Moments before approving a payroll tax cut, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told his colleagues about his deal with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell: ?We started this conversation alone and we ended it alone.?
Indeed, legislating in the historically unpopular 112th Congress has often degenerated into secretive negotiations between Senate leaders and House Speaker John Boehner, leaving virtually every other member of Congress on the outside looking in. Lawmakers ranging from powerful committee chairmen down to the lowest-ranking freshmen tend to complain that their party leaders have cut them out of the process as the divided Congress has lurched from crisis to crisis in a messy year of legislating.
Continue Reading?This cannot continue,? said Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.). ?The American people are frustrated because of the way this place is not working, and it?s not working because nothing passes through committee anymore. It?s airdropped from the top.?
Party leaders don?t love this approach either, but they say it?s been necessary to keep the lights on in the government and avert a debt default, given the wide gulf between chambers ruled by lawmakers with polar-opposite political philosophies. They also point to a handful of laws that have been enacted via the traditional committee process, such as last week?s approval of the $662 billion defense bill.
But on the profound issues shaping the national debates on the budget deficit and the economy, the deals have been attempted at the leadership level ? and even that process is at serious risk of unraveling heading into 2012.
After marathon negotiations last week over extending unemployment insurance and the payroll tax holiday, Reid and McConnell reached a deal Friday night and told their respective caucuses that the Senate would vote Saturday morning to extend the benefits for two months. They thought the House would go along, but Boehner announced Sunday that he would oppose the plan after speaking to GOP members furious over the deal.
A frustrated Reid ? who has developed a friendly relationship with the speaker this year ? suggested that Boehner reneged on the deal, which the speaker vehemently denied Monday. Now Boehner wants to hold a traditional conference committee to hash out the House?s differences with the Senate ? something that has been a rarity this Congress. And it?s not clear if there will be a straight up-or-down vote on the Senate bill, infuriating Democratic leaders who thought the Reid-McConnell compromise was headed to the president?s desk.
The breakdown over the payroll tax cut speaks to the broader dysfunction in Congress: The legislative process has been driven increasingly by party leaders, often circumventing the traditional committee process that gives greater buy-in to rank-and-file members and their powerful chairmen.
So-called regular order has broken down this year like few years before it, long-serving lawmakers say, leading to boiling frustration among members of the House and Senate as Congress struggles to respond to national emergencies. Now, party leaders are hearing it from some of their members, as Boehner did on a Saturday conference call where his rank-and-file members voiced serious objections to the Senate?s deal.
?You want broad-based support,? Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said after Saturday?s bipartisan vote in the Senate approving the payroll tax cut. ?And you want open process where the public, through the press, has a better idea of what the revisions are.?
smokey robinson smokey robinson del rio del rio das racist das racist ginger white
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.