Posted on 01/02/2007 7:52:42 AM PST by SmithL
Eager to shed its do-nothing label, a shaken-up Congress will return Thursday to a full plate, starting with the swearing-in of the nation's first female speaker of the House of Representatives.
Democrat Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco and her party have big plans as they take on a weakened, wartime Republican president and assume control of both chambers after a dozen years in the minority. Those plans include higher pay for hourly workers, cheaper prescription drugs for seniors, a hastened pullout from Iraq and a more liberal immigration policy.
"Democrats are prepared to govern and ready to lead," the speaker-designate said before leaving Washington for the holiday break. When President Bush makes his annual address before Congress on Jan. 23, Pelosi said, "He will walk into a new place, where America's families' issues will have been addressed even before the State of the Union."
How much the new majority accomplishes in the 110th Congress may be tempered by Democrats' divisions in the House and their bare majority in the Senate: 50-49, with Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., recovering from brain surgery. Congress' low public standing -- 21 percent in the latest Gallup survey -- and competing interests among the many 2008 presidential hopefuls in their ranks also could limit action. But the Democrats may benefit from Bush's desire to build a legacy for himself beyond Iraq in his remaining two years in office.
As they return to work, congressional Democrats intend to move on three fronts: a 100-hour plan, a long-term agenda and a barrage of oversight hearings on various issues but particularly on the Iraq war.
Within the first 100 hours of legislative business, a deadline expected to close just before Bush delivers his State of the Union address, House Democrats say ...
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
Because he really did not want to veto a “Republican Congress”. Now it is totally different that the democrats control Congress, he will be much at ease in vetoing the bills that he does not like.
TS
I'm more interested in the filibuster rule in the Senate and if the GOP will roll over and play dead.
I don't want to see them block everything. I'd like to see more judicious use of it -- if they can hold together.
TS
Calling it a lie does not deminsh the truth.
It's difficult (though not impossible) to veto your own party's legislation. You have to work with them, but sometimes there's a bit of a power struggle.
When Clinton took office after elevating himself from Class B candidate to the primetime slot, many Dems in Congress thought that he was "their man" and that they could push him around. They weren't expecting him AND HILLARY to push back.
Now that there is an opposition party pushing the legislation through, it SHOULD BE easier for him to veto legislation. We have to make sure that he follows through on it.
First, I don't know who you are reffering to. I keep hearing about these mysterious people who "stayed home to teach the GOP a lesson" but I have yet to meet ONE. Strangely, conservative ballot measures passed pretty much all over the country.
Second, the party sluts do not get romanced by the party. They are ignored because their votes are guaranteed. The party leadership view these people as the fringe. They essentially have NO voice in the party. People who would vote for Charlie Manson as long as he has an R by his name do no good to this nation.
Third, I blindly follow NOBODY or NO PARTY. Most people don't, politically. Numerous Dems won by running to the right of their opponents. People really do tend vote (or not) according to their beliefs.
All that said, I still don't think there was this large group of conservatives that sat out. Angry people here parrot that line but there is zero proof of it, that I have seen anyway. Nov. 7, 2006 was the day of the swing voter.
I don't mean to burst your bubble but a couple people on FR bitching about RHINOs doesn't swing a national election. If these candidates who lost had pleased their constituents, they would have been re-elected. It's just that simple and that's the way the system was designed to work. There is no grand conspiracy to "teach the GOP a lesson". You may wish the cults of personality you follow had no fault in their defeat but that is just an outright falsehood.
""and all of the dummies that stayed home on election day..." "
They didn't stay home. They just didn't vote for their representatives.
Yeah, we should have just marched in step and voted for the (R) candidate, huh? Since I'm sure a Republican congress would have passed conservative legislation on ANY of issues listed.
Not likely. We have a ballooning budget. Bush is hell-bent on opening the borders, as is the republican senate. Border patrol officers and Marines are being prosecuted for doing their job. There are too many RINO's in the party, and the president is one of them.
You blame those who didn't vote or voted (L) in the last election for "abandoning" your party. Perhaps you should fault the party for abandoning its base. I know several old Democrats who don't vote (D). They say that they didn't leave the party, it left them. The only way that Republicans will return to power is by actually standing for something. Instead of simply resurrecting the gay marriage debate half a year before an election to try to "boogie man" the base out. Otherwise, they will continue to lose voters.
A Lofty agenda? And not a word about national security? No, stem cells are now a higher priority than border security, the war against Islamofascism and the ME in general. Oh well, John Edwards is running his campaign just like that. 9/11 for Dems never did occur!
Here we go with "Let's See How Much REAL Damage We Can Do to Get Even in the Shortest Time Possible".
God how I hate these people.
"They didn't stay home. They just didn't vote for their representatives."
As evidenced by the conservative ballot measures that passed all over the country.
and the revolution continues.....
I hope you are right.
"As evidenced by the conservative ballot measures that passed all over the country."
Right.
He is, except for one crucial point. The President cannot spend money that Congress doesn't authorize and appropriate. The Veto power doesn't help much at all in that regard. Appropriations bills must start in the House, which is more solidly 'Rat than the Senate (unless you count the RINOs as you must).
If they cut funding for the war on Islamofacism, there's little the President can do. Gerald Ford, may he rest in peace, faced exactly that situation in 1975 when Congress cut off funding for the war in Vietnam, which by that point was nearly all South Vietnamese forces fighting North Vietnamese forces. The ARVN, and the SVAF ran out of ammunition and other supplies, and were denied the US air support they'd been promised.
The big difference is that the Campaign Finance Reform Bill was a Republican Bill and President's never like to veto legislation initiated by their own party, even though it was McCain's pet project. However, with a Democrat controlled Congress pushing forth obnoxious legislation, I'm willing to be that he will have no such restraint.
47 of the 60 Yea votes in the Senate were 'Rats. 198 of 240 votes in the House were also 'Rats.
In short, it was not a Republican Bill, in spite of McCain's sponsorship, with Fiengold (RAT) as cosponsor. The House sponsor was Rep. Shays (RINO) CT and the only cosponsor was Rep Meehan (RAT) MA.
With 60 yea votes in the Senate and 240 yea votes in the House, a veto would not have been overridden (takes 67 votes in the Senate and 290 in the House)
Unfortunately, the fact that McCain sponsored it makes it pretty much a Republican Bill, and keep in mind that Bush may have had some kind under-table deal worked out with McCain in the matter. Regardless, with the Rats now running Congress, I do think that Bush will be more inclined to pick up his veto pen, especially when Pelosi's nutty legislation starts running its course and finally lands on his desk, provided that any of it can clear the Senate.
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