JONATHAN COHN NOVEMBER 30, 2010
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The food safety bill finally passed.
First of all, this adds to the already enormous accomplishments of the 111th Congress (assuming, as I expect, that the House passes the Senate version). Democrats got clobbered in the 2010 elections, but they certainly put their victories in 2006 and 2008 to work.
Second, the bill wound up passing easily -- the final vote was 73-25. The NYT story emphasizes how rare bipartisanship was in this Congress, but I think I'd put it a little differently. The truth is that Democrats in the Senate did, in fact, find some Republican votes on lots of things. Both Supreme Court nominees received GOP votes. Indeed, while Republicans certainly did stall other nominations, those that wound up coming to the floor passed with GOP support, often in large numbers.
As for legislation, begin with the stimulus bill, which of course received three Republican votes (including then-Republican Arlen Specter). There's also the Small Business bill, supported by LeMieux and Voinovich. There was a jobs bill which made it thanks to votes from Snowe and Collins. Snowe, Collins, and Brown were needed to reach 60 on Dodd-Frank.
The point is that as much as a lot of liberal pundits regularly take Barack Obama and Harry Reid to task for foolishly believing that bipartisanship was possible over the last two years, the truth is that there were a handful of GOP votes within reach. Except for the brief window in the second half of 2009, at least one of those votes was needed -- and politically, each marginal Republican vote made it easier to retain marginal Democrats. Indeed, as I've argued, just going through the motions of seeking GOP support made it more likely that Ben Nelson stayed on board. Of course, the last 25 or so of the 40 (or 41, or now 42) Republicans were impossible to get, but support from two, three, or even half a dozen was a realistic goal on a lot of bills.
None of which is to say that Obama or Reid always made the right choices. Overall, however, I think any fair reading would say that they accomplished quite a lot in the 111th Congress, and any fair criticism needs to keep that in mind.
2 comments
Well, considering that the 111th packed tax cuts into the stimulus and only received 2 Republican and 1 Spectarian vote speaks to how Obama should have viewed the 111th Republican class as partisan hacks and nothing else. The health care reform bill was a Republican baby. Obama was giving EVERYTHING to Republicans of the not-so-recent past; Medicare cuts, individual mandate, insurance and pharmaceutical benefits, erasing the public option from the table, etc. Obama was giving them sooo much and they still trashed it! And this HCR bill is going to cost a lot of money, and since every legislature in the Union is practically Republican, you can kiss the state-run exchanges goodbye!! They also booted the ball down the field because you have to fund HCR, and that is going to be....I don't even want to THINK of it right now because I'm so frustrated with Obama's fecklessness. The small business bill-I don't know what to think of it. Democrats lost their vote after the bill was signed anyway because Obama doesn't know how to play politics. Republicans are liars, absolute LIARS and this little nice guy doesn't want to get dirty with them. You better start getting tough with these punk asses or else you will not motivate ANY of your base for 2012. And the federal pay freeze? Really? Why does Obama continue giving away everything to these assholes!! Remember offshore drilling expansion? They still didn't give you support. Screw Republicans, don't work with them, because they are TOTALLY NOT INTERESTED IN WORKING WITH YOU. 111th Congress failed because they could have done sooo.....much....more. We should have trashed Republicans at every turn instead of consistently accommodating them without any give from their side.
- RedState
November 30, 2010 at 8:46pm
How is bipartisanship going to work if the Republicans think the only way to create jobs is to cut taxes? The economy was pretty mediocre under Bush with low tax rates and a housing bubble. The housing bubble is gone. If the Democrats call their bluff and extend the Bush tax cuts for two years, two years from now it will be another round of "You can't raise taxes on the Job Creators!" (We've had 8 years of no job creating job creators.) The Republicans will try to position themselves so they blame the debt on the Democrats (which they do now, even though the debt largely comes from Republican policies.) I don't see an upside unless the Democrats stop acting like cowards.
- Nusholtz
November 30, 2010 at 9:48pm