America Is Not Yet Lost

[dtotire]

PAUL KRUGMAN
America Is Not Yet Lost

The way the Senate works is no longer consistent with a functioning government, and senators should change the rules to end obstructionism.

We’ve always known that America’s reign as the world’s greatest nation would eventually end. But most of us imagined that our downfall, when it came, would be something grand and tragic



What we’re getting instead is less a tragedy than a deadly farce. Instead of fraying under the strain of imperial overstretch, we’re paralyzed by procedure. Instead of re-enacting the decline and fall of Rome, we’re re-enacting the dissolution of 18th-century Poland



A brief history lesson: In the 17th and 18th centuries, the Polish legislature, the Sejm, operated on the unanimity principle: any member could nullify legislation by shouting “I do not allow!” This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century.
Today, the U.S. Senate seems determined to make the Sejm look good by comparison.

more;

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/08/opinion/08krugman.html?ref=opinion

[DontTreadOnMe]

1. Dear Paul,

A brief history lesson:

In the 1950s, the United States had the largest middle class growth of any country.

2008: According to the Census Bureau, median household income in the United States fell to $50,303 in 2008, a drop of 3.6%.
This is the biggest drop seen since the government started keeping records of such things in 1947.

2009: experts (such as Sheldon Danzinger of the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan) expecting that household median income will drop as much as 5% in 2009.

2010: Not only is household income way down, but there has also been a severe cutback in access to credit for the average American.
Not only can people no longer afford to buy things, but they can't even borrow money to pay for it.

[Uncle Joe]

2. The title didn't seem to fit the article until the last sentence.

Thanks for the thread, dtotire.

[yurbud]

3. the Senate can change the rules by majority vote at beginning of each session?!

why didn't they?