The Senate filibuster rule that allows a lone senator to hold up a bill unless 60 senators vote to end the debate was instituted by the founder fathers to entice the small states to join the union. In the past the rule was used judiciously, about once in a year, until the last senate in which minority leader Mitch McConnell made a mockery of the rule by using it nearly 400 time in four years. This stopped every major legislation the Democrats proposed.
It was up to Harry Reid to institute a major filibuster reform, which could be done only at the beginning of a new session, but he failed miserably. And with that failure we can be sure that no meaningful achievement will be made in this presidency. No greater heights will be scaled in social reforms, and no signature accomplishment will be accomplished. This presidency will not even succeed in arresting the horrible downward trend the nation is going through. Obama will occupy a position as an insignificant president in the history of this nation, who came at a seminal time, had unbound potential, but at the end was a colossal failure.
Talk show host Ed Schultz called it “a massive failure for the leader of the Democrats.” He said, “Harry Reid is letting the minority party run the country. He’s giving Republicans all the ammunition they need to block President Obama’s second-term agenda. And you know what? He’s going to regret it.”
Just the other day—all the progressives talk show hosts were so impressed over the 2nd inaugural address that they were calling it the most progressive agenda after President Kennedy. The liberal columnists were breaking their pens writing praise for his speech. Only in a week time—the reality struck hard, and proved one more time, speech-doesn’t-melt the ice. The idiom—empty vessels sound much, after all has passed the test of time.Obama was forewarned by the junior senator of Iowa, Sen. Tom Harkin. In Harkin’s own words: I said to President Obama back in August ... and I said to him the night before the election, Look, if you get reelected, if we don’t do something significant about filibuster reform, you might as well take a four-year vacation.
Adam Green, a co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said, “This is a bad decision based on fear—a decision that will ultimately hurt millions of people who would have been helped by progressive bills that Republicans are sure to filibuster.”
Harkin further stated, “He (president) can go out and give wonderful speeches and things like that, but with the House in the hands it's in and the fact that in the Senate now you have to have 60 votes to pass anything, well, I dare say that Obama’s package—his very aggressive proposals—will not get very far.”
The political director of CREDO, Becky Bond, said, “It was George Bush who said, ‘Fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again,' but sadly it's the American people who are going to pay the price.”
But I want the Democrats to pay a price too. Vote the enemies of the American people out next election. I believe, even a GOP control in all three branches will be better than what we have now—a totally dysfunctional government.
A rule of the gutless brain-dead politicians beholden to corporate interests is the worst possible thing that can happen in a nation’s life, yet desperate time calls for desperate actions!
