The Speaker's rostrum in the U.S. House of Representatives chamber.
(Getty)
The fiscal cliff remains unresolved, and on the cusp of the new year, it appears that dysfunctional government has trumped any self-imposed deadline.
In the days leading up to Christmas, Speaker Boehner could not even manage to cobble together enough votes from the GOP to pass his own bill, “Plan B.”
Congress was left with no choice but to return to Capitol Hill during a holiday week in an effort to at least determine a pathway to the bill.
But little progress has been made and it seems likely that when the clock strikes midnight this evening, we will finally confirm what has been a long, arduous, seemingly inevitable fall off the fiscal cliff.
Has the House fallen too?
Republican Chris Shays is a former Connecticut congressman who served the state's fourth district from 1987 to 2009.
The DSM and Mental Health in America
Defining Normal After a Diagnosis of Schizophrenia, The Mayor of Oklahoma City, A New Kind of Commencement Speech
Lessons From a Female Union Electrician
President Obama Seeks to Narrow 'War on Terror,' A Closer Look at the IRS Inquiry, Boy Scouts to Allow Gay Members
Diplomatic Damage Caused by Drone Strikes, In Defense of the DSM-5, Bob Woodruff's Advice for New Grads
The show is a co-production of WNYC Radio and Public Radio International, in collaboration with New York Times Radio and WGBH Boston.
Major funding provided by:
Comments [7]
Are you sick of Congressional inaction? Tired of Congress putting their own ideological concerns before the welfare of the People?
What would it be like to start over?
http://signon.org/sign/reset-congress
Are you sick of Congressional inaction? Tired of Congress putting their own ideological concerns before the welfare of the People?
What would it be like to start over?
http://signon.org/sign/reset-congress
Congress is just not House Broken...Incontinence diapers should be used till they stop acting like babies.
Comments like those of your current commentator are a huge part of the problem of gridlock and dysfunction. To say that a compromise is "not a win" for the president, is further stoking the fire. This is not a game to win or lose. This is not us against them. This is a country that must work together to move forward. Stop talking in sports terms. Thank goodness the election is finally over. Now we have to behave like adults and get something done. Please help this process along and stop reporting like you are calling a game.
The way to fix the House is to have states adopt a California-type Citizen's Redistricting Commission which would eliminate the gerrymandering of heavily partisan districts and for the Senate to lower the amount of votes needed to end a filibuster and allow majority votes to pass bills--the way the framers of Constition intended.
How dysfunctional was the government in the first two years of the Obama administration when the Democratic Party controlled the Congress and executive branches and still produced no budget while authorizing the spending of trillions?
The US Senate and the President to this day have not offered a serious budget and we are to blame the Republican House which actually did pass a budget and economic proposals?!?
The Democrats deliberately passed no budget in 2010 which meant no tax increases on their watch so the manufactured crisis could be left to a Republican House. The crisis they created continues to this day as the media rewrites recent history to echo their demagogic talking points.
The Democratic Party played self centered political games with the economic fate of the nation which is in steep decline thanks to them and their mendacity worked perfectly thanks to a credulous media.
More citizens will be forced to look to the government for help and the big business of government will expand along with it's favorite union called the Democratic Party.
That is until the money runs out as Margaret Thatcher once reminded us.
Then what? A shredding of the US Constitution because the "House is broken" while the Supreme Court is publicly scolded by the President until they start voting to his satisfaction?
What single branch does that leave us with to govern the nation and what is that form of government called?
PS - In 1975 the House voted against military spending to South Vietnam in violation of our treaty obligations.
The Democratic controlled Congress that started the war a decade earlier then voted to lose the war causing the extended atrocity of boat people evacuation and then the genocide in Cambodia.
Was the House broken then? If not, then why not?
The BEST musical comment about US politics? 'I Don't Worry Bout A Thing (Cause I Know Nothing's Gonna Turn Out Right') by Mose Allison.
Leave a Comment
Register for your own account so you can vote on comments, save your favorites, and more. Learn more.
Please stay on topic, be civil, and be brief.
Email addresses are never displayed, but they are required to confirm your comments. Names are displayed with all comments. We reserve the right to edit any comments posted on this site. Please read the Comment Guidelines before posting. By leaving a comment, you agree to New York Public Radio's Privacy Policy and Terms Of Use.