Whatever happens as this week ends, it establishes a pattern you’d better get used to. In legislative terms, this year is going to consist pretty entirely of one deadline following another in this long national slog. It’s going to happen this way, yes, because the two sides can’t agree on the big questions. But at bottom it’s going to happen because the Republicans are perfectly happy to let it happen this way. Stalemate and the appearance of incompetence suit them. They don’t even on some level really want a deal, even one that’s more than half on their terms. And you know what? Sadly, they’re probably right to think all this. One of these days, sometime this year, Barack Obama is going to have to rip the curtain open and expose their strategy for what it is and force the Great Showdown.
Here’s where we are. We have the March 1 sequester deadline, which we’re probably going to pass. Next up comes March 28, when the agencies of government run out of money and Congress has to pass new continuing resolutions to fund them. Then, by April 15, when most Americans think about their tax deadline, Congress has to pass a budget resolution, or they don’t get their paychecks. Something tells us they’ll find a way to meet that one, but with some of these people, who knows? Then, on or about May 19, we’ll hit the debt ceiling again, and it will need to be raised.
do you see a pattern here, they have no solutions so they intend to tie up everything that has a deadline, i hope this helps those who oppose to see who is doing the real opposing.
as far as them not getting payed for failure to get a budget, will republican claim they already did two and as they keep trumpeting Dms have not, with all the total denial and obstruction do you really think the right will pass anything from the other side.
Get the idea? The legislative branch can invent deadline after deadline after deadline. And with each new one that is hit, two things happen. One, the public gets more and more disgusted with the appearance of incompetence. And two, and somewhat though not completely at odds with this, the public pays a little less attention each time. We’re already seeing in polls that people are paying less attention to the sequester than they did to the fiscal cliff, and this seems likely to continue.
All this will hurt Republicans. They know this. But as long as it hurts Obama too, they don’t care. Bear in mind here the words of Mike Lofgren, the former GOP congressional staffer who left his party in disgust in 2011. At the time, he wrote a big Goodbye to All That piece (from which I quoted), where he said the following: “A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.”
kamikaze congress is not a "certainty" they claim is missing and is holding up the return of the economy, i submit if there is any holding up it's by those who make the claim. remember they do the dirt than try and kick it under the Pres. rug. isn't it a felony to kidnap and hold hostage?
