Bipartisanship is Dead
At yesterday’s White House Briefing, bipartisanship was again the theme of the day.
In light of Scott Brown’s win in Massachusetts, reporters wanted to know, was President Obama going to start working with Republicans? Was he willing to start all over on health care reform and shape a bill that Republicans could also support?
If only Press Secretary Robert Gibbs had told the truth: Bipartisanship is dead! At least, in this Congress.
God knows, President Obama tried.
On the stimulus, Obama went up to Capitol Hill and met with House Republicans to discuss the bill. He got not one Republican vote in the House.
On health care, Obama waited while Max Baucus met with the “Gang of Six” – including Olympia Snowe, Chuck Grassley, and Mike Enzi – to shape a bill Republicans could support. He got not one Republican vote on the floor of the Senate.
Doesn’t Obama realize by now? As long as John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are in charge, there will be no bipartisan cooperation in Congress. Because they don’t want it. They’ve decided simply to be against everything Obama is for.
On health care, climate change, jobs, immigration, it’s time to forget bipartisanship – and simply get the job done.
That’s my parting shot for today.
This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 8:55 am and is filed under BILL BLOG. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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I’m not sure I can agree with you on this one. While on the surface it appears that Repubs are being obstructionist, it can be argued that the reason they are is that they have limited input in the process. Whether true or not, there is a definite appearance of the Republican Party being frozen out of any serious discussions concerning key legislation… to the point where they have actually been locked out of the room while discussions have taken place.
Can you seriously make a case that the Democrats are reaching across the aisle to Republicans while such shenanigans are going on?
I agree that little in the way of bipartisanship has been offered by the Dem’s. The trip to meet with the Republicans was nothing more then a chance to say “I won, that trumps you”. So much for “the One” and his bipartisanship. Remember the House rules change to accommodate the minority party when the Dem’s lost control? Seems when old Nancy got in charge, that was the first thing to go. The minority party only needs rule changes when its name begins with a D, not an R. So if your looking for a little cooperation, lets start with something that doesn’t involve an earmark, kickback, bribe, favor for selected groups, donors or special interests. One other point worth mentioning. Why parade Bill Clinton as the author of the balanced budget. The Repub’s led both houses at the time and ol Bill fought them tooth and nail to prevent this. (Oh, that right, Repub’s never deserve any credit, they are the party of no.) Grow up kids, time for the adults.