The Republicans in Congress had also gotten quite fat, dumb, and happy. They'd become just like the Democrats they used to gain so much political traction campaigning against. So, no surprise that the American public voted them out.
They believed their own "permanent majority" press. Unfortunately for them, nobody else did.
What's also no surprise is that the "most ethical Congress in history!" that Nancy and Harry promised has turned out to be anything but. The Democrats have only made things worse. That's why Congress' approval ratings were _below_ Bush's from '06 onward. That, my friend, takes work! Real, hard, work! And that work was the Democrat's singular achievement.
Baby steps. It's government. Molasses moves faster. "Earmark reform" falls short in some aspects, but it's not chopped liver. Easy access to earmark ("funding request," which is a meaningful name and not jargon) disclosures has made it possible for several non-partisan websites to build indexes to these disclosures (including the stealthily hidden ones). I expect, once they've got the clerical staff to do so, they will move on to building searchable databases of requests. Then, I'm sure, we'll get easily-assembled partisan catalogs of what's "pork" and what isn't.
I could wonder why Pelosi's office didn't do this last session, but I could also wonder why the Republican leadership didn't do it while they were in charge. I will choose to be happy that some transparency is being achieved.
I also wonder what's going to happen to the representatives who forgo earmarks (and there are a few). It's a great PR to fight against secret, carefully hidden and strongly symbolic "bridge to nowhere" spending, but when other districts are getting roads and sewers and districts that forgo earmarks are seeing aging infrastructure failures, there may be some surprised martyrs to principle.
You should be happy that the Congress isn't working smoothly with the administration to breeze through a progressive populist agenda (not that I honestly believe that we actually have a progressive populist majority in Congress, or an actual progressive populist President). It doesn't look like the internal party rebellion and gridlock of the early Clinton and Carter administrations, or the start of G.W. Bush's first completely Republican-controlled term, though. Some lessons may have been learned...
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Re: Landslides? Say what?
Date: 2009-04-18 03:38 am (UTC)The Republicans in Congress had also gotten quite fat, dumb, and happy. They'd become just like the Democrats they used to gain so much political traction campaigning against. So, no surprise that the American public voted them out.
They believed their own "permanent majority" press. Unfortunately for them, nobody else did.
What's also no surprise is that the "most ethical Congress in history!" that Nancy and Harry promised has turned out to be anything but. The Democrats have only made things worse. That's why Congress' approval ratings were _below_ Bush's from '06 onward. That, my friend, takes work! Real, hard, work! And that work was the Democrat's singular achievement.
Baby steps. It's government. Molasses moves faster. "Earmark reform" falls short in some aspects, but it's not chopped liver. Easy access to earmark ("funding request," which is a meaningful name and not jargon) disclosures has made it possible for several non-partisan websites to build indexes to these disclosures (including the stealthily hidden ones). I expect, once they've got the clerical staff to do so, they will move on to building searchable databases of requests. Then, I'm sure, we'll get easily-assembled partisan catalogs of what's "pork" and what isn't.
I could wonder why Pelosi's office didn't do this last session, but I could also wonder why the Republican leadership didn't do it while they were in charge. I will choose to be happy that some transparency is being achieved.
I also wonder what's going to happen to the representatives who forgo earmarks (and there are a few). It's a great PR to fight against secret, carefully hidden and strongly symbolic "bridge to nowhere" spending, but when other districts are getting roads and sewers and districts that forgo earmarks are seeing aging infrastructure failures, there may be some surprised martyrs to principle.
You should be happy that the Congress isn't working smoothly with the administration to breeze through a progressive populist agenda (not that I honestly believe that we actually have a progressive populist majority in Congress, or an actual progressive populist President). It doesn't look like the internal party rebellion and gridlock of the early Clinton and Carter administrations, or the start of G.W. Bush's first completely Republican-controlled term, though. Some lessons may have been learned...