Want real reform? Let's start with Congress.

[babylonsister]

Want real reform? Let's start with Congress.

By Steven Pearlstein
Wednesday, November 11, 2009


By now most people have heard the story of the frog that's put in a pot of cold water on a hot stove and doesn't notice as it is gradually boiled to death. The story may not be true: Most frogs apparently will jump out of the pot at some point. But it remains a useful metaphor for how dysfunctional things can become -- in a market, or a marriage, or a political system -- and how far people can go in rationalizing crazy behavior and unsatisfactory outcomes.

I've been thinking about that as I've watched Congress tackle health-care reform.

Last weekend, after months of committee deliberations, backroom dealmaking and leadership arm-twisting, the House narrowly approved a complex, 2,000-page plan after a mere four hours of political and ideological posturing that allowed for only two amendments, one having to do with abortion.

Almost nobody -- including the House members themselves-- found it odd that this process offered no chance to vote on what kind of "public option" they wanted, or whether they wanted to add some form of malpractice reform, or whether there should be some limit on the value of tax-free health benefits or any of the other two dozen key issues in the health reform debate. In the world's oldest continuous democracy, these apparently are questions considered too important to be decided individually by a majority of the elected representatives.

The health bill now heads to a much less certain fate in the Senate, where instead of a dictatorship of the majority there is a dictatorship of the minority.

Because of the quaint traditions of the upper chamber, there are today scores of top positions in government that routinely remain unfilled for months because one senator or another has decided to put a "hold" on a nomination. And on any controversial issue, and even some that are not, 60 votes are now required to overcome the threat of endless "debate" and actually pass a piece of legislation, along with 60 votes on as many amendments as senators can dream up.

It's gotten to the point now where all it takes to kill something in the Senate is the mere threat of a filibuster, without anyone actually having to mount one. And if you somehow managed to get, say, health reform legislation to the floor, it would take 60 votes to pass a bill that included the public option and 60 votes to pass one without it.

Catch-22!

Despite what you hear from legislative leaders, there is nothing preordained about this wholesale disregard for majority rule. In fact, it violates the letter and spirit of the U.S. Constitution, which expressly delineates a limited number of instances in which anything other than a majority vote is required. And it makes a mockery of Senate rules and precedent, which for nearly two centuries were grounded in a tradition of comity and mutual respect between majority and minority.

All of this, course, has developed so gradually that Washington insiders are inured to the undemocratic nature of the House and the Senate. Most days they are so caught up in the gamesmanship it has spawned that they barely notice how utterly ridiculous and ineffective the legislative process has become.

Although most members of the House and Senate will acknowledge that the process is badly broken, they blame the other party and have convinced themselves that there is no way to change it until the other party is so thoroughly defeated that it agrees to change.

In other words, they are frogs in a pot.

more...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/10/AR2009111018739.html

[Angry Dragon]

1. Thanks for posting

I prefer lobster in the pot. Harder for them to jump out.

[wroberts189]

4. I thought about that....

And how many times I have eaten it. And done it myself.

I wonder if its crueler to slow boil it just drop it in already boiling water... or some other way not to be so cruel. Like sever it neck.

[katty]

2. It is incredible.....

exactly - just stunning to me, really.

you write:

But it remains a useful metaphor for how dysfunctional things can become -- in a market, or a marriage, or a political system -- and how far people can go in rationalizing crazy behavior and unsatisfactory outcomes.

[wroberts189]

3. KNR !!! Why is this not getting more attention?

Jeebus ..call their bluff already and tell the to filibuster. I would love to see Lieberman drone on for hours and hours ..I am sure he would love it at his age.

Whole thing sounds like a scam on us. The pubs. never did this and threatened to just take it away if we did.

It is almost like these Dem's. forget how things were run under the pubs who could care less what any Dem. thought.

-----
On edit I almost posted it myself before I saw the dupe. And I hardly ever OP.

[Hissyspit]

5. You know, I was just thinking about the corruption of the process right before I read this.

Kick

[bemildred]

6. Congress is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that nobody wants to look at. nt

[yurbud]

7. but the frogs jump when Wall Street demands a blank check