No Congress Since 1960s Has Impact on Public as 111th

[kpete]

Source: Bloomberg

Bloomberg
No Congress Since 1960s Has Impact on Public as 111th
By Lisa Lerer and Laura Litvan

(Adds Sept. 11 responders health-care bill passage in 3rd paragraph.)

Dec. 22 (Bloomberg) -- However history judges the 535 men and women in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate the past two years, one thing is certain: The 111th Congress made more law affecting more Americans since the “Great Society” legislation of the 1960s.

For the first time since President Theodore Roosevelt began the quest for a national health-care system more than 100 years ago, the Democrat-led House and Senate took the biggest step toward achieving that goal by giving 32 million Americans access to insurance. Congress rewrote the rules for Wall Street in the most comprehensive way since the Great Depression. It spent more than $1.67 trillion to revive an economy on the verge of a depression, including tax cuts for most Americans, jobs for more than 3 million, construction of roads and bridges and investment in alternative energy; ended an almost two-decade ban against openly gay men and women serving in the military, and today ratified a nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia.

Before adjournment today, Congress approved legislation to help rescuers and clean-up crews suffering from illnesses linked to the wreckage caused by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in New York City. The Senate approved it on a voice vote, the House by a vote of 206-60. New York Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, in a statement, called it a “Christmas miracle.”

.....................

“This is probably the most productive session of Congress since at least the ‘60s,” said Alan Brinkley, a historian at New York’s Columbia University. “It’s all the more impressive given how polarized the Congress has been.”




Read more: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-12-22/no-congress-since-1960s-has-impact-on-public-as-111th.html

[pnorman]

1. Spotted this elsewhere on du;

[TheEuclideanOne]

3. I wish this cartoon reflected the success of the Obama Administration

But when passing legislation to pay for healthcare for 9-11 responders seems like a huge present, we have set the bar way too low.

[lunatica]

9. We? How about blaming the GOP for some of this.

I can only imagine what the bar would be if the damn GOP had actually worked to help this country.

Maybe you should take your blinders off.

[TheEuclideanOne]

12. I am tempted to blame the GOP for all of this.

But then I think... If our leadership was politically smarter and put up a fight, maybe our only option would not be to just let them run the show as if they are a super majority. Are you saying that this is the only option that we have? I could go on and on with a really long post about the missteps of this administration, but if you don't see it by now, you won't understand anyway. There are things that are just so blatant that not even the experts can truly explain them.

So, yes, I blame the GOP for everything that they have done for the last 2 years. But I blame the Obama administration much more for allowing it to happen. When crimes are committed, do you blame the criminal for committing a crime, or do you blame the police officer for not doing anything about it? Maybe the cop can say, "Do you see how mean that guy looked? I can't stop him, so I let him go on his crime spree. Sorry your house was robbed and your family was killed.". Well, would you accept that?

[creeksneakers2]

24. In that situation,

which this is nothing at all like, I'd blame the criminal first.

[TheEuclideanOne]

42. So would I. But who wouldn't?

Sure, anybody would blame the criminal first, but you are avoiding my point really. Once you blame the criminal, wouldn't you very soon go after the policeman who is standing around and refusing to stop the criminal? What if he were helping the criminal carry the TV out of your house? If that policeman were hired because he took the position that he would protect you and not just stand around because the criminals are "scary looking". What if the cop were holding a gun, but still said that he would not shoot the criminal because the criminal might survive and then get angry and attack him later?

With all that, would you still be angry at just the criminal? Would you be angry at the people criticizing the cop for not stopping crime?

[ProudDad]

29. You mean those guys who were prounounced DOA in 2008?

Those guys?

The ones who were allowed to run rampant in the Senate so that the Dems could reserve the filibuster for themselves someday soon...?

Those guys?

Maybe you should take YOUR blinders off...

It's the two-right-wings of the Corporate War Party working in tandem...

And throwing you a few irrelevant crumbs to pacify you...

[TheEuclideanOne]

4. I wish this cartoon reflected the success of the Obama Administration

But when passing legislation to pay for healthcare for 9-11 responders seems like a huge present, we have set the bar way too low.

[FailureToCommunicate]

17. The house in the cartoon is foreclosed and empty...

An investor will flip it for quick $$. Meanwhile the booted out family gets to experience something new - a homeless shelter.
Woot, some 'great society'.

[creeksneakers2]

25. It cost $4 billion

That's not chump change.

[ProudDad]

31. It is in a $2 trillion+ budget...

It's 20 days of the Afghanistan Quagmire...

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2010-05-12-afghan_N.htm

[TheEuclideanOne]

43. Seriously? Are you really making that argument?

WTF is wrong with you?

[ProudDad]

30. +1000

[PSPS]

2. Sorry, but I don't get all the hagiographies.

[mbperrin]

5. Oh, please!

Extending 10 year old tax cuts and agreeing to pay medical for some survivors of a ten year old disaster and extending the right to join the military to a very small minority of people adds up to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1964, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, the 24th Amendment?

Really?

What tiny thinkers Americans have become. Sad, really.

[valerief]

6. +100

[lunatica]

10. I'm sure first responder and the gay community agree with you

:sarcasm:

I guess you would know all about tiny thinkers.

[mbperrin]

11. Took 10 years to get first responders (those still alive) medical?

That should make me jump for joy? And DADT repeal (which I support) has the same impact as the 1964 Civil Rights Act? Really?

Both those are things that should have been taken care of years ago, before so many of the first responders died in pain, and before so many people willing to enlist were denied, but these are earthshaking in effect and numbers? Really?

I'd suggest you read my posts supporting gay marriage, economic equality, open borders, single-payer insurance and others before consigning me to the dungeon.

Or not. Living in west Texas, I am quite accustomed to being attacked by those around me as just not good enough to fit in their world. Same goes for you and yours, I suppose. Sorry to disappoint.

[lunatica]

18. So you think small progress is worse than no progress?

If your posts are like the ones on this thread thanks, but no thanks.

[ProudDad]

32. With the kind of mandate and majorities that Obama swept into office with

"small progress" is a crime!

Lyndon Johnson would be appalled and what passes for "victory" now days...

[TheEuclideanOne]

44. WELL SAID!!! +1000

[Art_from_Ark]

46. You're absolutely right about LBJ

He might have been a jerk at times, but he wouldn't fold when he was holding a "full House", either.

[mbperrin]

45. Correct, don't bother actually looking.

Just go ahead and dismiss me. Have a nice life.

[savalez]

19. For 8 of those last 10 years we had a Republican President.

[ProudDad]

33. Thanks to the previous Dem pResident...

doing the same kind of selling out that the current one's doing...

[savalez]

38. Nope. Thanks to the Supreme Court

Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), is the landmark United States Supreme Court decision that effectively resolved the 2000 presidential election in favor of George W. Bush

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bush_v._Gore

[ProudDad]

39. Which would NOT have been possible

without the close election enabled by a near-right-wing DLC Dem candidate running on a triangulation platform...

with the specter of Mr. William J. Clinton's open fly haunting him...

And time-honored Dem/Republican electoral tricks in the close states that NO ONE called foul on before or after...

And Gore's final capitulation...

:shrug:

[savalez]

41. So you say...

but my point to the poster complaining about it taking 10 years to aid the First Responders was that it may have never been possible to pass this under a Republican president.

[DCKit]

15. Cabbage Muff!

How dare you? :sarcasm:

[Fiendish Thingy]

13. I couldn't have said it better myself. n/t

[Cal33]

20. Who blocked paying for the medical expenses for the survivors

of a ten-year-old disaster, and insisted on extending the tax cuts for the wealthy for
8 of those ten years? The GOP continued to insist even with the Democrats in powr
in the White House and Congress. It's too bad that the Dems. gave in. But the
majority of the blame rightfully belongs with the GOP.

[ProudDad]

34. "the majority of the blame rightfully belongs with the GOP."

'Cause that's how the game of find the pea is played...

You've got the two right-wings of the Corporate War Party alternating between good-cop/bad-cop...

While they propel the proceeds of productivity upward to their masters...

[SomeGuyInEagan]

35. +1 n/t

[Roy Rolling]

7. Same story, different spin

Here's how Bloomberg News framed the same facts: "No Congress Since '60s Makes as Much Law as 111th Affecting Most Americans"

To them, there is some conspiracy against our freedoms that the Congress actually made laws.

I'm sure they would be happy if Congress just shut up and listened to their corporate handlers....

[lillypaddle]

8. Often, small successes are building blocks to larger ones ...

Too bad so many take great pleasure in shitting all over the foundation of positive steps - Personally, I'm taking great pleasure in these, and hoping for more to come in 2011 & beyond. Makes me wonder exactly WHOM could have been elected to please the many who have responded with such snark and disdain over every SINGLE positive thing. Oh yeah, guess I'm just a cheerleader. :shrug:

K&R.

[savalez]

16. +1

[Cal33]

21. I sure hope so. nt.

[dmosh42]

14. But is it really change we asked for? n/t

[tomhayes]

22. Where would we be in McCain had won?

These incremental gains far outweigh the CRAZY damage that will happen if another Republican is elected as president.

[ProudDad]

28. Pretty much the same...

:shrug:

Just the way the corporate bosses and their bosses want it...

[tomhayes]

36. You can't be serious

You think we'd be in about THE SAME SPOT??

You are bananas.

[ProudDad]

37. Yep...

Still at war...

Still migrating all of the wealth upward...

Still with a REAL unemployment rate at a near Great Depression level of nearly 20%...

Still with the rich getting richer and the rest of us squabbling over scraps...

Still with the attention of the majority of the sheeple being fixated on relatively minor "wedge issues" while being stolen blind by the oligarchs and the war machine...

Still with the USAmerican for-profit sick care system draining our lifeblood...

Oh, the right-wing would hate him for not doing enough (just like they did the shrub), the mythical center would hate him for being "republican" (whatever the fuck that means any more)...more Soma for the masses...

But substantively, not much changed...just like the current pResident and his crew...

[savalez]

40. self deleted - replied to wrong post

[savalez]

23. I see, so the Republicans in office had it backward...

If they wanted LESS done, they should have participated.

:rofl:

[obxhead]

26. I think an editor needs to be replaced.

How in the world did that headline make it through editing? A 5 year old could have done better.

[ProudDad]

27. Yep, I feel it in my pocketbook

As they chip away at the Social Insurance Contract...

And refuse to tax the rich who made off with the gold over the last 35+ years...

Remember them, the ones who received ALL of the productivity gains over the last 35+ years...

Activity is NOT Progress!

[eridani]

47. Fucking over retirees by defunding Social Security isn't the kind of impact that I want

Nor is being forced to buy shitty insurance that I can't afford to use.