These stories just write themselves…
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) introduced legislation to raise the debt ceiling on Thursday, apparently with the intent of showing that even Democrats would not support such a bill.
However, McConnell’s plan backfired after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) called for a vote on the legislation, which would have given the president the authority to raise the federal debt ceiling on his own. The top Senate Republican was forced to filibuster his own bill.
“What we have here is a case of Republicans here in the Senate once again not taking ‘yes’ for an answer,” Reid said, after McConnell announced his filibuster. “This morning the Republican leader asked consent to have a vote on this proposal, just now I told everyone we were willing to have that vote — up or down vote. Now the Republican leader objects to his own idea. So I guess we have a filibuster of his own bill, so I object.”
Clearly the Republican Party is the “Party of No,” even when it comes to their own legislation.
One irony that makes me snicker is that anytime a filibuster is used, inevitably, the party using it opposed it even existing at the last point that they were in power (a behavior that both parties have shown over the last 20 years).
This story is just a metaphor for the dysfunctional partisanship in Washington. I find it appalling that these clowns can agree on 98% of what needs to be done and are unable to find common ground on the last 2%. Sure, I don’t personally want to pay more taxes, but I will to ensure a stable future for the US (e.g. not become like Greece). Of course, I say that a little tongue in cheek because my cynical side tells me that as soon I resort to pay more taxes, politicians will find new and creative ways to waste it. I welcome them to prove me wrong, but I’ll have to see it to believe it.
When I originally read this news, I thought it sounded like something would end up being a mistaken Onion article propagated as news because of lack of fact checking in a lot of organizations these days. Sadly, it appears it’s real. :p
If McConnell wants to masturbate he should do it at home.
I argue in my essay that if the U.S. Senate is to represent govenments, then there is a basis for needing a supermajority, for otherwise we would have federal encroachment on the states. But this has already happened, and the senators are elected rather than the state leaders themselves or their delegates, in which case as the Senate is presently situated the filibuster should be eliminated rather than merely made slightly more difficult. See http://www.thewordenreport.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-us-senates-filibuster-minoritys-bomb.html at the Worden Report.