Big cuts spur calls to Congress from irate constituents
Source: Reuters
Big cuts spur calls to Congress from irate constituents
By Thomas Ferraro
WASHINGTON | Sat Mar 2, 2013 2:28pm EST
(Reuters) - The Congress is getting an earful about the big spending cuts beginning to hit government services from worried and irate constituents, including one senator's own spouse.
Democratic Senator Thomas Carper of Delaware said his wife, "my most important constituent," asked him, "Why can't you guys get your act together? Do you know what people think of you guys?"
"I told her that Washington needs to work more like Delaware," said Carper, a former governor of the state. "In Delaware, Democrats and Republicans work together."
They have not worked together in Washington. And so the across-the-board cuts of the so-called "sequester" - which both Republicans and Democrats have said they oppose - took effect Friday night after President Barack Obama and Republican leaders failed to agree on a way to replace them with targeted spending reductions.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/02/us-usa-fiscal-congress-idUSBRE9210AX20130302
dballance
(5,756 posts)The fact that a root canal and cockroaches are more popular than Congress should be a wake up call. Too bad it hasn't been.
Tempest
(14,591 posts)Democrats in Congress are polling higher than Congressional Republicans.
dballance
(5,756 posts)We have long-time GOP members writing newspaper articles and books with titles along the lines of "The Republicans are the Problem." Pretty damning when it comes not from the opposition party but from one's own party.
PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)because we never stand up. well guess what we finally stood up. Dems I hope finally gave up on the loonies are are doing fake compromises
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)It's the way that the current Congress is structured, with the vast majority of districts being "safe" for incumbents of either party, and both parties being pretty much able to count on retaining a seat if the incumbent resigns or dies.
Popularity contests are relatively meaningless to most congresscritters. They all feel that their base in their district or state backs them up, no matter what the "rest" of them are doing.
dballance
(5,756 posts)Not much changes with elections any more.
oldbanjo
(690 posts)customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)The system's pretty much rigged for this.
liberal N proud
(60,334 posts)sheshe2
(83,758 posts)Let's keep their damn phone lines busy 24-7! Yell as loud and long as you can!
thanks, Judy Lynn.
Response to sheshe2 (Reply #4)
movonne This message was self-deleted by its author.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)The lowest pay is about $104 per hour and don't know if they even work 32 hours a week. You would think they would be about governing but they just rest up for their next time off.
Kablooie
(18,634 posts)And the Democratic members will get the most heat because their constituents can see how screwed up this is.
The result could be a lot of democrats thrown out and Republicans from the imbecile districts cemented in.
This might be a calculated move by republicans to take over the whole congress and with so many gerrymandered ignorant idiot voters it could work.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)How much lower can Congressional Rethugs go? It's the President who stands to lose from his once-again lofty approval ratings.
ZRT2209
(1,357 posts)PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)the cuts there are from various unSPENT years. So they really aren't losing anything. at least as far as that Pentagon building is concerned.
Selatius
(20,441 posts)If the Democrats had won back control of the Senate and House in 2008 instead of 2006, the Republicans would get 100% of the blame for the stock market crash of 2008 and the Great Recession that followed soon after. They would also take responsibility for passing the hideously unpopular bill that authorized the 800 billion dollar bank bailouts.
The Republican name brand would become so toxic that Democrats would probably not have lost control of the House in 2010, and we would not have been forced into the sequestration as a compromise to raising the debt ceiling.
John2
(2,730 posts)is wrong. Most of the Democrats in Congress have diverse Districts. The people in those Districts understand the problem. I can go further and make the claim these Republicans obstructing Policy decisions have made it a point to gerrymander themselves into 88 to 90 percent white districts. Most of these districts are rural and they are not that sensitive to urban problems. And most of these representatives come from red states in the South or middle of the United States where population is more sparse. So essentially you have a divided America along racial lines. I think the fella on the view pointed this out. There is no where in the History of the United States where a candidate for President won the plural votes of a single state and still loss that state. The Republicans are trying to manufacture that too along racial lines. The leaders of the Republican Party are extremists and intolerant. I would go even further and call them racists without any hesitation whatsoever. That is why I think the Republican Party is extremely dangerous to this country just like the Nazi Party was to Germany. That is what Americans need to resist and the whole World also. The problem wasn't just with George Bush and Cheney, it was his whole Party. They have the whole cabal, including the media propaganda apparatus promoting this supremacist complex. They have people in their Party calling other Americans non American based on religion, skin color and sexual orientation. They have even placed people on the Supreme Court to legally validate their intolerance into American law. DOMA and the attack on the Voting Rights Act are good examples of this. The Republican Party is the most dangerous Party in this country's history since the American Civil War. And when you start oppressing people too far, you know the results. The first Civil War was terrible and caused over 600,00 American lives. It can happen again. The Republican Party is moving this country towards dangerous territory.
another_liberal
(8,821 posts)Be careful not to perpetuate the false equivalency between the House's Republican majority and our President. The Republicans would be happy if our government shrank to nothing except the Pentagon and the CIA, leaving everything else to individual "sovereign" States. The President is trying in every way he possibly can to prevent the vast majority of Americans from losing the basic services our federal government provides them.
Simply saying, "The Democrats and Republicans need to sit down and get something done," misses the point entirely. One side is honestly trying to do what is best for our country. The other side is bent upon destroying our federal government, so as to prevent their wealthy sponsors having to pay marginally higher taxes to support this country's basic needs.
cstanleytech
(26,291 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)dburner1
(12 posts)Congratulations, you struck the nail squarely on the head.
2naSalit
(86,610 posts)provide a fucked up justification, in their minds, for privatization of everything so that we can truly BE a fascist state. All things that we pay for with taxes that the government is supposed to enact on our behalf will be left to the discretionary ideology of the corporate overlords... and only if we pay their version of tolls and taxes.
I think we should organize to show up at every one of the places they go while in their home districts, line the streets like people did in VA protesting, silently, the transvaginal ultrasound bill. Line the streets, stare at them when they go anywhere, at restaurants no matter how swanky, at the golf clubs, wherever they go, just stare at them and hold signs, follow them around in groups. When they try to speak to you, turn your backs and tell them that you are returning the gestures of how they treat us. Something has to happen here, those who clean their houses and provide services to them should stop doing so. It would be interesting if the garbage started piling up at their homes and the beds didn't get made and their laundry and dry cleaning wasn't done... It would be a start if it happened. If I had a business and anyone from the government who is sworn to represent me showed up, I'd be asking them to leave. But that's just me.
southern_belle
(1,647 posts)You got that right!
cstanleytech
(26,291 posts)the republicans just plain out refusing to work at all.
PatrynXX
(5,668 posts)of the argurment from the right saying oh those blacks never do any work. Just lay down on the job. oh wait Republicans nevermind
freshwest
(53,661 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)liberalmuse
(18,672 posts)because his mailbox is full. Good thing, because I'd probably have the SS at my door. I hate Republicans. HATE. THEM. I think 32 out of my 49 years of watching their fuckery gives me the right to detest those who would destroy every single thing that is good about America. They want to make the US the new China, sweatshops and all. I'm sick to death of it, but if Americans continue to sit on their fat asses and do nothing then I guess we'll all be swirling down the bowl very soon.
Ian David
(69,059 posts)"Please, stop the sequester! There are lions and tigers everywhere, and they're eating us alive!"
Left Coast2020
(2,397 posts)"NO CONFIDENCE" and toss the bastards out on their ass!!!
OnlinePoker
(5,719 posts)Everyone is blaming the Republicans, but when I look up the numbers, 95 Democrats in the House voted in favour of the bill (voting against it would have meant it would fail) and in the Senate, 45 of the 74 votes in favour were also cast by Democrats. Did these Democrats not expect that sequester would actually take place? It seems like both sides have rolled the dice on the U.S. economy and it's about to come up craps just when it seemed like things were moving in the right direction.
mwb970
(11,359 posts)You are looking at the surface facts only. If you grasped the total situation you would see clearly who the villains are.
YOHABLO
(7,358 posts)They want cuts to ''entitlement'' programs that so many in these times desperately need. Yet, they won't raise taxes on the super wealthy, and won't cut out of control military contract spending. Their bottom line .. the Corporation's they work for profit margins. I say screw these bastards .. and let's all head to the streets .. till we get these shills out of office.
caseymoz
(5,763 posts)Was this supposed to be its big comeback move? A national party already in the decline can't afford that f*ck-up rate.
Kteachums
(331 posts)They take vacations on us. Why can't we (the American People) ask that they have their pay cut when they don't get things done? It is sickening that they do things with no feelings for the little man at the bottom. It's all about who will pay them to be re-elected the next time around. I am in shock that this whole mess has gone down. Are they going to blame Obama everytime something goes wrong or decide to fix their own messes?
workinclasszero
(28,270 posts)Which is: destroy the government.
And to think we spend trillions to defend this country against foreign terrorists while greed monsters like the Koch bros, the walmart heirs etc etc etc, and the republican party destroy us from within unimpeded!
When will the country wake up to the fact that the republican party makes al quida look like school yard bullies when it comes to destroying democracy?