GOP: Kicking the Poor in the Mouth
You know the movies: the thugs move in on someone they don’t like, punch him to the ground and then start kicking at his head, his ribs, his face. Like the Republicans.
A Republican filibuster stopped the latest effort to extend jobless benefits or to roll back a drastic cut in Medicare payments.
Extended unemployment benefits lapsed at the beginning of June. By Friday, more than 1.2 million people out of work for longer than six months will have found themselves ineligible for the next tier of extended benefits, which were originally provided by the stimulus bill to fight the recession. Other programs that lapsed include elevated federal aid for state Medicaid programs and a “Doc Fix” that prevents doctors from a 21-percent drop in reimbursement for seeing Medicare patients.
From Massachusetts comes this report. I for one hope the good voters who put Scott Brown in the Senate are among those taking it on the chin.
U.S. Sen. Scott Brown joined a Republican filibuster to kill a Democratic jobless benefits bill yesterday, leaving nearly 1 million people whose unemployment benefits are expiring without relief.
Brown voted against the measure, which also included funding for summer jobs and $16 billion in aid to balance state budgets, because the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said it would have added $33 billion to the deficit.
[Once again the filibuster -- not confronted at the first instance of its cynical use-- is holding majority rule hostage. Is there a way for citizen pressure to stop or minimize the use of this "rule" in the so-called greatest debating society in the world?]
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June 25th, 2010 @ 5:50 am
Today the Repubs used the filibuster to stop unemployment compensation for some millions of Americans.
We have a disfunctional Senate through the misuse of the filibuster by 41 Repubs. The Constitution of the United States simply states that “Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings…” Article 1, Section 5. This is done each two years when the newly elected Senate first convenes. At first, the Senate decided to pass or not pass legislation by a simple majority vote.
It was not until long after the country was up and running that one senator found he could become a very important fellow by holding the floor, and blocking any further proceedings by filibustering. Then the majority of senators decided that it was really ego-satisfying for each of them to have such a power, but that a two-thirds vote could force cloture, and still later that sixty per cent could invoke it..
Many senators have written e-mails to me asking for money to help defeat the Repubs. A number of the Obama administration also ask for money to defeat Repubs and let Obama run the country as president. In answer, I have written to them that they are taking money under false pretenses–namely that they can change the way the senate does things, because nothing will change unless they are willing to stand up for the repeal of the filibuster rule.
And I say it is not the democratic way to hide a plan to kill the filibuster, and try to pass it when the senate first reconvenes. I say you have to run on the plan, and get the votes in favor of killing the filibuster, and then you can get a majority of senators to end it. And if you don’t explain that this is the plan, you have no right to ask for money to pass democratic legislation, because unless you say you are going to end the filibuster, you will never be able to do it. And so you need to say so now. arthur smith