Posted on 05/04/2017 6:38:21 AM PDT by Kaslin
Congress is preparing to pass an Omnibus spending bill that will fund the government through the rest of fiscal year 2017. Democrats love the bill because it fully funds Planned Parenthood and specifically omits many of President Trump's legislative priorities, such as funding for his proposed border wall with Mexico.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi undoubtedly spoke for most Democrats when she praised the bill on Monday:
“We have eliminated more than 160 Republican poison pill riders, ranging from undermining a woman’s right to reproductive health to dismantling Dodd-Frank’s vital Wall Street consumer protections... The omnibus does not fund President Trump’s immoral and unwise border wall or create a cruel new deportation force.”
So why are Republicans rushing to pass a budget that Democrats love?
Well, as Breitbart reports, Speaker Paul Ryan wants a bill that will pass the Senate. The Omnibus package requires 60 votes in the Senate to override the legislative filibuster, and Democrats are prepared to use the filibuster to block all of President Trump's legislative priorities even if it means shutting down the government, as it would in this case if a funding package isn’t passed by Friday at midnight.
Republicans know this, so instead of seeking a government shutdown fight (which scares the heck out of them), they are capitulating on Omnibus now and promising to defund Planned Parenthood and pass other legislative priorities later via the reconciliation process, which would only require 51 votes in the Senate.
This presents a real problem — not everything can be passed via the reconciliation process. So if Democrats are willing to filibuster anything and everything, what do Republicans do with other legislative priorities?
Republicans have a small window here — perhaps only two years — to deliver on their campaign promises. The voters are expecting the GOP to “Make America Great Again” as President Trump vowed on the campaign trail, so what happens if the Democrats filibuster and block tax reform? Health care reform? Immigration enforcement? Infrastructure? Trade reform?
Are Republicans really going to sit back and let the Democratic minority sabotage a once in a lifetime opportunity granted to them by the voters?
Here's an idea: stop capitulating. Stop empowering the petulant Democratic minority whom the American people voted out of power. End the legislative filibuster, as President Trump suggested in a tweet on Tuesday.
The filibuster may have served a purpose once upon a time as a tool to build consensus, but this isn’t your grandma’s Democratic Party. This is the protest party, the “resist” party, the real party of “No!”
Democrats have no intention to compromise at any point in the conceivable future. The only acceptable “compromise” will be when Republicans completely and utterly capitulate, giving Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer the final say on which bills the Republicans actually pass.
Unless GOP leaders get rid of the legislative filibuster.
Many have argued that eliminating the filibuster would be short-sighted, and that Republicans would regret it at some point in the future if/when they find themselves in the minority. But shouldn’t we be skeptical of this argument? After all, this is the Republican Party we're talking about. When have they been willing to filibuster and risk a government shutdown if it meant putting themselves at risk politically?
The filibuster is a useful weapon for the minority only if they’re willing to use it. Democrats have indicated they are always willing to use it — to the point of obstructing every facet of the Republican agenda. Republicans don’t have the political willpower, let alone the party unity required to stand up for conviction against Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media. When it comes down to it, Republicans in their current condition simply aren’t capable of winning a game of “chicken” against the Democrats.
And this is all a moot point anyway. Even if a future minority GOP managed to find a backbone, there's no doubt that future Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer would get rid of the filibuster in a heartbeat to pass a progressive agenda.
Time is ticking for Republicans. President Trump ran on a bold Make America Great Again agenda. Senate Republicans shocked the world by maintaining their majority. It would be political malpractice if they allowed Senate traditions from bygone eras and a bunch of petulant Senate Democrats to stop them from following through on their campaign promises.
You are correct that this would destroy the Senate.
I think the better idea would be to abolish the 17th Amendment and then get rid of the fillibuster.
Then the GOP would have 66 seats in the Senate
The Constitution calls for simple majority votes. That’s the best reason to get rid of the filibuster.
Getting rid of the super-majority rule may look good now that Republicans have both the Presidency and Congress, but will it look so good a few years down the road when (inevitably) we go through another back and forth political cycle and get stuck with a slim majority of Democrats? The question people need to ask is whether they really want to give their party powers that the opposing party will get to use in a few years' time.
The filibuster is only a rule. It can be changed and changed back.
We should do away with the filibuster. If the Democrats love it so much they can reinstate it if/when they regain power in the Senate. Somehow, despite how much they seemingly cherish it now, I doubt they will do so.
I agree, but it isn’t going to happen because senators on both sides of the aisle hold the conceit that the Senate is special. “The world’s greatest deliberative body” and all that horse puckey. So they are reluctant to change or modernize the way the Senate does business. In reality, the Senate no longer serves its intended purpose and has become a fully corrupted, hyper-partisan mess with near lifetime tenure in many instances.
I've said as much quite a few times. We have RINO politicians because we have RINO voters etc. Having said that our politicians have failed in educating the voters.
Bingo!
It all comes down to the fact that the Democrats aren't afraid to filibuster while the Republicans are. So either way, we lose and the Democrats ALWAYS get what they want.
What are the Republicans afraid of? The media of course. Like three-year-olds and monsters in their bedroom, they are afraid of their own shadows.
This all has to stop or else Trump will not MAGA.
Trump has signaled that he knows this. And Trump has put off tackling the problem now. So is he planning on playing hardball with the RINOs for a September showdown?
We shall see.
The Dems have no need to end the filibuster when they take control because the Republicans never use it properly.
I don't agree.
Certainly some voters make incorrect electoral decisions.
But the correct number of voters voted for Trump, voted for a House Majority and voted for a Senate Majority.
It's time to get rid of the filibuster.
Very well said.
I shudder to think what we will lose next if the filibuster is gone, and we have Chuckles the Flight Attendant Abuser as senate majority leader.
recall that the filibuster is there to project the minority from getting steamrolled by the majority, and further recall that history teaches us that destructive social innovation is the liberals' specialty when they are in power.
the fillibuster has saved us more than it has obstructed us -- so much so that they had to trash their own precedent to get their health care hijacking rammed through the senate in year one of The Messiah.
1. The filibuster was supposed to be hard to pull off—with someone talking nonstop for hours. not just- “I declare a filibuster”
2. The filibuster was supposed to be used by fairly honorable people, who would use it sparingly, not for a minority to block a majority on everything.
Get rid of it. You KNOW the dems would if they were in the same situation
This is all a GOPe lie.
There is no filibuster allowed on a bill that has gone through The reconciliation process.
The house votes on a bill the senate votes on a bill that is completely different.
It goes to the conference committee where they hash out the differences and come up with a completely new bill made up of the ideas from both houses of congress.
Then they send that bill to the house And senate where it gets a straight up or down vote. The senate is not allowed to filibuster of reconciled bill. So there’s no excuse why they couldn’t pass a real budget other than they don’t want to.
Why are Republicans rushing to pass a budget that Democrats love?.
Well, sheesh, it's as obvious as the nose on your face. The Republicans love the budget too. Why does anyone think they wouldn't? Does anyone think that any significant number of them have some sort of altruistic view of serving the public good? The only serving any of them are interested in is a bigger serving.
Get rid of the filibuster for appropriations bills. The Republicans are afraid to use it properly for that and the Democrats aren't afraid to use it.
-PJ
It's pretty clear now that the compromised Republican leadership is deathly afraid of allowing Trump to MAGA.
Why not just get rid of the Senate?
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