mysteryman wrote:nimh wrote:mysteryman wrote:they promised to raise the minimum wage,
They did. It was one of the very first things they did.
True, and I give them credit for that.
Really? That wasnt quite what I got from, "So far, they have done none of those things".
mysteryman wrote:But tell me, why havent they passed any on the 55 resolutions concerning the war? [..]
The trick is to write legislation that BOTH SIDES agree on.
They havent passed any resolution aimed at stopping the war because the Republicans oppose
any and all resolutions that remotely suggest aiming for it. There is no resolution opposing the war in any way that the Republican side
will agree on at this time, and as long as this is the case, there is nothing that can be done.
Then, moreover, there is the point Bi-Polar raises. Even
when the Democrats craft a broad bipartisan majority in Congress, Bush still vetoes the result. Take SCHIP. The Democrats crafted a bill to expand the health care coverage of children that convinced a great many Republican Congressmen as well. It passed the House by 265 to 159 votes, and even more impressively, the Senate by 67 to 29 votes - 18 Republican Senators voted yea. There's your bipartisan legislation. But Bush vetoed it nevertheless.
At the moment, there is simply not a piece of moderate policy that both the Republican minority in Congress and the President can be persuaded to sign on to. They are still wedded to the radical conservative agenda of the first six Bush years. They block even proposals that have enormous support from the voters, like the SCHIP bill did (an ABC/WaPo poll found that a whopping 72% approved, and just 25% opposed). As long as that is the case, gridlock is what you have.
