Are the House and Senate broken beyond repair?

[kentuck]

Nothing can be passed and everything can be blocked. There is no more common sense. There are no more votes for the common good.

They have all become special interests beholden to winning their next election. They depend on the naive voters to keep their careers afloat.

Both Parties pretend to be something they are not. They do not really want to tax corporations or the wealthy. They do not really want to protect programs that help the poor. They want to appear to be standing up for the principles of their respective Parties but, in the end, they stand up for themselves.

Color me cynical about the entire political process. I see no way out of this present mess we are in. The people refuse to educate themselves and the politicians keep feeding them bullshit and telling them it is chocolate pudding. The class war is in full bloom and my side is losing. In fact, we are getting the shit kicked out of us. And the politicians are the ones doing the kicking while we are on the ground.

The oil companies are sticking it to average Americans at the gas pump. In the meantime, the politicians haggle over whether they need a tax "subsidy" from the rest of us. They don't care about the people. You can die for all they care.

[MadHound]

1. The federal government in general is broken,

And the only way to fix it is to remove corporate money from the equation. That requires publicly financed elections, from local dogcatcher all the way up to president. Until this step is taken, our government will remain broken, beholden to its corporate masters and driving the rest of us into the ground.

[Tesha]

2. This country is this century's first Yugoslavia.

We are an amalgam of wildly-disperate political interests
that have been living in a loveless marriage for more than
a century now. Nothing will get better until this basic problem
is resolved and I beleive the only resolution is to allow the
country to fragment into its component regions.

The disfunction of Congress (and the rest of the Federal
Government) is just an obvious symptom of the underlying
disease.

Tesha

[canoeist52]

3. You answered your own question -broken by bribes.

We need publicly financed elections and certainly much shorter election cycles.

[C_U_L8R]

4. Nothing that a good GOTV can't fix

Dems gotta motivate

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Everything you stated and seemingly irreparable partisanship.

While there are some democrats who will occasionally vote with republicans, that kind of bipartisanship isn't reciprocal. When leadership tells members not to vote because it will give "points" to democrats, the votes are withheld. Vitriol instead of rational debate. Bringing the country to an economic abyss to serve corporate masters, not constituents.

[emulatorloo]

8. Agreed. I think there has been a deliberate strategy by Republicans to stop economic recovery

1. Because it helps out the mega millionaires
2. So they can blame Obama in 2012

If they win House and Senate in 2012, they are going to finish us off.

[madrchsod]

6. no.....

[emulatorloo]

7. I'm tiring of this "Both Parties Are The Same" bullshit line, surprised to see you employing it.

We have several examples of what total Republican control looks like.

Look around the country today to the States that are under Republican control.

Tell me that Republicans and Democrats are just the same there.

We also have an example where Democrats are stopping every piece of teabag/wingnut idiocy that comes down the pike. Iowa

I live in Iowa, where we have a wingnut governor and a wingnut House. Every bill that comes out is either anti-union, anti-gay, or anti-woman. There was even one floating around that your could use deadly force to protect a zygote. Think about it, that would basically be declaring Open Season on health care providers.

We've still got a Democratic majority in the Senate. And every damned one of those egregious bills is STOPPED by the Democrats in the Senate. The majority leader is very good at articulating why the Senate is stopping those bills. (of course his words don't get that much press coverage)

We would be as much of a wingnut hellhole as those other states if it weren't for those Democrats.

-

Now look at the national level. Those bastards ran of jobs jobs jobs. And yet Boehner's House has put out practically nothing but

= abortion, abortion, abortion
= taking away health care

How much of that Crap has been stopped by Reid and the Dem Senate? A damn lot of it.

The absolute NUMBER ONE priority for me is taking back the House with a solid majority, and taking back the Senate WITH A BULLETPROOF majority.

I am sure if you look back at the last two years, you will admit there was some EXCELLENT legislation coming out of the Pelosi lead House of Representatives.

I am sure you will also remember the amount of Republican obstruction and destruction in the Senate, aided and abetted by the Ben Nelsons and the Liebermans.

"The oil companies are sticking it to average Americans at the gas pump. In the meantime, the politicians haggle over whether they need a tax "subsidy" from the rest of us."

The only ones I see arguing for more tax breaks for oil companies and defending them are Republicans and nitwits like Mary Landrieu. That is why we need more solid DEMS in the House and Senate

EDIT: spelling and correction

[tigereye]

9. thank you!

Granted both parties deserve some tough analysis and censure for some of their actions, but I agree that both parties are not the same. Dems usually try to benefit people, unlike the current Reps.


I think we have a reasonable representational system, better than many. I don't agree that it is "broken" - another simplistic buzzword that I have some to hate. There have always been these types of conflicts and wheeling/dealing- that's the messy way that Democracy tends to work. There are no easy fixes to complex systems. To say that everyone is corrupt is a cop-out.

Although I do agree that publicly- funded elections as in other countries, would make a lot of sense like they do in other countries. Think of all the money wasted on those ridiculous TV ads prior to an election.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

10. Public funding wouldn't stop the ads

Listen, and understand. Those right-wing 527 groups are out there. They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And they absolutely will not stop, ever, until we are dead.


...

any resemblance to a "Terminator" rant is pure coincidence.

[kentuck]

12. It's broken.

Stop kidding yourself.

[Recursion]

11. The Senate is broken by design

It's supposed to be as idiotic as it is. The House, on the other hand, has started following in the Senate's footsteps, which I don't think was The Plan.

[glinda]

13. Mostly due to the Repuks and Teapeoples and a few bad Dems.