Filibuster Vote Just Tip of Dysfunction Iceberg
By ASHLEY PARKER and JONATHAN WEISMAN, NYT
WASHINGTON — The landmark Senate vote to end the minority party’s ability to filibuster most presidential nominees is just one symptom of the deep level of dysfunction coursing through the 113th Congress as the year before midterm elections draws to a close.
Negotiators this week failed to meet their self-imposed Thanksgiving deadline to reach a framework on the farm bill. A Pentagon policy that passes with bipartisan enthusiasm every year has been blocked in a procedural battle. Budget talks to reach a compromise before a mid-December deadline remain touch-and-go, putting lawmakers in danger of facing another government shutdown early next year. And an immigration measure that passed the Senate in June with broad bipartisan support remains stalled in the Republican-controlled House.
Indeed, the list of unfinished tasks facing Congress is daunting — and time is just about out. The House will be back the week after the Thanksgiving holiday, but the Senate is taking a two-week break. They will have one overlapping week to try to get much accomplished.
Representative Dave Camp, the Michigan Republican who leads the Ways and Means Committee, had promised to formally draft a comprehensive overhaul of the entire tax code by the end of the year. That now looks impossible. The first anniversary of the massacre of schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., is approaching with no movement on the gun control legislation it had set in motion.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — The landmark Senate vote to end the minority party’s ability to filibuster most presidential nominees is just one symptom of the deep level of dysfunction coursing through the 113th Congress as the year before midterm elections draws to a close.
Negotiators this week failed to meet their self-imposed Thanksgiving deadline to reach a framework on the farm bill. A Pentagon policy that passes with bipartisan enthusiasm every year has been blocked in a procedural battle. Budget talks to reach a compromise before a mid-December deadline remain touch-and-go, putting lawmakers in danger of facing another government shutdown early next year. And an immigration measure that passed the Senate in June with broad bipartisan support remains stalled in the Republican-controlled House.
Indeed, the list of unfinished tasks facing Congress is daunting — and time is just about out. The House will be back the week after the Thanksgiving holiday, but the Senate is taking a two-week break. They will have one overlapping week to try to get much accomplished.
Representative Dave Camp, the Michigan Republican who leads the Ways and Means Committee, had promised to formally draft a comprehensive overhaul of the entire tax code by the end of the year. That now looks impossible. The first anniversary of the massacre of schoolchildren in Newtown, Conn., is approaching with no movement on the gun control legislation it had set in motion.
(More here.)
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