( - promoted by mooncat)
If there could be any doubt, a recent vote in the US Senate is proof positive that Republicans in DC are not negotiating in good faith and not interested in acting in a bipartisan manner -- instead, the are just the "party of no." In the vote, seven GOP co-sponsors of legislation for a fiscal responsibility panel withdrew their support after word leaked that Obama supported the proposal. How can you withdraw support of a bill when you are a co-sponsor? To put it one way, they were for it before they were against it. As Wonkette put it, "It became a problem when Barack Obama endorsed it and Republicans had to find a way to (a) make sure it didn’t pass ever and (b) blame Obama for not passing it from his legislative chair in the executive branch." The bill was officially described as a bill to take "responsible fiscal action, to assure the long-term fiscal stability and economic security of the federal government of the United States, and to expand future prosperity and growth for all Americans." The vote in the Senate was actually 53 in favor to 46 oppossed, but these days it takes 60 votes to pass any bill. After the vote failed, Obama has signaled in his State of the Union address that he will create the commission by Executive Order sometime this week. Unlike the Senate bill's commission, there can be no requirement that Congress vote on the recommendations of the President's commission. What deeply bothers me about all this is that Republicans have made an issue of the escalating national debt -- it is even the chief issue of the Teabaggers, but when they finally have a chance to do something about it -- they back out. Put simply, it shows they are phonies: they are acting in bad faith. Instead of taking action that could the problem, they will likely complain of a lack of bipartisanship and complain that the President has no concern for the issue. That is Republican dishonesty, that is what Chris Matthews while on the Rachel Maddow show aptly called "treachery". It shows that Republicans are not patriots; indeed, they would rather see the Country fail than our President succeed. I am disheartened. Republican hyberbole and distortion won't solve any problems. So, when the Repubs start along these phony complaints of partisanship by the President and Democratic leaders, I, for one, will remember this vote and I will throw it back in their face. |
