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The whole point of Senate gangs, whether of Four, Six, or Eight — or even Fourteen — is to obliterate the will of the American people having been expressed by electing Senators of one majority party or another. Right now, the Senate is firmly in Democratic control, but Gangs that emerge are evenly balanced, like the Gang of Six.
Evenly balanced Gangs mean that more conservative, GOP-friendly solutions will emerge, because there is no majority as there is in committees and subcommittees, where the people’s will is expressed through majority control. In order to get agreement on any ideas that emerge from evenly-balanced Gangs, the majority Democratic party members need to move to the right to accommodate the more conservative views of the GOP.
Views those Democrats might also hold, but now can blame on the need to obtain full Gang agreement. It’s rotating villains, Gangland style.
Now, though, as President Obama just announced at his live press conference, he’s gotten a report from the Gang of Six — that he calls the Gang of Seven! Because, as he happily announced, another Republican Senator has come aboard! Necessarily making the Gang’s recommendations even more conservative, because the GOPs now have a majority on a Gang that sprung from a Democratic Senate.
So when the President says, as he did at his press conference today, that the Presidency is in Democratic hands, and he’s developed a Democratic approach to the deficit/debt problem that attacks benefits from the foundational tenets of the social safety net — when he says that he also has a report from the Senate, also in Democratic hands, I think it’s important to remember that that Gang of Seven whose report he’s so excited about reading and aligning with his own administration’s proposal, actually is in Republican control.
We have a Democratic president who’s decided to act as if the legislature is entirely within the control of the opposition party — and negotiate away foundational aspects of the Democratic safety net as if he needs to do that to “compromise” with them. He’s actually ignoring the fact that the Senate is in Democratic control by elevating a GOP -controlled gang to the negotiating table.
It’s almost as if President Obama wants to implement the Republican platform for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
16 Comments
Oh, look, Gene Robinson at the WaPo answered my question about this subject!
Q.
Gang of Six (or Seven)
Now President Obama is all excited about the Gang of Six (actually Seven, since there’s another GOP Senator on board) has sent him something on the debt/deficit. Why are these gangs important, especially when they eliminate the majority party’s advantage by being equally balanced by party? Or, in this case, actually skewed to the GOP 4-3! Don’t we need some anti-gang enforcement on Capitol Hill?
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July 19, 2011 10:47 AM
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A.
Eugene Robinson :
Some sort of Gang Task Force might be in order. The track record of these gangs is pretty disappointing, in terms of actually coming up with solutions. And no, I don’t see a reason for Democrats to be happy about abdicating their control of the Senate, such as it is.
Sorry, link:
http://live.washingtonpost.com/eugene-robinson-07-19-11.html
Longtime FDL readers might recall my rather significant batting average at getting WaPo chatz questions accepted and answered. It’s nice to know I haven’t lost my touch.
oh, how exciting, Chuck Todd’s just broken the news about who the seventh member (fourth GOP) is on the Gang of Six.
Lamar Alexander.
I’m sure that will result in a progressive solution.
Only in the Capitol are gangs considered a positive force for change.
Fuck em. There is no reason to pretend that this is some sort of “democracy” any longer. However reluctantly, we must face the truth of the matter, which is to say that any form of representing the “Constituent’s Voice” is dead and gone.
Now it is simply a game of what can you get these simpletons to believe and have them elect you to power, where you can safely forgo all of the silly promises and act in the interests of the people who own all of the material wealth in this Country, a time honored tradition in fact. Signer John Jay stated that “Those who own the country ought to govern it.” It appears that it as an idea whose time has, all too obviously, arrived.
Exactly, Teddy.
The fact that there are two dominant Parties to which Members of Congress belong does not mean that the American people gave 50/50 power to the Republican and Democratic Parties in the Senate, or in the House, although that’s what both Parties, or at least Party leadership, and the President (who has undone the balance of Congressional power that the voters created, by inserting himself into and manipulating the process), seem to be pretending.
Instead, a majority of Senators are members of the Democratic Party, just as a majority of Representatives are members of the Republican Party, and the “negotiations” that should have started taking place publicly months ago, are those between all members of the relevant, experienced budget and finance committees of jurisdiction of both houses – in conference committee under established procedures – with the goal of crafting a new federal budget that blends the best of the House-passed Budget and a yet-to-be-proposed Senate-passed Budget, resulting in a final product that needs no signature from the President to go into effect.
Starkly underlining this subverting of process, as well as the obvious aversion of Senators to public accountability that goes along with the “Gang” or private deal-making concept, is the fact that the Democratic Assistant Majority Leader, and the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee plus two other members of the Senate Budget Committee – one Democrat (Warner) and one Republican (Crapo) – are four of the six or seven “gang” members who apparently secretly resumed working on a budget plan, which has now been suddenly unveiled to half the Senate (though so far, still behind closed doors, aside from a leaked summary) today:
Yet even while that backroom designing by three members of the Senate Budget Committee was underway, the Senate Budget Committee Chairman (Kent Conrad), included in their number, has refused to submit to the idled, sidelined Senate Budget Committee itself, for its public debate and consideration, his draft budget plan (which sounds quite similar in content to the leaked Gang plan), as required by law.
This, for example, sounds like the summary of Conrad’s private budget draft:
So it’s way past time, indeed, for the Senate to try public legislating on this issue for a change, in place of the undemocratic, secret huddles already disgracefully held to date by the closed-door Bowles/Simpson group, the closed-door Gang of Six group, the closed-door Biden-led group, the closed-door President-led group, and now apparently yet another proposed closed-door group pushed by Party leadership – all while the staffed, “bipartisan,” public Senate Budget Committee stands idle.
I will give the just-leaked Gang plan this much – it prominently contains some better-late-than-never rhetoric (and a plan of action) espousing an apparent faith in the democratic legislative process, despite the absence to date of actions, by the Gang of Six/Seven, or the Senate as a whole, that match this rhetoric:
‘It’s almost as if President Obama wants to implement the Republican platform for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.’
Almost?
I’d say that was the plan all along.
Hmm, “gang”…seems to me I’ve heard that phrase used before with regard to a system of governance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gang_of_Four
“The Gang of Four, together with disgraced Communist general Lin Biao, were labeled the two major “counter-revolutionary forces” of the Cultural Revolution and officially blamed by the Chinese government for the worst excesses of the societal chaos that ensued during the ten years of turmoil. Their downfall in a coup d’état on October 6, 1976, a mere month after Mao’s death, brought about major celebrations on the streets of Beijing and marked the end of a turbulent political era in China.”
So the good news is that we may have a street party to look forward to at the end of our own Cultural Revolution.
madcap: “So the good news is that we may have a street party to look forward to at the end of our own Cultural Revolution.”
if only ….
karen
Obama is a real dick head, I cant wait to see this bitch lose in 2012.
Sorry, I shldnt have said that, just sick n tired of his ass kissing.
I assume “almost” was Teddy’s sarcastic voice.
Although I would replace “implement” with “exceed”, personally.
I think the government both democrats and republicans should raise taxes on the rich people. They Don’t seem to want to come to an agreement , but what they don’t realize is , its the poor, disabled people who are suffering, and not them. They have money, we don’t. They also don’t look at the fact that if they cut or stop ssi payments than crime will increase because people will be trying to keep from starving and becoming homeless, and those who are too sick to do anything will become homeless, in a word it will be world chaos and a unnecessary war in our own country. I who am disabled and am unable to work rely on my ssi to pay my rent and my bills. if it was cut or stopped i would be homeless and lose what little i have. i for one would not stand for it. so for once in their lives both democrats and republicans need to stop worrying about themselves, and think about us poor and disabled people. cause after all, they are rich and don’t have to worry about the things we do if we lost our only income. So to all you in government , think about the world chaos you will cause if u cut or stop ssi payments. Do you really want to have to fight a war in this country as well as one in iraq?
‘s OK,robbep. I get sick ‘n tired of it, too.