Millions of jobless need those benefits & 57 votes aren't enough?

Divine Discontent

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Fri Jun-25-10 01:54 AM
Original message

Millions of jobless need those benefits & 57 votes aren't enough?

Edited on Fri Jun-25-10 02:15 AM by Divine Discontent

Playing politics with millions of people lives. That's the GOP way!

(I am not on jobless benefits, if it matters, I am just disgusted on behalf of those teetering on total meltdown financially)

It's not just the unemployed worker's lives that GOP senators like senile Jim Bunning are using as pawns to make President Obama look ineffective, but the millions of spouses and children many of the unemployed steward over. To many Americans, hearing that 57 votes isn't enough to get a bill passed doesn't make sense, and how can a minority strangle-hold passage and force so many into emergency situations?

These corporate backed GOP politician are bought and paid for, and are more gluttonous than hogs at a trough when it comes to taking donations from corporations, but when the fare being served is the righteousness of doing what's right for the suffering, they're stuffed full and won't let another ounce of food be added to the plate!

They claim the U.S. is so far in debt, we cannot afford these billions for millions of people who could possibly go homeless and hungry without this emergency financing - but you can always damned well be certain that if it's voting for 50 or a 100 billion for the sins of a year's worth of war funding their hooves will be knee deep in the buffet!

I would really appreciate if the Democratically controlled Senate would force the GOP's hand on everything and make them filibuster these bills that literally help keep thousands of babies under a roof thanks to the unemployment benefits their parent(s) receive, instead of having them thrown out of their apartment and onto a street. I have helped the homeless - it's no way anyone in the U.S. should have to live - it's frightening, and it's growing - and too few care.

Why don't they go 'nuclear' on the GOP, and push things through by simple majority through reconciliation procedures? How is our Democracy useful when saying majority rules except when it doesn't? Why is 57-59 Senate votes not good enough to get something through that the minority party doesn't want passed? It's as baffling to me as the ridiculousness of the Electoral College (watching Al Gore get a half million more votes and losing, thanks to shenanigans, will never sit right with me).

The GOP has sought to destroy Obama's policies from the get-go and they have succeeded far, far too frequently in getting the WH and Congress to capitulate and water down many important funding items in bills that get passed, or flat-out stopping advancement on a bill. They need to be shown that the Democrats have the majority - and the voters made it that way. Go "Nuclear"! Or make them babble on and on in a filibuster if they're so adamant about stopping this bill! Dammit, ELECTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES, don't they? That's what I told that lady in the post office earlier this year who was whining about the few good things in the HCR bill!

Whether I'm wrong on the procedures allowed in Congress, or not (heck, there's people in Congress who don't know jack) in this instance, the question for tens of millions of Americans that came out and voted for Democrats --- what good is it to get this president a huge majority in Congress, one that we'll probably never have again in our lifetimes, if we cannot get bills through that really matter. :shrug: