The Business Congress Left Behind
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-08-06/business-congress-left-behind
Lawmakers have gone home for a five-week break, leaving a lengthy list of uncompleted work. Among the measures left behind are drought relief, postal reform, cybersecurity and a plan to deal with the Bush-era tax and mandatory spending cuts. Public approval ratings for Congress remain below twenty percent. Members campaigning for re-election are facing tough questions about their ability to find common ground on the big problems facing the nation. A panel joins Diane to discuss what the 112th Congress has, and has not, accomplished, and how that could affect the election in November
Guests
Thomas Mann
senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of "It's Even Worse Than It Looks."
Brian Baker
president of Ending Spending.
John Farrell
congressional correspondent for National Journal and author of "Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned" (2011).
Comments
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I plead GUILTY. Eric Holder along with 88% of Americans are in contempt of this radical T-Party controlled do nothing House of Representatives.
This group of radicals promised to destroy our government,and they are delivering. Please don`t claim buyers remorse now,because the T-Party just keeps doubling down,promising more and more damage.
Somehow many people think smaller "GOV MENT" means lower cost and debt for the American taxpayer.It does not. We are seeing how small "GOV MENT" works in Ohio.T-Party Governor steals taxes designated for cities. Now citizens must choose higher taxes on themselves,or destroy city services...Paying twice for the same services.... Some bargain huh?
I bet the accomplishments of Congress are on a very short list.
It is a lawful requirement the Senate pass a budget each fiscal year, but for some reason Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and his Democrats believe they are above the law. It's about 3 years since Senate Democrats have done their stated duty of passing a budget - it's what is in their job description!
It is the Republicans who passed — through the House, the only branch of government they control — a real budget that cut $5.8 trillion of spending over the next 10 years.
Why would Americans be willing to send Washington more money when Senate Democrats can't even show them where the money will go?
And remember - the Democrats controlled BOTH the house and senate prior to Nov. 2010. They had no excuses then for not doing their job.
Conservatives just love to bash Democrats and Democrats love to bash Conservatives. Truth of the matter is, both parties are a joke. An unmitigated joke.
Politicians don't do anything. They accomplish nothing and spend our money telling us how they are going to save it.
As a nation we should be ashamed.
If you vote for either of these parties in the fall, you might just as well spend the day in bed for all of the good that it is going to do you. If you believe any of the things that they tell you that they are going to do....you are a fool.
Given that polls report that the percentage of Americans that have any faith in the U.S. congress is up from 9% to 12% what would your guest say that 3% increase is due to? Are your guest surprised by this 3% increase? Sad very very sad and telling about the state of mind of U.S. citizens towards their governments ability to get some work done
Given that polls report that the percentage of Americans that have any faith in the U.S. congress is up from 9% to 12% what would your guest say that 3% increase is due to? Are your guest surprised by this 3% increase? Sad very very sad and telling about the state of mind of U.S. citizens towards their governments ability to get some work done
It amazes me how the conservatives want less spending. But correct me if I wrong--aren't we paying for these excessive recesses? The 112th Congress is a joke. They have done absolutely NOTHING--and I'm referring to both parties.
Diane and Rehm team it has been a long time since you folks have devoted an hour to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Phil Weiss the creator of the premiere middle east website Mondoweiss was just in Israel for his 8th time I think in 3 years. He and so many other Jews have finally come out and been willing to take a just stand on this critical issue the last five years (since Mearsheimer and Walt's book came out (Phil contributes the light bulbs going off in his head to the invasion of Iraq and the reasons why). Phil is now willing to call the situation what it is APARTHEID and says as Mearsheimer and others have been saying that the chance for a two state solution is over. When will you folks be willing to cover this critical issue again? Go to Mondoweiss and read Phil's latest. Unable to link
Diane and Rehm team it has been a long time since you folks have devoted an hour to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Phil Weiss the creator of the premiere middle east website Mondoweiss was just in Israel for his 8th time I think in 3 years. He and so many other Jews have finally come out and been willing to take a just stand on this critical issue the last five years (since Mearsheimer and Walt's book came out (Phil contributes the light bulbs going off in his head to the invasion of Iraq and the reasons why). Phil is now willing to call the situation what it is APARTHEID and says as Mearsheimer and others have been saying that the chance for a two state solution is over. When will you folks be willing to cover this critical issue again? Go to Mondoweiss and read Phil's latest. Unable to link
Diane and Rehm team it has been a long time since you folks have devoted an hour to the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Phil Weiss the creator of the premiere middle east website Mondoweiss was just in Israel for his 8th time I think in 3 years. He and so many other Jews have finally come out and been willing to take a just stand on this critical issue the last five years (since Mearsheimer and Walt's book came out (Phil contributes the light bulbs going off in his head to the invasion of Iraq and the reasons why). Phil is now willing to call the situation what it is APARTHEID and says as Mearsheimer and others have been saying that the chance for a two state solution is over. When will you folks be willing to cover this critical issue again? Go to Mondoweiss and read Phil's latest. Unable to link
Teece nailed it: both parties are absolutely to blame for intransigence and an inability to accomplish the public's business. The problem going forward is that I see nothing positive coming forward. The sides continue to polarize. On the sequestration issue, wouldn't it have made more sense to have Bowles - Simpson be the default option? The fact that everyone hated this option convinced me that it had to be the proper solution: everyone's ox gets gored.
If you're looking for the U. S. Government, don't look in Washington. Look in corporate boardrooms, on private yachts and jets, gated communities, Cayman Island and Swiss banks, etc.
All you will find in Washington are very expensive puppets in very expensive suits. LOL
A simple tax deduction on the return of Presidential candidate Bill Clinton,led to "Whitewater",Ken Starr,the McDougals imprisonment,and finally impeachment. A small thing can lead to a treasure trove of scandal.It was fair game then,and should be now.
I agree with Marco Rubio...for once. Why should Olympians--who are representing this country in the world of athletics, pay for their accomplishments? It's not as if the Olympics are every year, and that there is a season. It's ridiculous! Despite Sen. Rubio's proposal, I bet it won't have a snowball's chance because the liberals willl filibuster.
PLEASE DO YOUR HOMEWORK ON THIS 'ISSUE' OF TAXING THE OLYMPIC WINNERS!!! The claim that the gov't will "go after half" their winnings is totally false. Check Snopes.com for the full story. But PLEASE do NOT propogate this falsehood further by treating it as true on the show.
Please have Brian provide a solid stat for the "half" of their income that Olympic athletes pay in taxes. Where is he getting this figure? Please have him give his source!
Senator Rubio's tax proposal re olympians is nothing more than the usual Republican red herring.
Please name a single American Olympic medal winner since 1896 who has ever paid a nickel of tax on that medal.
This man you have on your show named Brian Baker...to announce that he is part of a "non-partisan" group which is run by Rickets of TDAmerica is laughable. It is a right-wing operation. Rickets gives ungodly amounts of money to Republican candidates and its sole objective in terms of deficit reduction is the ideological driven agenda of the far right, eliminating any efforts at revenue enhancements for the federal government. NPR (especially the shows out of Washington DC) has sunk so low as to sell the American public on this man, this farce and misrepresenting people to get a false argument in order to devise false equivalencies is deplorable. Only on NPR (out of Washington DC) is it deemed OK to have a 5 wk. vacation for Congress, while they demean teachers on a regular basis for having the summer off after teaching to classrooms of 30 to 40 children on a daily basis during the school year. Is this the best you can do? No wonder NPR out of Washington has lost listeners over the last few years. You know you can do better...why don't you at least try? Instead of putting on ideological hacks (which apparently you choose not to recognize) you could go back to trying to educate the public with academics and truly non-partisan journalists. Is that too much to ask?
Neither party has left the mainstream because we don't have one anymore. It's two different cultures with less all the time in common between them and little chance of reaching consensus.
Yet another comment from Brian that is disingenuous. Polls indicated that the American public did not support Ryan's supposed "medicare' reform. Let's start basing your comments on soenthing other than half-truths".
Dianne asks "what's on the agenda when congress reconvenes" - if Obama wins, i suppose the Republican agenda will be the same old scorched-earth, screw-Obama policies they've been implementing since Obama was elected. Any doubts that anything else would be on the minds of Republicans? Republicans are sore losers and having seen their agendas during the Clinton and Obama administrations make me think that they'll never be cooperative unless it's all done their way.
One thing that strikes me, not just this morning, but in general is that the so-called liberal/left-leaning guests are hair-on-fire hyperactive which makes them appear zealous and irrational, despite their (to me) quite rational arguments. Even the craziest right wing speakers (Grover Norquist comes to mind) speak insane ideas in the calmest timbre, making them seem rational. And this, by the way, is no accident.
Well, they are rolling on in the War on Women. The Violence Against Women Act just came up.
Diane's show attempts to be even-handed, but she cannot control the pointedness and honesty of the questions posed by listeners.
Liberal commentators and spokesmen don't have a great problem with these questions because they have nothing to lose by being backed into a corner and forced to be candid.
Conservatives, on the other hand, do not like revealing their cynicism, are desperate not to stray off of the talking points on their blue note-cards and the result is the scraping of the bottom of the barrel that produces spokesmen like Brian Baker.
Who tracks that?
camko wrote:
Dianne asks "what's on the agenda when congress reconvenes" - if Obama wins, i suppose the Republican agenda will be the same old scorched-earth, screw-Obama policies they've been implementing since Obama was elected.
I am going to disagree with this. The Republicans strategy from 2008 was to make Obama a 1 term President through opposition. This planning looks like it going to waste. Romney is making very obvious mistakes both overseas and here. Once that strategy is obliterated, and Obama cannot have a 3rd term, there will be a change in how the Republicans will approach the next 4 years.
"The government comes in and takes half?" According to Politifact.org, very few if any olympic medalists pay any taxes on the earnings and medals (which is about $24,000 per gold medal--not really the gola for most athletes who spend a lifetime working for the moment). Potentially if you earned many medals, or had another large source of income (like an NBA basketball player for example), and your total income after deducting all of the expenses associated with that lifetime of training, and your income was STILL over $250,000, you might pay 35% after deductions. There is no evidence that there are ANY olympic athletes who pay "half" of the value of their medal in taxes. It is simply untrue. . .a lie. . .that "the government comes in takes half." And it is unpatriotic to assert that olympic athletes should be resentful about paying taxes if they earn money, oir that the rest of us sghould be resentful on their behalf. Their success is due to living in a country with schools, and infrastructure, and gyms and libraries and public swimming pools--all paid for with tax dollars. What is REALLY unpatriotic is to assert falsehooods on the radio and to think that you don't owe ANYTHING to mainting some semblence of truth. If you think we pay too much in taxes, and that we spend too much on. . .(????), then say that without resporting to distortion and lies.
Going back to the Gay Nineties neglects our giant standing military.
Please quit white-washing the House of Representatives lack of real legislative accomplishments in the two years since they took the majority. They have not provided any jobs bills. Instead they have focused almost exclusively on denying women's rights through a number of anti-abortion bills, blocking efforts to fund PP, and voting 33 times against "Obamacare", even after it has become law and deemed legal by SCOTUS. They have not focused on real issues at the top of the agenda for most of the American public. They have let the farm bill lapse, a post office fix lapse, all appropriations bills lapse...give me a break. Let's talk about what is important and what they are getting paid a 6 figure salary to do. They get government healthcare while going after everyone else's healthcare. They have taken credit in their districts for stimulus funds they voted against. Hypocrites. This Grover Norquist spokesperson is shameful. Think of how educational your panel could truly be if you could eliminate the ideological hack on your panel that continues to perpetrate misinformation.
One of your guests blamed both parties equally for the failure to pass legislation and particularly the Democrats failed to compromise. If the Democrats passed a bill stating that all people who have assets over $250,000.00 will have all their assets confiscated and redistributed to animal shelters and refused any amendments or substantive discussion, would both parties be equally at fault for failure to compromise on that and get it passed?
Personally, I think if people were seriously interested in cutting spending, they would enact a constitutional amendment abolishing the U.S. Senate.