There should be no doubt that one of the most dangerous aspects of this current debt ceiling deal, is that it set a precedent for Republicans turning every future debt ceiling increase in the future into another hostage situation to force spending cuts. As Republican Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell put it: “What we have [...]

One of the biggest battles over raising the debt ceiling at this moment seems to be whether any debt ceiling increase will last until after November 2012 or will it require another vote on the debt limit before the election. Speaker John Boehner’s (R-OH) plan would require the debt ceiling to be raised again in [...]

It currently appears that the most likely resolution to the debt ceiling situation will be the use of the Mitch McConnell-Harry Reid back up plan. This plan will probably include some form of the Catfood Commission II. A bipartisan commission that would work in secret to come up with a package that would be fast [...]

The Senate is so broken that even a bipartisan agreement to limit the number of Senate confirmed appointees gets filibustered.

Now, ten years after 9/11, with Osama bin Laden dead, in a broad bipartisan vote, the United States Senate moved forward with another extension of the “temporary” Patriot Act. The vote was 74-8. Both the support and the very limited opposition to this extension were near-even slits along party lines; true bipartisan efforts. As a [...]

This quote from Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell about why Democrats and Republicans should seek a “grand bargain” is one of the most honest and revealing statements about the problem with our political system. Via David Weigel: This was the year after the bipartisan agreement between Reagan and O’Neill raised the retirement age for [...]

The cynicism of American politicians is a strong and persistent theme, but this most recent move by Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell takes it to a whole new level. A mere six months after Republicans won big by attacking Democrats for “cutting Medicare,” McConnell is now demanding cuts to Medicare or else he will [...]

There is justifiably a lot of angry attention drawn to the fact that Wisconsin didn’t really have a budget problem until Republican Governor Scott Walker artificially created one by rushing through a series of business tax cuts. Now, in a classic shock doctrine fashion, he is using this manufactured “crisis” to justify his push to [...]

Today, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid didn’t just fail to deal with filibuster reform, he totally committed himself to the defense of this disgraceful practice. From his floor speech about his deal with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: Senator McConnell and I both believe our reverance for this institution must always be more important than our [...]

Senate Democrats had an opportunity to get together and make the Senate a working, majority-rule-based chamber. They could have recently used the “Constitutional Option” at the start of this new Congress to rewrite the Senate rules to either eliminate the filibuster outright or at least make staging a filibuster more difficult. Yet, due to a [...]