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We may see a Senate vote as early as tonight on the pending jobs measure, though it will be on the motion to proceed, not the final bill. In other words, Republicans aren’t just prepared to filibuster job-creation efforts, they’re also going to filibuster the Senate’s ability to discuss job-creation efforts.
The outcome is, alas, a foregone conclusion. The Democratic effort to save or create 400,000 jobs for teachers, police officers, and firefighters will die at the hands of GOP obstructionism. Why? Publicly, it’s because Dems intend to pay for the jobs with a 0.5% surtax on millionaires and billionaires. Privately, it’s possibly because Republicans just don’t want to create jobs anyway.
It doesn’t matter if Americans overwhelmingly love the idea. It doesn’t even matter that Republican voters love the idea. The GOP doesn’t care.
Michael Tomasky explains today how this would have worked “in normal times.”
In an earlier time, in normal times, when legislators used to behave the way legislators are supposed to behave, the minority’s leaders would have brought the price tag down, made the majority and the White House agree to something they wanted — peeling back one of those EPA regulations the Republicans hate — and we’d have had a deal. The minority would never have confronted the very premise. It was a priority of the president, which used to matter, at least sometimes, and more persuasively than that, the minority would have actually paid a bit of attention to those polls showing the American people backed this.
Poof — all that is long gone. The Republican Party’s posture to the American people is this. Your opinion on issues like teachers and taxes doesn’t matter a whit to us. True, if you happened to agree with us, we’d use that to our advantage, but since you don’t, we really don’t care.
What Tomasky is describing is the traditional congressional process. If there was a jobs crisis and Americans were demanding action, Dems would present a plan, Republicans would haggle the price down, wavering members would get a new highway expansion or some comparable sweetner, and leaders would cobble together a simple majority in an up-or-down vote.
The very idea that the minority would filibuster the debate itself, then filibuster the bill, then reject any effort at compromises, then refuse to offer a credible alternative, then rule out the possibility of creating any jobs at all during a jobs crisis would have seemed genuinely insane for much of American history. And yet, in 2011, the entire political world finds this routine and unsurprising. It won’t be front-page news tomorrow morning, and we’d be lucky if most the public heard about the developments at all.
Tomasky concluded, “I have trouble keeping lunch down when I read these jeremiads about how sad and mysterious it is that our institutions of government are failing. It’s not a mystery. One side wants them to fail. And there’s very little the other side can do about it, besides point it out, which the president has started doing — and now he’s the one being divisive! They’ve turned the world inside out.”
Yes, they have. If Americans aren’t satisfied with this, they’re going to have to speak up about it.
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of course on October 20, 2011 4:59 PM:
Obviously, this is Obama's fault. He never compromises!
bushworstpresidentever on October 20, 2011 5:07 PM:
Of course it will be in the news tomorrow, with a headline like "Obama's Jobs Bill Fails in Senate" or "Jobs Bill Defeated in Democratic Led Senate" without a mention of a majority vote in favor or of a filibuster or that Republicans block any attempt to even debate, much less vote on the bill.
rrk1 on October 20, 2011 5:15 PM:
This is all a kabuki dance. Of course the Rethugs aren't going to allow anything to come to a vote that might let Obama look good. But will he relentlessly beat them over the head with their nihilistic obstructionism? It's not a foregone conclusion.
One has to wonder if he would propose such legislation if we weren't already in the presidential election campaign. He certainly waited until the last possible moment.
SYSPROG on October 20, 2011 5:19 PM:
Oh honest to God...you're just as bad Steve. The people ARE speaking up...OWS...but they're just hippies and union thugs. As long as the CONGRESS is broken and able to manipulate the rules so it doesn't look anything like the founders intended, then it doesn't matter WHO speaks up. It is not 'equal'...not 'everyone does it'...the GOP made a calculated decision that after 8 disastrous years of Bush that they could wait another 4 to take power again. THEY get a paycheck and benefits and screw the rest of you.
KurtRex1453 on October 20, 2011 6:18 PM:
Hi hi your headline should be: GOP TO 99% DROP DEAD
Andrew J. Lazarus on October 20, 2011 6:39 PM:
Just one thing I truly don't understand. Suppose the Leninist-Republican plan works, and they win. After they finish reducing taxes, balancing the budget by ending Social Security as of January 21, and a quick swipe or two at legal abortion and homosexuality—what then? As the country crumbles, I don't see the end game plan?
Anonymous on October 20, 2011 6:44 PM:
I am still a Republican - a 30 year plus Republican, and I am greatly saddened by the crazy flying under the banner of Republican since the ne'erdowell Gingrich began to lob grenades inside the Congressional chamber called the House of Representatives (c. early 1980s)!
Newtie intensified the political rhetoric by ralling against everything not Newtish enough for him - late at night with few in the lower chamber around to hear his spiteful tripe, yet with CSPAN cameras rolling. From such fringe frothing we got the Contract for America and a 1994 freshman congress willing to shutdown government to get its way.
Then a 5-4 SCOTUS ruling that gave us Bush the Younger, that lead to an Enron scandal and a 9/11 castrophe which translated into condemning all who would question the Bushies as unpatriotic. And eight years of degenerated governance to where we have to grovel to get a street pothole fixed, worry about fire as not enough firefighters are being publically funded, and wonder how our children can get a good education without the necessary funding to make even pencils available to learners.
No, the evidence is there for anyone to see - the Republican party is unAmerican! That same party wants to exercise democratic rights for its members, but would condemn the rest to being locked out from what they themselves value most - an open and liberty-minded society of great opportunity!
If the American voter does not punish the Republican brand at the polls this next election cycle,
whale oil, beef hooked! -Kevo
decentralizedimprov on October 20, 2011 7:03 PM:
Here's a common sense solution:
If we ended the war on drugs, we would need a whole lot fewer police officers.
Savings from abolishing the DEA & other useless law enforcement agencies tied to drugs, abolishing the Department of Education & proceeds from regulated drug sales to make up more than enough for any amounts proposed in this bill.
More than 50% of Americans support legalizing cannabis. That's more than you can say for this completely unnecessary Jobs Bill.
decentralizedimprov on October 20, 2011 7:04 PM:
Here's a common sense solution:
If we ended the war on drugs, we would need a whole lot fewer police officers.
Savings from abolishing the DEA & other useless law enforcement agencies tied to drugs, abolishing the Department of Education & proceeds from regulated drug sales to make up more than enough for any amounts proposed in this bill.
More than 50% of Americans support legalizing cannabis. That's more than you can say for this completely unnecessary Jobs Bill.
Alex on October 20, 2011 9:51 PM:
I'm tired of articles like this one demonizing the other side. Click-hungry authors are always making the other side out to be complete morons.
The author knows that the republican argument is something like the following:
The government shouldn't be creating jobs. It's not what government is for and they're really bad at it. They should be creating an environment where companies can create jobs. The "jobs" bill promises something stupid like 400B savings over ten years, but in that same time the national debt will almost double to 24T... and that won't happen without a major financial crisis that truly stops our economy.
So why go on and on about how the GOP doesn't want to create jobs and they're obstructionists and they want to exploit you? Just acknowledge the fact that they think the way to fix the problem is for government to stop redistributing wealth and trying to control the market and to get out of the way.
If you go read republican sites, those guys are truly terrified that the country will be completely financially ruined under another four years of Obama rule. There's no malicious intent.
Articles like this one are what's creating such a terrible political climate by suggesting that all others are stupid.
Patrick Star on October 20, 2011 10:54 PM:
Alex, if the government is so terrible at creating jobs, why do most economists favor government spending to jump start the economy during a financial crisis? I'm not an economist, but that strategy seemed to work to get us out of the Great Depression. Also, Bush was in office the past 8 years prior to the economic collapse - why should we rely on the same failed policies to get us out of the mess they created in the first place?
pea on October 20, 2011 10:56 PM:
Alex,
Why are teachers (funded by the government) a bad thing? Do you want your child in a class of 45 or more students? Or scientists? Most scientists' work is funded by the govt. It is they do the fundamental research, which the drug companies, food companies, chemical companies, and other industries build on to create products to make money (and which sometimes benefit the rest of us). Without scientists doing fundamental studies, where would such industries and citizens be? The companies don't want to fund basic research. Do you like the idea of dying from cancer and heart attacks etc because we don't do the science to figure out what causes the problems and what might fix them? Do you like the idea of having other countries be the source of the basic research knowledge that drives industries -- because if we don't educate and support these people, Chine and India will. We are at the mercy of countries that control oil. Imagine being at the mercy of countries that control knowledge? think about it.
Holmes on October 20, 2011 11:34 PM:
Alex sounds like all the other modern day Hoovers in the Republican party who think laying people off and making massive cuts in spending will solve the recession.
For the record, Alex, the '09 deficit was projected to be well over a trillion dollars before Obama was sworn in(the budget year starts on Oct. 1). That said, if McCain had won, the republicans would have followed Hoover's lead, and tried to cut their way out of the recession, making matters far worse.(like Cameron in Britain).
Republican economic policy is both morally and fiscally bankrupt.
mimi on October 20, 2011 11:58 PM:
ok, to be fair, there were 2 democrat senators who vote against this bill with 47 republicans.
i think it is scary that moderate republicans privately support the bills(or so some reporters say), but, nonetheless, decide to vote with the party 100% of time.
100% of time!
kudo to "Anonymous" a republican for 30 years person above.
i was not into either party (or politics) until recently, thinking cynically that politicians are all the same. how naive i was.
i hope more young people/first time voters will wake up and start voting.
pencarrow on October 21, 2011 1:12 AM:
Actually, Alex makes a good point. Not acknowledging the republican-side arguments simply leads to reinforcing the partisan divide. There is value in understanding the various points of view on an issue without simply reverting to calling all those not toeing the party aganda as being stupid.
I generally try to read the PowerLine and Hot Air web sites to get a better perspective on conservative thinking. When you review the comments of readers on those types of sites, they are just as passionate about repub/conservative positions as this boards readers.
I also read Drudge, which tends to focus on reporting of various governments and stimulus programs gone wrong, and on the foibles of government leadership. Sometimes you just have to read these reports and ask yourself, how do we stop the obviously wrong policies and bureauscratic interventions that get reported, and still support more government involvement in the economy.
sandiegoDem on October 21, 2011 1:59 AM:
from another article, "Joe Lieberman of Connecticut broke with Obama on the vote."
I can't see what Lieberman has to gain by voting to shut off what could have been an interesting debate on the extent to which the federal government ought to be funding services traditionally funded by state and local governments.
That's not an easy case for Dems to make.
But the idea that millionaires can't afford a 0.5% surtax is obviously false.
Patango on October 21, 2011 5:03 AM:
pencarrow
They shut down even debating the bill , and you want to claim their passion as legitimate ? If that were true they could debate it and try and win the day ...One look at the farce of poser jobs bills the right has presented shows what passion they have for helping put america back to work ...That would be zero ...
And they all campaign on creating jobs , once it is found cutting taxes and laying off everyone is not working after trying it for 20 years , it might be time for plan B , but not these hockies , demonstrating who and what these people are for the next year is job number one , then let the voters decide what they want ....Handling these people with kid gloves will get you a face full of puke , help yourself ...
low-tech cyclist on October 21, 2011 5:16 AM:
The Dems should have passed a rule at the beginning of the year exempting motions to proceed from the filibuster. They had that opportunity, they took a pass on it, and now they can't even bring important stuff up for debate in the U.S. Senate.
We're where we are because the GOP is evil, but also because the Scared Rabbit Party doesn't have any backbone.
square1 on October 21, 2011 6:53 AM:
@low-tech cyclist:
Exactly right. Personally, I would have abolished the filibuster altogether. This isn't the 19th Century. The concept of "unlimited debate" is archaic in a modern world of constantly pressing deadlines.
But even if Democrats in the Senate didn't want to abolish the filibuster altogether, they should have sat down and had a serious discussion about what the purpose of the various Senate rules were. They should have said, "assuming that a determined minority is going to use the rules to their maximum political advantage, can we live with the political result?"
All we can ask Republican Senators to do is to follow the rules. If you don't like the outcome, (a) change the rules, (b) change the Senators (i.e. run and beat Republicans in an election, or (c) STFU.
I am sick of the "Woe is us! There is nothing that we can do!" from the Democrats.
yellowdog on October 21, 2011 10:30 AM:
@square1
"All we can ask Republican Senators to do is to follow the rules."
That is just the point - The GOP minority is not playing by the rules of the Senate--meaning the mix of written and unwritten rules that historically allowed the body to function, whatever the divides of its partisan composition. The formal rules of the body make it possible for any member to delay, if not derail, just about any initiative. However, in the past, those delays have been bargaining tools, not absolute rights of members. Unwritten rules existed too, providing some comity and functionality. The Senate creaked along, in exasperating but reasonably functional fashion, thanks largely to its leaders' periodic ability to compromise and hammer out a working majority when the body sorely needed to act. Partisan divides and personal antipathies could be quite sharp without leading to such dysfunction that the whole chamber seemed to require therapeutic intervention. Senate party leaders in the past demonstrated something known as institutional leadership - knowing when to delay, when to pontificate, when to preen, when to poke, and when to shut up and get some work done. Look at Everett Dirksen (Rep.) or Lyndon Johnson (Dem.), for example.
In the light of history, the current institution is fundamentally broken. It is degraded by members who choose to degrade it and abuse its rules. It is broken not because it cannot work, but because members choose for it not to work. That is a little hard to get into a headline, but it is major news.
Marsupialus on October 21, 2011 7:11 PM:
The Dems had every opportunity to change the Senate rules and end the fillibuster. They whiffed. And here's the result.