Are Republicans and Democrats spending too much time fighting each other to get anything useful done and how long can this go on for before things get worse?

The lies sicken me.

Yes. And about 9 more months, then we can expect an emboldened Republican minority in Congress to take it as the people’s will that they continue to prevent the government from ever doing anything again.

Yes and seemingly forever.

Yes they fight too much. I expect it will continue.

The Republicans wanted tort reform in the health care bill. Obama gave them the opportunity to write the section themselves, but they refused. Now, they say that tort reform is too much of a government takeover of health care.

The Democrats asked the Republicans what they wanted in the health care bill. They took 160 Republican ideas and used them. Despite that, no Republicans voted for the bill.

Republicans have boycotted climate debates in the Senate.

Republicans have blocked Obama’s nominations, notably the Transportation Security Administration, then turned around and said that it’s Obama’s administration’s fault that there’s no leadership on counter-terrorism, especially after the Underpants Bomber.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated his party will use its newfound procedural power to defeat health legislation and potentially all White House-backed bills in the lead-up to mid-term congressional elections in November. Source

The Republicans may have started voting against Democratic measures on principle, but they appear to be keeping it up simply because they want to stymie everything the Dems come up with just because they’re Dems – even voting against the bills that they sponsor themselves to do it.

It may be a fight, but I see one side as the clear aggressor. Reprising my answer from here:

I think a big contributor to the problem is media balkanization. That is, with the two big groups getting their news from totally separate sources, people can’t even agree on what the facts are anymore. Until we can agree on facts, it will stay bad. But when each side believes that the other side is lying, there’s no incentive to work together.

It will continue until the citizens of the USA get off their fat lazy duffs and do something about it.

The Republicans have a clear obstructionist strategy and a tight discipline with which to pull it off. There is no benefit to them to cooperate with Obama, and there could be much cost. I am expecting a right wing revival in the mid-term elections that will be startling.

The question is, then what? They are no better prepared to lead than are the Democrats, who have frittered away all the goodwill they engendered in 2008.

The country has suffered through this before. Personally I’m hoping for Cuomo in 10 years or so.

Can it get any worse? I thought politics had already hit rock bottom here in America.

Polarizing political party battles has been part of our heritage from day one. Though I am not sure there has ever been a time quite like this where we have had so many issues to argue over ever before.

The left speaks of bipartisanship.

What they really mean is for the right to abandon its principles and allow the left to render America unrecognizable overnight.

Principles? That word has a meaning. Let’s not sully it.

The polarization is artificial. Folks who think for themselves generally believe in the same things and lie in the center politically. Folks who regurgitate their parties mantra ruin everything.

@PacificRimjob – I want to thank you. You’ve given me some insight, and I appreciate that.

Your party is balking not because they’ve decided that these particular changes are bad, but because change in general is bad. And the more the rest of us try to change, the more the Right will hold us back like a Chinese finger puzzle trap. Am I getting this right? Because change represents a base anathema to a conservative (small C).

Thing is, many of us here in the left and middle see change as being utterly necessary at the moment. In fact, we see some of it (like climate action) as utterly necessary to have done ten or more years ago. But we’re reaching a point where we feel we cannot stay this way much longer. So it’s maybe true that we’re asking you to compromise your principles and allow some change, but – and this is key – we’re asking you if you would like to have some role, some input, in the necessary changes.

We know change can be scary (we think so too!) and we also know that conservatives are more motivated than most by fear. (I’m on the lappy so I don’t have most of my links here, but if I did, I’d be linking the words “motivated” and “fear” to actual studies.) so this is something that will be very hard for all of us to agree on, but many of us (including me) see some change here, fast change, as essential. It’s why we elected Obama, in fact, rather than someone like McCain who would not have done what is needed. And yes, we see “rendering America unrecognizable” as maybe a feature instead of a bug, and while “overnight” might not happen, at least soon.

You see, though, America will still be recognizable at the core. Just like the America we have now is arguably recognizable as the same country that the Republicans so vastly changed since Reagan took office. (If Barry Goldwater rose up and looked around, he’d very likely identify as a Democrat today. The dems have a lot in common with what the Republicans favored before the political landscape took a swing to the right in the last 20 years.) You may not perceive that change, because it went somewhat slowly, but it was change all the same.

Your Republicans can now choose to be part of the change (bipartisan style), and have some input on what is changed and how much, or you can hold back things that need done (which I guess is also having input on what’s changed and how much, setting both to zero). There’s a time to hold on to things in the past, though – when they work! – and a time to give them up (like unregulated banks). Perhaps we’ll be in a time of flux for a while, but Americans of old went through that and lived to build the country. It’s scary, yeah, but I think we’ll come out better at the end. For surely we must all change together, or we’ll all change separately, to ravage a phrase.

@laureth I just love the way you write and what you say. You are terrific!

“So get out of the way if you can’t lend a hand,
for the times they are a changin’”

-Bob Dylan, c.1965

@laureth No offense but you’re exaclty wrong.

I do not fear change for change’s sake. Rather I’m against changes that are unhealthy for America.

Example: Bush’s tax cuts were a change. Since such a change is good for America I have no problem with it.

Instead I support it.

Hahahah! Good for America! Hahahahah! You mean good for the top .1% of the wealthiest Americans. How did they get you to be so opposed to your own best interests?

In this economy there’s plenty of people that would rather have that money used to hire them instead of paying it out in the form of taxes.

Even if this wasn’t true. It still stands that my attitude toward change is at least based on belief, not fear.

Belief is the same as faith. Sometimes fear is rational and belief is foolish.

I think the difference is that I see those tax cuts as adding to the deficit for no apparent good purpose (tax cuts that are not paid for are Government spending), whereas I see Obama’s changes (most of them anyway) as good for America, even if I don’t think they go far enough. Like the Stimulus money – it didn’t work as well as I would have liked, precisely because it was not enough. The answer isn’t to do less of a good thing (with less or no Stimulus spending), it’s to do the job right the first time (but which he was blocked by Conservatives from doing).

When the rich get money, they usually sock it away in investments, not spending it to hire. The tax cuts do no good, at least, no good for the people not benefiting from their investments. The Stimulus, by definition, improves the economy. It’s the reason we’re not worse off than it is. The people who say that Obama needs to quit blaming things on Bush, should start crediting Obama with not letting us fall as far as we would have without it – and (imho) stop crying about an economy still in the crapper when they won’t let it be fixed properly.

(Also, while I cannot know your exact beliefs @PacificRimjob – please note I’m talking not necessarily about you as an individual, but the Conservatives in general.)

@dpworkin Then replace the word ‘beliefs’ with ‘principles’.

Tax cuts represent less hard earned money diverted by the Fed, period.

@laureth Noted, NP.

Yeah, yeah.

The US needs more than 2 parties in their parliaments.

We don’t have parliament, though. That would make multiple parties much easier.

@dpworkin could you explain ‘yeah, yeah’?

It’s way over my head

If youre so smitten with paying taxes, you can pay mine.

“Yeah, yeah” is my pleasant way of saying that you have no original ideas, and it is tedious to discuss this with you.

@laureth – I meant the Senate and the House.

The US needs campaign finance reform so the invisible party of international corporatists doesn’t not take over more fully.
Yes, the dopes in congress squabble a lot lately and much about stupid petty topics while HUGE debts are racked up.
@PacificRimjob “Tax cuts represent less hard earned money diverted by the Fed, period.” What about the tax cuts on money that is not earned? Nobody will convince me that hedge fund managers “earn” all the money they “make”, no more than a bitty fraction of that is “earned”. Taxation according to the amount the commons facilitated one’s income is very fair and some folks pay a pittance compared to how much society benefits them directly.
The guy who runs United Health Care is due to “earn” 700 Million $ for five years work. Every cent of that didn’t fund someone’s health care. We should tax his butt off and let his doctor pals sew it back on.