The Quiet Closing of Washington

The Quiet Closing of Washington

By Robert Reich | robertreich.org | Posted: 06/09/2013 6:18 pm
Excerpts:

“Conservative Republicans in our nation’s capital have managed to accomplish something they only dreamed of when Tea Partiers streamed into Congress at the start of 2011: They’ve basically shut Congress down.

Their refusal to compromise is working just as they hoped: No jobs agenda. No budget. No grand bargain on the deficit. No background checks on guns. Nothing on climate change. No tax reform. No hike in the minimum wage. Nothing so far on immigration reform.

It’s as if an entire branch of the federal government - the branch that’s supposed to deal directly with the nation’s problems, not just execute the law or interpret the law but make the law - has gone out of business, leaving behind only a so-called “sequester” that’s cutting deeper and deeper into education, infrastructure, programs for the nation’s poor, and national defense.

The window of opportunity for the President to get anything done is closing rapidly. Even in less partisan times, new initiatives rarely occur after the first year of a second term, when a president inexorably slides toward lame duck status.

But the nation’s work doesn’t stop even if Washington does. By default, more and more of it is shifting to the states, which are far less gridlocked than Washington. Last November’s elections resulted in one-party control of both the legislatures and governor’s offices in all but 13 states - the most single-party dominance in decades.

This means many blue states are moving further left, while red states are heading rightward. In effect, America is splitting apart without going through all the trouble of a civil war.

Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, for example, now controls both legislative chambers and the governor’s office for the first time in more than two decades.

The legislative session that ended a few weeks ago resulted in a hike in the top income tax rate to 9.85%, an increased cigarette tax, and the elimination of several corporate tax loopholes.

The added revenues will be used to expand early-childhood education, freeze tuitions at state universities, fund jobs and economic development, and reduce the state budget deficit. Along the way, Minnesota also legalized same-sex marriage and expanded the power of trade unions to organize.

California and Maryland passed similar tax hikes on top earners last year. The governor of Colorado has just signed legislation boosting taxes by $925 million for early-childhood education and K-12 (the tax hike will go into effect only if residents agree, in a vote is likely in November).

On the other hand, the biggest controversy in Kansas is between Governor Sam Brownback, who wants to shift taxes away from the wealthy and onto the middle class and poor by repealing the state’s income tax and substituting an increase in the sales tax, and Kansas legislators who want to cut the sales tax as well, thereby reducing the state’s already paltry spending for basic services.

Kansas recently cut its budget for higher education by almost 5 percent.

Other rightward-moving states are heading in the same direction. North Carolina millionaires are on the verge of saving $12,500 a year, on average, from a pending income-tax cut even as sales taxes are raised on the electricity and services that lower-income depend residents depend on.

Missouri’s transportation budget is half what it was five years ago, but lawmakers refuse to raise taxes to pay for improvements.

The states are splitting as dramatically on social issues. Gay marriages are now recognized in twelve states and the District of Columbia. Colorado and Washington state permit the sale of marijuana, even for non-medical uses. California is expanding a pilot program to allow nurse practitioners to perform abortions.

Meanwhile, other states are enacting laws restricting access to abortions so tightly as to arguably violate the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade. In Alabama, the mandated waiting period for an abortion is longer than it is for buying a gun.

Speaking of which, gun laws are moving in opposite directions as well. Connecticut, California, and New York are making it harder to buy guns.

Yet if you want to use a gun to kill someone who’s, say, spray-painting a highway underpass at night, you might want to go to Texas, where it’s legal to shoot someone who’s committing a “public nuisance” under the cover of dark.

Or you might want to live in Kansas, which recently enacted a law allowing anyone to carry a concealed firearm onto a college campus”.

continued:

 

conclusion:

“The states are diverging sharply on almost every issue you can imagine. If you’re an undocumented young person, you’re eligible for in-state tuition at public universities in fourteen states (including Texas). But you might want to avoid driving in Arizona, where state police are allowed to investigate the immigration status of anyone they suspect is here illegally.

And if you’re poor and lack health insurance you might want to avoid a state like Wisconsin that’s refusing to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, even though the federal government will be picking up almost the entire tab.

Federalism is as old as the Republic, but not since the real Civil War have we witnessed such a clear divide between the states on central issues affecting Americans.

Some might say this is a good thing. It allows more of us to live under governments and laws we approve of. And it permits experimentation: Better to learn that a policy doesn’t work at the state level, where it’s affected only a fraction of the population, than after it’s harmed the entire nation. As the jurist Louis Brandies once said, our states are just
“laboratories of democracy.”

But the trend raises three troubling issues.

First, it leads to a race to bottom. Over time, middle-class citizens of states with more generous safety nets and higher taxes on the wealthy will become disproportionately burdened as the wealthy move out and the poor move in, forcing such states to reverse course. If the idea of “one nation” means anything, it stands for us widely sharing the burdens and responsibilities of citizenship.

Second, it doesn’t take account of spillovers - positive as well as negative. Semi-automatic pistols purchased without background checks in one state can find their way easily to another state where gun purchases are restricted. By the same token, a young person who receives an excellent public education courtesy of the citizens of one states is likely to move to another state where job opportunity are better. We are interdependent. No single state can easily contain or limit the benefits or problems it creates for other states.

Finally, it can reduce the power of minorities. For more than a century “states rights” has been a euphemism for the efforts of some whites to repress or deny the votes of black Americans. Now that minorities are gaining substantial political strength nationally, devolution of government to the states could play into the hands of modern-day white supremacists.

A great nation requires a great, or at least functional, national government. The Tea Partiers and other government-haters who have caused Washington to all but close because they refuse to compromise are threatening all that we aspire to be together.”

read:
http://robertreich.org/post/52488978442
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IMO: We have not had a working Congress since Barack Obama became president due to the republican’s verbal statement of making sure Obama was a one-term-president.

The republicans have strategized a do-nothing, obstructive, and extremely toxic atmosphere for nearly five years, while taking their paychecks as if they were doing their jobs for the citizens of theis country.

What we are now seeing is the result of their treasonous and criminal negligence in the closing down of Washington by the ‘republican austerity.’ Their refusal to fund social programs to help the poor, school children, voting against stronger gun laws to protect the majority of Americans, ‘hollowing’ out different agencies and departments by layoffs, non-funding, or simply not working on important bills that directly affect every American adversely.

The republicans have also cut their own workweek to about 1 ½ days work then leaving Washington and its work on Thursday to go home for a long weekend returning again on Tuesday to work for 1 ½ days. while collecting their patchecks. So in effect, their ‘austerity’ is nothing like government workers that get laid off with no pay, or working less hours to cut back on expenses.

The damage they have done to this country with their 5-year-obstruction, false smears and ‘scandals,’ war mongering, and treasonous working against our country and its people makes our complete recovery never to be regained.

We need to vote all the republican jackals out of office now.

 

Inaction from DC is a good thing.

 

Reich is both a physical and mental midget.

 

Takes two to compromise. The Democrats are also not willing to compromise.

Try not to be so partisan.

 

Sounds like they're doing their job.

 

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1) It takes only one person to compromise...but that takes an honest, dedicated, totally uncorrupted legislator to show the way to the others. That is precisely what the republicans do not have...

2) That is the reality of the Congress today...you cannot be bipartisan on fear of losing your seat in the next election.

Congress is broken because it is thoroughly corrupt, and the will of the people has been extinguished from the legislative arena. Congress today gives us no reason to be bipartisan as the republicans are working against America and it's people and will soon be gone.

 

It takes one person to succumb. It takes two to compromise. Educate!

 

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Sounds to me like something got your panties in a wad...in politics republicans give their opinions all the time, why would it be restrictive to Independents?

You need to learn there are other opinions to be heard, not just republican blurbs. Get used to it, we still live in a Democracy where there is freedom of speech for all of us, Agent_286, Robert Reich, and sec.....

 

I agree with the views of the article.

 

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Get with the current program: It takes a Democrat to offer a grand bargain! The republicans will then have closed meetings and decide the Democrats weren't being genuine, and will hold many press conferences over nothing until they decide not to take advantage of the grand bargain and wait instead for their own 'grand cave-in'...

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....and you're a clown

 

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I think it was a very thoughtful, true image of Washington today. To be blunt, republicans have committed suicide on themselves with their grotesque display of unAmerican behavior in a job they were elected to do, but for 5 years have collected their citizen-paid
paychecks for doing nothing for the good of the people.

If I were a republican legislator up for re-election, I would be having panic attacks for sure!

 

Agreed. Republicans don't want to compromise, because of the fear of a primary challenger.

 

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That is possibly how you pay your bills, but the American government has many responsibilities to its people, its military, and its elderly. The House is in charge of paying those bills but instead of paying the bills they use them as hostage to try to get insane bills passed to make the wealthy even richer. I guess that's ok with you?

 

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Today the republican party is just a shadow group because every agenda is carefully chosen and no republican has to think anymore, just follow orders or they are gone.

 

1) No. Compromise cannot be met because the Democrats aren't willing to budge on anything.

2) And you're part of the problem for perpetuating it.

Do America a favor and stay out of politics. We need less people like you around and you are by far the most partisan, degenerate hack on this forum board. You sir are a Grade A Tool.

 

That was not said until 2010--1 1/2 yrs after Obama had already proclaimed that the Republicans need to bow down to him, and give up because he won the election. What did he expect? That they would do it? The problem is that Obama is an incompetent President. He has no ability to work with Congress, which is a primary feature of the job. He isn't even working well with the Democrats in Congress.

No real cuts have been made.

We should have voted the incompetent President out of office 7 months ago. This country has been in a downhill slide since the Democrats took over Congress in 2006.

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Both sides have to compromise. I'm not seeing the Democrats compromising either.

 

Hopefully, just hopefully we can have a bunch of Dems. and Rep. in the unemployment lines before to long and not get a chance of "Paying the bills" as you call it.

 

While I'm not enamored by the Republicans if you had an ounce of honesty and integrity you'd realize it was the Dems that slammed the door shut. Remember "We need to vote for it to see whats in it". Ringing any bells about closed doors? Don't be a putz your entire life, wake up.

 

"No jobs agenda. No budget. No grand bargain on the deficit. No background checks on guns. Nothing on climate change. No tax reform. No hike in the minimum wage. Nothing so far on immigration reform."

Taxcutter says:
Wrong, Bob. The House passed dozens of job-related bills to the Senate where Dirty Harry ignored them...
the House has sent budget bills to the Senate where Dirty Harry ignored them...
No grand bargain on deficit? All the Dems have to do make that go is agree on cutting free stuff...
No background checks on guns? Feinstein bill failed in Dem-dominated Senate, but that is generally a good thing.
Nothing on climate change? Excellent!
No tax reform? Did the Dems bring a bill abolishing income tax and replace it with a workable no-exemption consumption tax? No.
No hike in minimum wage? Excellent. SEIU go to hell.
Nothing on immigration reform? Is that what the Obama junta now calls the measure formerly called amnesty?

Why do you post stuff by that dingbat Bob Reich?

 

Hello All,

This thread has been moved to a more appropriate forum.

Thank you,

Jiyuu-Freedom
Site Moderator

 

Don't you leftists realize that conservatives believe you always act in bad faith. Thus, conservatives have no obligation to act in good faith with you. Anything goes short of violence.

 

that is because some republicans do not deal in reality, they deal in imaginary people sitting in chairs


.

 

You dehumanize others, then expect them to accept you as being reasonable/credible?

Get a damned clue, Albert!

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It seems to be that way.

 

The symptoms documented in the OP are valid and accurate. But the assumption that the trend is a long term split of the states is much less certain.

Looking over history, the problem is likely to be resolved at the ballot box. The most probable outcome is the Tea Party Republicans will be voted out of office in favor of more moderate candidates. To the extent the Tea Party is able to influence the entire Republican Party with its candidates, the move would mean the entire party will become marginalized. Once firmly in control the Democrats will undoubtedly push for an expanded Federal roll and unify the states with federal regulation.

This is not the first time this partisan war has been fought. In the late 30s the Republicans banned together to fight the New Deal. They seized Congress in 1938 and moved to reverse Roosevelt's policies only to over reach and be given a ticket home. It was nearly 50 years before they could find their way back to the majority in Congress.