Did you happen to catch the Rachel Maddow show a few night's ago?
I wrote a diary about this topic on the day of the virtual March, but it went unnoticed. Rachel brought this topic up, and I think it is too important to let is slide, so I want to bring it up again.
In addition to the Republicans stalling Health Care Reform, there are some 290 other bills ALREADY passed by the House (many with bi-partisan support). Not only do we need HCR passed in the Senate, American's urgently NEED many of the other bills hung up in the Senate made into laws to help us out of this recession and stalemate we are in as a country.
However, they are not being passed into law, and are just sitting in the Senate collecting dust. Many of them since last summer. The party of NO is not only abusing their power on HCR, but on 290 other bills as well by exploiting the the use of Filibuster.
America Urgently needs the Democrats to forget Bi-Partisanship, and instead stand up to them and their sabotage of progress by using reconciliation.
From The Hill:
"The list of stalled bills includes both major and minor legislation: healthcare reform; climate change; food safety; financial aid for the U.S. Postal Service; a job security act for wounded veterans; a Civil War battlefield preservation act; vision care for children; the naming of a federal courthouse in Iowa after former Rep. Jim Leach (R-Iowa); a National Historic Park named for President Jimmy Carter; a bill to improve absentee ballot voting; a bill to improve cybersecurity; and the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act."
The list of "Bills Being Killed" by the filibuster, or as Rachel Maddow now refers to them as being "Tarantino'ed"(because of his movies Kill Bill)
http://thehill.com/...
The list includes:
- H.R. 384, TARP Reform and Accountability Act
- H.R. 631, Water Use Efficiency and Conservation Research Act
- H.R. 885, Improved Financial and Commodity Markets Oversight and Accountability Act
- H.R. 957, Green Energy Education Act
- H.R. 1168, Veterans Retraining Act
- H.R. 1253, Health Insurance Restrictions and Limitations Clarification Act
- H.R. 2182, Enhanced Oversight of State and Local Economic Recovery Act
- H.R. 2352, Job Creation Through Entrepreneurship Act
- H.R. 2749, Food Safety Enhancement Act
- H.R. 2847, Jobs for Main Street Act
- H.R. 3165, Wind Energy Research and Development Act
- H.R. 3221, Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act
- H.R. 3371, Airline Safety and Pilot Training Improvement Act
- H.R. 3738, Small Business Early-Stage Investment Act
- H.R. 3854, Small Business Financing and Investment Act
- H.R. 3949, Veterans’ Small Business Assistance and Servicemembers Protection Act
- H.R. 3961, Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act
- H.R. 4173, Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
- H.R.4532, Social Security Disability Applicant’s Access to Professional Representation Act
In an ideal world, those representing the masses would be the best and the brightest so they could lead our country with a vision towards a better future for all of us. But, in our world we don't have those kind of people at the top of the heap right now. Instead, we have a collection of underhanded and unscrupulous Senators and Congress-people controlling our lives. And, although it has been all of the Republicans who are abusing their powers and controlling us through the use of the filibuster, the Democrats wimpish ways are just as destructive.
Polls repeatedly show that the majority in this country wants health care reform, and they want it to include something either like the public option, or Medicare for all. We want Finance Reform. We want something to be done in DC to help us out. But, that is not happening with Republicans able to Tarrantino (filibuster) every bill that comes along and killing progress.
With Republincan's merely repeating their talking points from their GURU Frank Luntz, they are not earning their pay as the safekeepers of our country. They should be embarrassed by their bad behavior because they are the party of opposition to anything that the Democrats vote for. It is easier for them to press the NO button than to do any critical thinking about what they are actually voting on.
As long as they oppose everything that the Democrats want to do, no matter what it is, they don't have to waste any of their time reading the bills. They don't have to think very hard about what a NO vote means to their constituents lives. They don't have to ponder how denying health care reform to people is going to hurt this country in the long run. When they merely vote NO for everything just to oppose the Democrats, they don't have to work very hard to collect their big fat paychecks and their great perks like Government run health care they are denying the rest of us.
Republican Senators are Shameless Liars who don't earn their pay as they continue to live on easy street at the expense of tax-payers.
IMHO—The Democrats should use Reconciliation on EVERY bill that is being stalled by the Republican party's opposition, because trying to use bi-partisanship with those blockheaded hypocrites is creating a huge deadlock that our country cannot afford to have in place one more day.