2012: Anyone but … Harry!
After dutifully watching all of the Republican presidential debates, I have arrived at an irrefutable conclusion: regardless of which GOP contender you may want to challenge President Obama this fall, our collective goal must be to get rid of this guy once and for all.
I refer, of course, to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
I know, I know. The planet is fixated on the primary sweepstakes at the moment, largely because the media have successfully marketed this process as a must-see-TV event combining the best elements of American Idol and the UFC. And to their credit, the networks and cable providers have created a hit show in an otherwise forgettable TV season.
(This is not my observation. My son is currently a writer and producer of The Office on NBC, and a while ago I asked him how the network’s new fall lineup was faring. His response: “I don’t think we’ll have one show that will run as long as the Republican debates.”)
So don’t touch that dial. All I am asking my fellow GOPers and curious independents to do between episodes of the Republican Road Show is to check out what is happening in the Democrat-controlled Senate under the direction of Maestro Reid.
Perhaps I should say: check out what is not happening. On January 24, 2012, while we focus on Barack Obama’s State of the Union Address, Harry Reid’s Senate will be celebrating their 1000th consecutive day without passing a budget. Not only is this an unprecedented dereliction of duty, it may actually be a violation of law. However, given the president’s cavalier attitude towards the legality of recess appointments and his attorney general’s reluctance to protect voters in Philadelphia from Black Panther harassment, don’t look for the feds to come down too hard on Harry and the boys.
Budget statutes and the resolutions they require are, of course, always more symbol than substance. As a real tool to curb spending and rein in the growth of government, the 1974 Budget Control Act has been an abysmal failure, serving only to throw the occasional wrench into the gears of unrestrained federal largesse. The Gramm-Rudman provisions of the late 1980s and the more recent Super Committee are but two of examples of Congress devising an artificial mechanism to compensate for its lack of human resolve. Truth be told, the 1974 Budget Act was created not to impose fiscal discipline on Congress but rather to disrespect then-President Richard Nixon, who impounded almost $12 billion of congressionally appropriated funds because he feared the excessive spending would fuel inflation. Arguably, the sorry history of federal budget legislation is much more about party politics than public policy.
Which brings us back to Harry Reid and the Democrat Senate. These days, even the most casual observer of our political process concedes that our system has been broken for some time, which probably explains the why Congress’ approval rating is 11%. That has trended up slightly in the past weeks — of course, they haven’t been in session. Indeed, it would appear that for most of the last two presidencies our government has thrashed violently back and forth between gridlock and enacting laws that have outraged a majority of the American people. (Insert the Patriot Act and Obamacare here.)
The only time in recent memory when our branches of government and the political parties that control them have achieved any sort of harmonic convergence was during the mid 1990s, when Bill Clinton was president and Newt Gingrich was speaker of the House and the leader of the newly minted Republican majority. Those four years produced consecutive balanced budgets that led to surpluses and the now universally admired Targeted Assistance for Needy Families law, which converted federal welfare benefits to state bloc grants underwriting job training and placement.
Go back and review the debate during that period between Republican and Democrats, and you will see that that our government was as divided and even as divisive as it is today. The difference: it never became dysfunctional. Both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue actually produced results that found favor with a broad cross section of Americans. Hard to find such parallels in today’s political climate, unless you consider an unemployment rate which has inched down from 9.2% to 8.5% a success story.
Fritter away your time and money trying to unseat Harry if you wish. All you need to do is look at what the House has done in the past year since the Republicans have taken it over and you realize that no matter which flavor runs the House or Senate not much is going to get done. What landmark legislation has Boehner and the Republicans passed? Sure – they’ve been a roadblock to Democrats getting more goodies to their buddies (unions etc) in the form of ‘stimulus’ but thats playing defense – they need to get on offense and start getting things done already. Does not matter that it’ll never pass the Senate and is threatened with a veto by Obama if the Senate did pass it. Give em something to have to explain away – like a real jobs bill – or relaxing legislation. They managed to force Obama into rejecting the XL pipeline once again. This gives the Republicans a big drum to thump on come election time – but do you really think the Idiot Savants – AKA the GOP – is smart enough to bang on that drum? The only drum I hear from these morons says Romney Romney Romney. Seems all they want to give us in the way of candidates are RINOS.
Republicans running the White House and both branches of Congress would create some peace of mind but it is no assurance of good things to come should this come to pass. The GOP is looking more and more like The Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight.
And aren’t there about three dozen or so investigations the House needs to get started on?
Actually you should do some research. The House passed several bills that Harry let die in the Senate without a vote. The very first bill passed by the House was a full repeal of ObamaCare but it never got the light of day in teh Seante. And the MSM treated the Ames straw vote with more reports than this.
Also the House passed the majority of the 12 appropriation bills required annually (by comparison Pelosi passed ZERO in her final year). Again these bills just died in the Senate and Dems forced another omnibus bill to fund the country.
The MSM, of course, will tell you this is all Republican obstructionism. And it looks like you have bought the story.
I certainly agree with the sentiment, KT, but at this point I’ll take a good defense against hyper-government.
Name one?
The House passed the Paul Ryan budget proposal, which the Reid-controlled Senate ignored. Had that budget been passed (and somehow gotten past a likely Obama veto), we would be in much better shape.
And thankfully the house did pass the Ryan Budget as it will be hung around the necks of the Republicans who voted for it. Maybe you should check to see if the Senate voted on the Ryan Budget – Oh wait they did and voted it down 57-40.
You get the point. You miss the point.
You get the point. The “downstream” races are unquestionably important to what government we suffer for the next term.
You miss the point. The “downstream” races will be decided by turnout.
The “Top of the Ticket” and the enthusiasm he generates will decide many local races.
Let’s pretend this is hypothetical:
One primary candidate is ‘fundamentally’ capitalist; a hard liner, the press would call him an “extremist”, he understands it all and knows right.
Another candidate has operated in the system as it is, successfully. Also he is electable.
Which of them generates the turnout to decide the Senatorial/Congressional/Local races?
“Which brings us back to Harry Reid and the Democrat Senate. These days, even the most casual observer of our political process concedes that our system has been broken for some time, which probably explains the why Congress’ approval rating is 11%.”
Trust me, nobody would want to see that disgusting, pandering little parasite, Harry Reid, get kicked out of the Senate more than I would. But I’m getting a little tired of all these people saying that Congress is “broken.” In some ways, I’m happy that it’s “broken.” If it is, then it can’t pass more regulations and laws that will strangle both businesses and our economy. Seems like we can get more things done when Congress doesn’t DO anything, that way they can’t harm us by passing even more useless laws that nobody wants to see on the books. Remember, when Congress was working “efficiently” and was actually producing laws, they gave you real gems like Obamacare, TARP, the almost trillion dollar “stimulus,” hiring more Federal workers, reducing our military strength, and the list goes on and on. And even when they ARE working together, the still over spend, create an even larger Federal bureaucracy, and can’t come to an agreement on fixing Social Security and Medicaid. So please, Congress, don’t do us any favors. If you stay “broken,” at least you can’t destroy what’s left of this country. Call me up when you decide to act like grownups and actually want to DO something, like pass a decent budget.
I agree. In 2010 we sent a new batch of republicans to the House specifically to stop the juggernaut. They have done very well.
You are overlooking the tendency of this president to do, by fiat and unelected appointments, what he can’t get Congress to do. Republicans in control of both houses could overrule that.
Event hough the republicans won the house, I was depressed after election day to find out harry reid had won, by of course voter fraud and the casino bosses coericing their workers to vote democrat. But with Steve Wynn (windstar casinos) coming out against obama, hopefylly they saw the light and will vote Republican and many more unions like the pipefitters etc. I can only hope we get a filibuster proof Senate then real reform can happen.
Hi Gopher. Great post. The Office is the most brilliant comedy on the telly. You’re perspective on the mid-90′s was eye-opening. Yes, you are right. But don’t we need 60 votes to stop a fillibuster? I disagree that the Congess is dysfunctional. It’s working exactly the way it’s supposed to work. Checks and balances. Thank 8 years of Bush for handing the nation over to the Left. Let’s hope the GOP caucus in the House blocks every bill the Dems sponsor. I don’t want to see any “landmark Legislation” from this Congress. And one more thing: when someone gets to the Senate, they change. They become part of the elites – think Kirsten Gillibrand.
Putting Reid in the minority is as pivotal as defeating Obama.
Obstructionist, obnoxious and, very likely, not completely all there (post stroke), Harry is one gigantic pain in the ass who revels in one man rule.
The majority leader has near complete power in terms of what bills can even make it to the floor for a vote, which is, in and of itself, a subversion of Senate process.
While we are at it, is there any way we could get someone besides Boner.. uhh, Boehner, in as speaker in the other house? Not kick him out of the House but just get another Republican that will do the job as speaker right?
Sure, Cantor or Bachmann can run for Speaker, and the Speaker is elected by a majority vote of the House. If nobody gets 218 votes, they’ll keep voting until someone does. Flip some Democrats who are interested in messing with Republican internal politics, and Boehner will be just another Representative, rather than Speaker.
Absolutely. All those who are complaining about Mitt Romney not being the ideal fiscal conservative should remember it is Congress that holds the purse strings and Congress is who we need to stand up and DO THEIR JOB.
Actually, to turn back the Marxist clock and avert the overthrow, it would be nice to have all three Houses and the Supreme Court with significant majorities.
It would be nice to clean the Aegean Stables known as otherwise as the DOJ, it would be nice to seize control of the NLRB, the EPA and a dozen other rogue agencies now operating as sleeper cell autonomous arms of the silent revolution.
It would be nice to deprogram the cult in the Department of Education, fire up the engines at NASA and in the Department of Energy.
There is so much to clean out, scrape off and hose down…it will take years to remove the Marxist filth completely caked on …in every nook and cranny.
Supermajorities in Congress would be wonderful…massive free market legislation could be passed in reconciliation, we can appoint our own replacement rulers over planned parenthood, public broadcasting, and “union” issues…with absolutely no oversight or repesentative governance hurdles.
Now that we know the federal government can run that way with the complete approval of the Democrats, I’m sure they will be just peachy keen fine with it continuing to run PRECISELY that way with a supermajority Republican government.
Recess appointments galore whether in recess, out of recess…doesn’t matter. We can declare war on any country without going to Congress…that’s been given Democratic Party imprimatur.
Joyous days ahead. All we have to do…is take all three Houses…and follow the EXACT footsteps that this administration has laid on the ground for us to copy. It will be beautiful.
Those stables are the Augean Stables.
“our collective goal must be to get rid of this guy once and for all.”
Reid would already have been gone by now, if the GOP base hadn’t chosen Sharron Angle over Sue Lowden as their Senate candidate.
Unlike Angle, Reid couldn’t have painted Lowden as a fringe extremist. Lowden would have clobbered Reid in 2010.
But you know how some in the GOP base are: They’re more intent on expelling “RINOs” from the party than on defeating Democrats.
I totally agree with all your points. I think, they will find that most Independents have RINO values.
Worth it- unless the Republicans are on notice that they have to govern as conservatives, we’ll always lose. By letting them know we’d rather let Democrats win than let them get away with not towing the party line, we force them to govern as conservatives. In any game of chicken, the crazy guy always wins, because he’s not afraid to get both players killed.
Exactly, Sharron would have made an excellent Senator, much better to lose with a real conservative than win with a RINO. I know whereof I speak – I am from Maine, just look at my two RINO Senators and what they have done….
I’m glad to see someone mention the productivity of the 90s Congress/White House bipartisan legislation. In addition to the food stamp reform, we actually had (nominally) balanced federal budgets after that, which was something of a small miracle.
Too bad the Republicans destroyed all that once Bush entered office in 2001, slashing taxes and ramping up spending.
I look forward to the Republicans regaining their sanity and taking back the party from the crazies, but I don’t see that happening anytime soon, as the pageant of the last three years indicates.
Wow, quite the overreach there!! If you would do any real research, there were no actual surpluses in the ’90′s – they were projections into the future. If growth rates had continued on a similar track, there would have been surpluses, but there was this little thing that happened on 9/11 that took just a tiny bit of wind out of our economy’s sails. More lefty lies and drivel….
I agree the battle has to be won on several levels and we can’t simply boil it all down to who is the President. We can not afford this Democrat Senate. We need reforms and we need them FAST. So the only way to get them it go after the Senate. Find a Repub. running for the Senate a fund one. Or fund Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund or another conservative Group. But we also need to get rid of the RINO’s and the big spending Repubs. Its time to clean up the Congress.
Being from Maine, I wish we could get rid of my two RINO senators, but the only way would be to elect democrats. If you look at the democraps we keep electing to the House, you would definitely not want them in the senate. Chellie Pingree is just as liberal as Obama, Pelosi, and Reid. The only way we will ever get rid of Snowe and Collins is if they retire…
I’m okay with Congress being deadlocked. If the Republicans control everything, they legislate with an iron fist in one direction. If the Democrats control everything, they legislate with an iron fist in the other direction.
I’d rather nobody legislate anything than either of those, since “compromise” is a four-letter word, apparently.