Tag: Republican Obstructionism
Durbin Calls Out GOP Racists on Lynch Nomination
I would think, as we approach the 50th anniversary of Selma, that Republicans should be more sensitive about what they’re doing to this woman.
— Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), quoted by Bloomberg, on the stalled nomination of Loretta Lynch as Attorney General.
King Threatens Government Shutdown Over Immigration
If the president wields his pen and commits that unconstitutional act to legalize millions, I think that becomes something that is nearly political nuclear… I think the public would be mobilized and galvanized and that changes the dynamic of any continuing resolution and how we might deal with that.
— Rep. Steve King (R-IA), asserting that “the threat of another government shutdown could be Republicans’ leverage to pass border security and immigration legislation this fall,” the Des Moines Register reports.
Reid Accuses Republicans of Stalling Until Midterms
It appears that the Republicans in the Senate have intentionally left on the emergency break.
— Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), quoted by The Hill, adding that Republicans are trying to “run out the clock” before the November elections in order to make Democrats look bad.
Obama: Congress Isn’t Broken, the GOP is Broken
So when you hear a false equivalence that somehow, well, Congress is just broken, it’s not true. What’s broken right now is a Republican Party that repeatedly says no to proven, time-tested strategies to grow the economy, create more jobs, ensure fairness, open up opportunity to all people.
— President Obama, quoted by Greg Sargent.
Republican Proposes Republicans Propose Solutions
Instead of people talking about problems all the time, I think the better exercise is: If you don’t like it, what would you propose instead?”
— Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R), quoted by the Wall Street Journal, on the GOP opposition to Obamacare.
Simpson: GOP Out to ‘Stop’ Government
This is a sense of madness. You have people in my party who didn’t come to limit government, but to stop it.
— Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY), quoted by Politico.
Cook: It’s Back to the ’90s for GOP
With all of the talk among some Republicans in Congress about impeachment and shutting down the government to stop Obamacare or force entitlement-spending cuts, you’d think that they were living in another reality back in the 1990s. Republicans were pursuing similar missions then, and things didn’t work out so well for the GOP. For those in need of a quick history lesson, all you need to know is that Republicans managed to lose House seats in the midterm elections of 1998. It was the only time since World War II that the party in the White House (Democrats) gained seats in a second-term, midterm election. Talk about seizing defeat from the jaws of victory!
— Charlie Cook
Congressional Republicans Have Devolved Into Anarchists
The Republican Party has spent 30 years careering ever more deeply into ideological extremism, but one of the novel developments of the Obama years is its embrace of procedural extremism. The Republican fringe has evolved from being politically shrewd proponents of radical policy changes to a gang of saboteurs who would rather stop government from functioning at all. In this sense, their historical precedents are not so much the Gingrich revolutionaries, or even their tea-party selves of a few years ago; the movement is more like the radical left of the sixties, had it occupied a position of power in Congress. And so the terms we traditionally use to scold bad Congresses–partisanship, obstruction, gridlock–don’t come close to describing this situation. The hard right’s extremism has bent back upon itself, leaving an inscrutable void of paranoia and formless rage and twisting the Republican Party into a band of anarchists.
— Jonathan Chait, writing in New York Magazine.
GOP Fails to Stop Obama’s Small-Business Credit-Relief Bill in Senate
In a win for President Barack Obama and his political allies, Senate Democrats on Tuesday won a crucial vote to clear the way for a bill to create a $30 billion government fund to help open up lending for credit-starved small businesses.
Democrats cracked a GOP filibuster of the bill with the help of two Republicans: Sens. George Voinovich of Ohio and George LeMieux of Florida.
The 61-37 tally sets the stage for a final vote later this week to return the measure to the House, which is likely to approve it for Obama’s signature.
The bill is probably the last piece of Democrats’ ambitious jobs agenda that would become law before midterm elections, which will determine whether Democrats keep their majorities in the House and Senate…
The new fund would be available to community banks with less than $10 billion in assets to encourage lending to small businesses. The bill would combine the fund with about $12 billion in tax breaks aimed at both large and small businesses over the coming decade.
Democrats say banks should be able to use the lending fund to leverage up to $300 billion in loans, helping to loosen tight credit markets.
The bill is paid for by adding a new option that allows individuals to convert 401(k)s into Roth accounts in which taxes are paid up front and then the money is released tax-free upon retirement.
