Why the GOP Congress will be the most unproductive in 164 years

The Week ^ | July 18, 2017 | David Faris

[sheana]

If they did nothing but get rid of the BS that has been passed in the last 20 years, I blame Republicans too, I’d be extremely happy.

[loveliberty2]

" The GOP hadn't held total power in American politics since 2006, and the party had become much more conservative in the interim."

This statement represents truly "fake news." "The People" may have become "more conservative," but "the party" has not.

The election results represent citizens who were "more conservative" (meaning that they wanted a President who promised to adhere to the Constitution's ideas and principles), but "the Party's leadership" and hacks did not agree with that idea.

[entropy12]

Republicans in Congress:

Want to be loved by all, especially those who would never vote for them (democrats), and by the media as well.

Has a spine vaccine been invented yet?

[entropy12]

Even a NUCLEAR option requires 51 votes in senate. With 4 senators against the healthcare bill, it is dead. McConnell is just SML, not Houdini.

[mountainfolk]

Even for those who seek political office for serving their country, life happens and, like the song goes, there's been a lot of compromising on the road to their horizon. Compromising, if not judicious, can lead to betrayal of trust. I agree about the self serving career goal of probably more than a few in both parties, and that is one good reason for term limits.

[TakebackGOP]

They’re going to do the same thing with the wall. They don’t want it built.

[BitWielder1]

Productive = Make lots of new laws that the rest of us have to suffer.
I'm perfectly happy with them being "unproductive" in that sense.

[grania]

Why? It's because Swampthing Republicans have no intention of fulfilling their campaign promises. They'd rather risk defeat than stop the money flow from their deep-pocket contributors.

We were hoping they'd step it up and save the nation. How long will it be "each man for himself" in the formerly great USA?

.....beyond disgusted

[kitchen]

Has a spine vaccine been invented yet?

Wouldn't help. Vaccines are designed to protect something you already have.

[Kaslin]

Like I said in my comment Speaker Ryan gets bills passed, it's McConnell who doesn't because he refuses to change the requirement of having to have 60 votes to 52 votes. The only thing that will help us is to get more Republican Senators elected in 2018 to our site, like President Trump wants.

We must not allow the rats to get the majority in House back, which is what they want. If they do you can bet they will impeach President Trump, and if they get the Senate back you can count on it they will remove him from office.

Now think about this all.

[Kaslin]

It’s up to the voters of Kentucky if they want to keep him or not. Not to you and not to me either. They need to make it clear to him though if he does not change and wise up he will be gone.

[entropy12]

Not always. You do not take Polio vaccine because you already have Polio. Ditto with smallpox, TB, Diphtheria, Flu etc. Vaccine is useful to prevent future occurrence.

A spine vaccine may come in handy to prevent Republicans going to linguine (wet noodle) spines.

[Svartalfiar]

Hm. Usually I would be pretty happy with having the least productive Congress, but not right now. Congress needs to work on removing so much stuff, I want them to be working on that.

The most important finding they've uncovered is that over the past 30 years, congressional Republicans have become substantially more ideologically extreme, while congressional Democrats have moved marginally to the left but are not much different as a group than they were in 1980, a process known as "asymmetric polarization.

That's because the Dems did their extreme leftward tilt before 1980. And, at the same time, Repubs were mostly moving leftward as well. Recently, the voters have been somewhat getting rid of these RINOs, so of course the Repubs are going to appear to be moving more rightward. Lets make this a football analogy: Dems started on their own 10yd line, and have moved to their 5yd. Repubs started on their 45yd, and have only moved to their own 30.

She's part of a cluster of three GOP senators, along with Lisa Murkowski and Shelly Moore Capito, who are much more liberal than the rest of the caucus. (By the way, it is not a coincidence that the GOP's three most reasonable senators are women).

Hopefully after 2018 the GOP will have enough seats to start kicking some of these Dems out of the party. Repubs need to clean house and start acting like Conservatives.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Well stated, TX. Nothing can be added to that! Says it all and I couldn’t agree more.

“Productivity” is the most asinine measurement possible for an elected government body. This Congress should be measured by the amount of Obama damage they repeal...a “negative productivity” would be a huge success.