This just came over the wire a few minutes ago:
WASHINGTON (AP) – The House will miss the midnight Monday deadline lawmakers set for voting to avoid the “fiscal cliff.”
House Republicans notified lawmakers that the chamber will vote Monday evening on other bills. They say that will be their only votes of the day.
President Barack Obama and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Monday they are near a deal to avoid wide-ranging tax increases and spending cuts – the fiscal cliff – that take effect with the new year.
Both men said they were still bargaining over whether – and how – to avoid $109 billion in cuts to defense and domestic programs that take effect on Wednesday…
OK, so there could still be a deal by Wednesday. And truth be told, the “cliff” is more like a steep incline, with various painful measures being enacted as we move into the new year. There is time, even after tonight, to undo much that the cliff entails.
But still. They’ve known this was coming a year and several months. Pretty much everyone wanted to avoid it. But Washington is so pathetic, they couldn’t get it done.
These are the times we live in.
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It amazes me that we keep electing these folks year after year. I don’t believe that the loudmouths on either side truly have the votes to control an election, but we allow them to do it by not getting out during primaries, and by re-electing these folks who make it clear that they have no interest in actually governing.
Did you watch the President’s comment on television? I saw him as I was flipping through channels and saw about 20 seconds of it and decided there was likely something better worth watching… like a rerun of Gunsmoke or Bonanza. The way the audience was cheering, was he speaking from the DNC headquarters?
And it is time for us to push every politician in DC off the Fiscal Cliff!
This Game of Brinksmanship must end!
The problem is not with the politicians. They are merely weak-willed men (and women) who want to keep getting re-elected. The problem is an increasingly fragmented electorate that does not know the meaning of the word “compromise,” and would rather see the nation go to hell than to see anyone whose viewpoint differs from theirs to succeed. Until we fix that, it doesn’t matter who we elect.
It is time for the nonsense to end. It is time for each to do what is expected and live up to the promises made.
It is time for the president to do his job and present a budget for congress to vote on as he should. He has not presented a budget in over 3 years (if my information is accurate) and in my humble observation, this is not how a chief executive should conduct business. Do the business of the people, all people, and allow our republic to move forward as it should.
One side can blame the other all they want but in the end, both sides are just as complicit in the damnable situation in Washington. No, it did not start with GWB, it was only exacerbated when the SCOTUS put a stop to the silliness of the “hanging chad” horror show that could rival anything in a cheap Vincent Price film.
One revelation has come to mind about the so-called game of brinkmanship referred to by Ralph. The only reason there is anything resembling a game is because neither side actually has a cogent answer to our problems and neither side will actually admit it. They simply don’t know what to do and won’t admit it.
The crossroads America is at now needs leadership and it simply is not in Washington at any level from junior members of congress all the way to the Oval Office. We have 540 incompetents led by another incompetent. No damn wonder America is in trouble. This is what divisive partisan politics can and will do to a country.
FORWARD!!!