion.

"They might not have a lot of bills or a lot of victories, but they have one big one and that was the major issue for a lot of them coming in," said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. "House Speaker John Boehner had his feet to the fire because of them. That's a sea change from where politics was just six months ago." A review of bills shows Republican freshmen have hit themes they sounded on the campaign trail: At least 10 bills chip away at Obama's health care law, and several legislators have tried to peel back pieces of the Wall Street financial regulations passed last year.

Others want to clamp down on environmental protection legislation they say hurt industry and cost jobs. Other bills would trim federally backed mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and transfer money from foreign aid programs to domestic ones. For their part, Democrats have crafted bills that resonate with their party faithful, such as limiting domestic oil and gas exploration and increasing federal aid to students, veterans and others. The freshmen also have sponsored bills that are standard fare for both parties: 11 measures to rename post offices and parks.

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It must be going bad when The Economist is reporting negatively on Obama. They were supporters and endorsed Obama in 2008.

Remember these covers?


economist-endorses-obama.jpg


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economist20081108issuecov.jpg
 

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