If all these things are so good for America, so good for the Democratic party, and easily passed, why not just bring forward this magical agenda?
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by John Cole| 40 Comments
This post is in: Democratic Stupidity
If all these things are so good for America, so good for the Democratic party, and easily passed, why not just bring forward this magical agenda?
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Slartibartfast
Things are getting so desperate in the Senate that Democrats are threatening to do something good for the country. Dire straits, indeed.
ron phelps
Wait a second. You gripe and laugh because all the dems do is retaliate against the other partys agenda. Now you laugh because they have a plan.
Doesn’t make sense to me.
We are entering our 5th year with republicans having COMPLETE control of the government.
what do we have for it?
-Tort reform.
-Bankrupcy reform.
-Loss of millions of jobs.
-Stagnation of the minimum wage.
-Over 1500 american sons DEAD.
-Over 15000 american sons maimed
in body and spirit.
-Over 50,000 dead women and children in iraq..and still no electricity/water.
-Increasing gas prices.
-Increasing health care costs.
-Increasing everything else.
Ah… did I miss something?
This is the record you are standing on and are so proud of??
Are you just outright insane or just slowly getting that way?
Ampersand
I think the answer to your question is that these measures are not, in fact, “so easily passed.” On the contrary, they are pretty much certain to fail (and even if by a miracle one passed the Senate, there’s no chance in the House).
As far as I can tell, Democrats have not been claiming these proposals are “easily passed” in the current climate; that appears to be an inaccuracy in your post.
Kimmitt
why not just bring forward this magical agenda?
Because traditionally the Senate Majority Leader sets the agenda (as is appropriate; the point of being in charge is to set the agenda), and most Senators are really into tradition.
Reid’s so far into Frist’s head that he knows what Frist is going to do before Frist does. It’s beautiful to watch, just as an example of a man playing a game very, very well.
Mr Furious
The way I understand it, the Democrats can only bring this stuff to the floor using an onbscure procedure that is never used. As majority party the Republicans get to set the agenda, and the Democrats have gone along with that.
If the Republicans invoke the “nuclear option”, then the Democrats will bypass normal procedure and employ this wierd technique to introduce legislation and force Republicans to go on record on these issues.
You’re right, I’d say, “Let ‘er rip!” on this except if the Democrats go first it will ensure the filibuster vote and will swing Republicans on the fence back to the other side. In effect, this is the Democrats “nuclear option” but it only works as a retaliation, not as a first strike.
Or something like that. I read a breakdown of this yesterday…i’ll try and find a link.
JG
‘Ah… did I miss something?’
Yup. You forgot the wonderful idea of making it so that the children of rich people can inherit tax free. When did republicans become the tax-cut and spend party anyway?
Kimmitt
1981.
space
Hmmm? Sen. Reid sets out an agenda that is good policy and does it in a way that is smart politics and it gets filed under Democratic Stupidity? WTF?
I think your time would be better served trying to explain why the GOP would oppose the nine bills.
Rick
Ummmm…because not all nine points stand up to scrutiny, that’s why. Divert from Strategic Oil Reserve, rather than roll back Fed gas taxes; pour still more money into the education blob. Killing job creation with yet another minimum wage hike.
Why won’t they take advantage of Bush’s biggest vulnerability: insouciance in re: illegal immigration? Stupdity is why.
Cordially…
Andrei
“Killing job creation with yet another minimum wage hike.”
Oh please. Give that crap a rest. The current minimum wage is laughable at best. It may work as a wage in third world countries, but no way in hell anyone in any metropolitan, corporate heavy jobs market in the U.S. can live on the current min wage. The min wage barely works in rural Amercia.
Kill jobs? That’s such bullshit. So Wal-Mart execs are forced to take a minor pay cut from their very high salaries to make sure their employees have wages that allow them to pay their bills. So they are forced to cut their marketing campaigns, certain bonuses or whatever else they have to do to help pay for a min wage hike. So they have to *raise* their prices somewhat to pay for it, putting them back into the realm of having to compete with everyone else rather than undercutting everyone because the min wage allows them to. Cry me a fucking river.
A min wage hike won’t kill jobs. A hike would force a correction to the current imbalanced market place. A correction long since needed.
It’s kind of like the correction needed in gas prices, which are far too low for what’s really going on. A higher gas price might force Detroit to get more serious about hybrids, help push consumers along to buy more hybrids, and set off a chain reaction to help us reduce our dependence on oil. That also might keep more money here rather than gving it to the Saudis which in turn could help promote the free market push and democracy reform in the Middle East.
Hiking the min wage is the right thing to do, and anyone who doesn’t beleive that should try living on it for a year.
John Cole
Space-
Because the idea that ‘good legislation’ should wait to be introduced until an arcane Senate rule is changed is stoopid.
With two o’s.
rilkefan
The gas bill is a pander, agreed. But the rest of the agenda is sensible. For example, do you oppose forcing fiscal sanity on the Senate? Do you have any idea how fiscally smart it is to fund early childhood development? Are you against reducing the rate of unwanted pregnancies? Do you disagree workers should have a right to overtime pay for overtime work?
Mr Furious
You’re right, Rick! If we roll back the gas taxes, there’ll be no money for the highways, which will fall into disrepair. No one will be able to drive on the decrepit highways and bridges, demand goes down, prices fall, and we’re conserving to boot!
Wow! who couldn’t get behind a great plan like that?
Cordially…
space
Well Rick, I can accept that you oppose the Democratic agenda (not that I agree that your criticisms stand up to scrutiny). That is your right.
But if your response is to simply call every policy proposal that you disagree with — and the proponents of said policies — “stupid” then I would argue that you display a rather childish approach to democracy. And I don’t think that even John Cole intends “stupidity” to be synonymous with “things I disagree with”.
As for your suggestion that Bush’s biggest vulnerability is on illegal immigration, I’d say you are way off base.
Let’s look at Bush’s stance on immigration. His position is to periodically mouth empty rhetoric about resticting immigration in order to pander to his public base of disgruntled and arguably racist white, working-class conservatives. But in reality he will never do anything that will piss off his true base of wealthy, corporate backers, such as Wal-Mart, who have no interest in restricting illegal immigration.
Sure Bush’s public base may be pissed, but they aren’t going anywhere. They certainly aren’t voting for Democrats, no matter what the Democrats say. By pandering to the minuteman crowd, Democrats can only piss off their own base, including minorities who may see immigration as a problem but certainly don’t put it high on the list of America’s priorities.
Rick
Not crap: it constricts at the entry level. Think of learning employment skills @ the first job with the reverence some show for the highly perishable Head Start. Only it lasts a lifetime.
Minimum wage is, in most cases, the start-out wage. For minors, so they don’t have to ” try living on it for a year.”
Cordially…
Jon H
One improvement would be for the Dems to call it their Covenant with America.
“Covenant” has that religious overtone to it, and the term might be familiar to voters due to the recent talk about “covenant marriage”, which apparently is a “really serious marriage. No, really, we mean it.”
Jeff
“…..to make sure their employees have wages that allow them to pay their bills”.
It’s not the responsibility of an employer to pay people enough to pay their bills. It’s to pay them what their service is worth.
space
John Cole:
Here’s why it isn’t entirely stupid. Having the minority party introduce legislation is largely pointless. It isn’t going anywhere. Ordinarily, if the Senate is functioning in a civil manner, it serves the country well to not have the minority party clog up the legislative calendar with legislation solely intended for the purpose of grandstaning. A rule by which both parties agree to forego this practice is an efficient rule (as long as the Senate is operating in a civil manner).
Second, for a variety of reasons, what Reid is doing is SMART politics. It is smart to remind voters that Democrats have a specific agenda since Republicans constantly repeat the talking point that Democrats only complain and never offer solutions. It is smart to threaten ignoring the rule in order to gain leverage over Republicans that are wavering on the “nuclear option”. It is smart to wait until the GOP acts and let Frist look like the one who is destroying Senate traditions.
Lastly, if it is simply the rule that you disapprove of – the minority defering to the majority – and both parties have honored this rule in the past, why are the Democrats “stupid” for contemplating ignoring it. Shouldn’t your post be “Finally, smart Democrats contemplate ignoring stupid rule”?
Ron Phelps
great posts, john.
sometimes it just pays to get up in the morning.
Andrei
“Minimum wage is, in most cases, the start-out wage. For minors, so they don’t have to ‘try living on it for a year.'”
As the “start-out” wage, it also sets the bar for the wages directly above it and the acceptable range for lower income families. You raise the bar of the “start-out” wage, and you raise everything else. You keep it where it is, and you actually create burdens on everything from tax income to health care since so many of the lower income families can’t contribute to the economy in a *positive* manner. That is, supplying it with more money and costing it less money in support systems like using emergency rooms instead of having preventative health care as a small exmaple.
Raising the min wage has a correction effect on everything just above it, which is sorely needed rightnow. (And I say this as someone who lives in a household that makes more than $300K a year.)
The current range of lower income wages are not in line with reasonable cost of living in many areas of this country and are in many ways creating unacceptable costs and burdens on the entire system.
Rick
We are entering our 5th year with republicans having COMPLETE control of the government.
That’s news to Tom Daschle. The Congress convening in Jan. ’03 was the start of that COMPLETE bit, so we’re not even 2 1/2 years into your Fourth Reich.
Cordially…
Rick
As the “start-out” wage, it also sets the bar for the wages directly above it and the acceptable range for lower income families.
That’s why it has been reasonably proposed to abolish the minimum wage for those *entering* the job market as minors. Raising the minimum wage constricts their employability, and this is not a social good.
The minimum wage was enacted in the 1930s to hold down Black employment, and it still tends to do that.
Celebrating a 70-year-old tradition: Democratic stupidity.
Cordially…
space
Rick,
Yes, the GOP, always on the side of poor minority workers. How could I forget.
Cordially…
Rick
Uhhh…you don’t read too widely, I guess.
Cordially…
Kimmitt
John: space has it; the minority Party respects the tradition of deference to the majority in the hopes that it will someday be the majority. Thus do both sides theoretically get their pieces heard and implemented.
Andrei
“That’s why it has been reasonably proposed to abolish the minimum wage for those *entering* the job market as minors. Raising the minimum wage constricts their employability, and this is not a social good.”
How on earth does killing the minimum wage suddenly incite employers everywhere to start paying *more* for minors or others? They could do that at any point in time they feel like now. It’s called a minimum wage for a reason.
“The minimum wage was enacted in the 1930s to hold down Black employment, and it still tends to do that.”
Regardless of its origins (and I’d have to do more research on this point as I don’t accept it at face value), its use in today’s modern world and economy have a very real effect on the society as a whole. Wal-Mart and the fast food industry being cases in point.
Further, the mim wage these days is not used to “hold down” a minority employment. (Whatever “hold down” means.) It’s used by large corporations to maximize their profits by paying less for labor. Nothing more. The question is, as a society, are we acting in our best collective interest by allowing corporations to do that with all its ramifciations on the tax base and the infrastrucutre as a whole, or are we actually hurting ourselves more by not raising the bar?
It’s not a partisan issue. It’s an economic one.
“Celebrating a 70-year-old tradition: Democratic stupidity”
Ah… assuming that I’m a democrat, when I’m not. A grand tradition of general stupidity by the likes of most who post on the internet with partisan purposes.
neil
Who ever said anything about ‘easy to pass?’ I thought the whole point is that these are bills that would be IMPOSSIBLE to pass in the current Congress, and that’s why the Dems haven’t wasted their time and everybody else’s getting them shot down.
John Cole
Neil: Precisely. Letting them sit and talking about how good they are is pointless andstupid and correctly seen by many as an empty gesture. IF they are good bills, putthe Republicans on the defensive and make them vote against them, or at least have them on record as not even allowing the bills to be discussed. That will garner political capital, at least.
space
John Cole:
Here’s the thing. In the abstract, I believe you are correct. I would prefer to have both parties submit bills, deliberate, and go on the record. Fine. I’m sure many Democratic Senators would prefer that as well.
But please don’t tell me that NOW, on the eve of the GOP trying to kill the filibuster, is the time for Democrats to suddenly toss out the tradition of deference. Please don’t tell me that you think that would be SMART.
Bob
Ron Phelps:
We’ll skip the part about “5 Years of total GOP control of the government” (it’s actually just over 2 years)
Health care costs have been increasing for years. To the extent you can lay this at the government’s door at all, blame it on government subsidized health care driving up demand. But I suspect that wasn’t your point.
Gas prices rise as well. If you’ll recall, they rose pretty sharply in 2000 as well (Again, this has pretty much nothing to do with anything the GOP does or anyone in government for that matter, does or doesn’t do.)
Tort reform??? Who exactly is outraged by this???
Bankruptcy reform–I’ll give you this one–but this has been in the pipeline since about 1996, no big surprise it passed (with lots of help from the Democrats I might add)
Loss of millions of jobs–Maybe you should check the unemployment rate–it’s about 5.4% last time I checked. If I remember my Econ 101 correctly 5% is considered “full employment”. There were job losses when Bush first took office. That was because of something called, “the business cycle.” Look into it.
Minimum wage–Without getting into the merits of it (I think it’s an abomination, I personally would abolish it and go towards a negative income tax or subsidies to employers myself) it hasn’t been changed since 1997. Remind me again–who was president from 1997-Jan 2001?
As for the war dead–if you’re opposed to the war, than I’m not going change your mind that it was worth it. But you could have just as easily said, “Iraq war–a tyrant was deposed and democracy is taking root. Gadafi agreed to abandon his nuke program because of it. It’s currently inspiring a democratic movement throughout the Mid East, etc.” All a matter of opinion.
I see these cut and paste lists from liberals all the time. What annoys me is that they lump in legitimate criticism with trends and events that have nothing to with Bush or the GOP (i.e., health care costs, gas prices, mild recession in 2001). There’s plenty to criticise the GOP for, why cheapen your point with bogus charges and hyperbole?
Pudentilla
2006.
John Cole
Loss of millions of jobs–Maybe you should check the unemployment rate–it’s about 5.4% last time I checked. If I remember my Econ 101 correctly 5% is considered “full employment”. There were job losses when Bush first took office. That was because of something called, “the business cycle.” Look into it.
I think the greater point they are trying to make is the shift ion jobs to lower paying jobs and the overall decrease in purchasing power and the shift of wealth to the upper tiers, which should concern people.
Kimmitt
IF they are good bills, putthe Republicans on the defensive and make them vote against them, or at least have them on record as not even allowing the bills to be discussed.
Right, but the cost there is breaking a tradition which ensures smooth functioning of the Senate. So there’s both a cost and a benefit, and I can understand coming down on either side.
Bob
Fair enough John. That’s a legitimate debate point. (I’d argue that I don’t think it’s near the problem you maintain that it is–but I don’t want to get into it and start a whole new debate on the thread–so I’ll let it stand.) But it’s not what Ron said. That’s what I meant by making a distinction between fair criticism and debate and making bogus, hyberbolic charges.
I don’t mean to pick on Ron alone. Both the left and right do it. Now that Bush is president, it’s mostly coming from the left. We can expect to see the same from the right when Hillary becomes president in ’08.
synuclein
One of the other “problems” with the unemployment rate (in addition to underestimating the underemployed) as it is currently measured is that it only accounts for individuals who have filed for unemployment benefits. It doesn’t take into account individuals who have expended their unemployment benefits and/or those who have given up trying to find another job.
So, right now, nobody truly knows what the real unemployment rate is in the US.
John Cole
So, right now, nobody truly knows what the real unemployment rate is in the US.
Barring you can show the metric has not changed recently in the accounting, this is an invalid argument. While we may not know how many people are really unemployed in the US, if we are using the same measurement, we can still state the employment rate as a measure relevant to other times in history, when we may not have known the actual unemployment.
For example, I may not know my ideal weight, but I do know that my scale has not changed, so when I say I was 200 lbs ten years ago and 230 now, I know where I stand in relation to previous years, but I still do not know my ideal weight?
Make sense?
Kimmitt
What John said, though it is very useful to look at labor force participation rates as a counterweight to unemployment rates.
Dave Ruddell
Also, as the population grows, you can have more people unemployed, but the same rate of unemployment (of course, this also means you have more people employed as well).
Katherine
John, this is ridiculous. It’s been INTRODUCED, it hasn’t been voted on because the GOP Senators pretty much always vote along party lines in committee. And it still won’t be voted on. All this will do is force the Senate to debate it for a few hours–but then the debate will simply end.
Go to THOMAS and type in Durbin’s name into the bill search engine–there’s all kinds of bills and amendments he’s introduced and is cosponsoring, and he’s just one of 44 (albeit an usually busy one). The Republican majority will not allow them out of committee.
Katherine
” IF they are good bills, putthe Republicans on the defensive and make them vote against them, or at least have them on record as not even allowing the bills to be discussed.”
Excuse me, but where the hell have you been since 2002? That is EXACTLY what’s the Republicans are doing, they do it by not scheduling hearings or committee votes on bills, and voting against them when they do, and voting down on a party line vote any investigation that could be politically harmful regardless of how serious the scandal is, and cutting off debate so that the Democrats stop offering embarrassing amendments that make it apparent how sh*tty the legislation is.
Have you heard of Hastert’s informal rule that there will no debate on legislation that does not have the support of “the majority of the majority”? It’s worse in the House, but the same thing happens in the Senate.
Pay attention.