Senators more interested in power balance than on doing what's right for the country
Filibuster fight reignites partisan sparring in Senate
By Paul Kane, WashPost, Tuesday, November 27, 12:50 PM
Ending a post-election detente from heated rhetoric, Senate leaders shredded one another Tuesday in increasingly bitter terms over a Democratic proposal to dramatically overhaul the chamber’s long-standing rules for filibusters.
The back and forth left the Senate in a partisan standoff that is ill suited for the bipartisan talks expected over the next four weeks to reach a compromise that averts more than $500 billion in annual automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that are set to kick in after New Year’s Day.
The heated exchanges poisoned the bipartisan atmosphere that President Obama, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other congressional leaders had been trying to publicly promote, hoping to settle nervous financial markets warily looking at Washington to see if a massive debt deal can be hatched to avert a recession next year.
For a second straight day Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) opened the chamber by engaging in a nearly hour-long feud over Reid’s emerging proposal to eliminate some filibusters. Reid accused the GOP leader of “abusing” the rules; McConnell accused the Democrat of “breaking the rules to change the rules.”
Tuesday’s debate ended with McConnell repeating his vow that a Democratic rewrite of the chamber rules planned for early next year, approved without any GOP votes, would prove toxic for the hoped-for compromise on the fiscal issues.
(More here.)
Ending a post-election detente from heated rhetoric, Senate leaders shredded one another Tuesday in increasingly bitter terms over a Democratic proposal to dramatically overhaul the chamber’s long-standing rules for filibusters.
The back and forth left the Senate in a partisan standoff that is ill suited for the bipartisan talks expected over the next four weeks to reach a compromise that averts more than $500 billion in annual automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that are set to kick in after New Year’s Day.
The heated exchanges poisoned the bipartisan atmosphere that President Obama, House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and other congressional leaders had been trying to publicly promote, hoping to settle nervous financial markets warily looking at Washington to see if a massive debt deal can be hatched to avert a recession next year.
For a second straight day Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) opened the chamber by engaging in a nearly hour-long feud over Reid’s emerging proposal to eliminate some filibusters. Reid accused the GOP leader of “abusing” the rules; McConnell accused the Democrat of “breaking the rules to change the rules.”
Tuesday’s debate ended with McConnell repeating his vow that a Democratic rewrite of the chamber rules planned for early next year, approved without any GOP votes, would prove toxic for the hoped-for compromise on the fiscal issues.
(More here.)
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