The Roots of Obstruction

Republicans chant about the "do-nothing Congress."

But take another look. The reputation of the Congress would be very different had the Republican minority and George Bush not orchestrated a systematic campaign of obstruction to bottle up any progress. For example, majorities in both Houses of Congress voted for:

Setting a date certain to bring the occupation of Iraq to an end, freeing up the $12 billion a month in direct costs (about a billion a day in total) for vital needs here at home;

Saving seniors tens of billions in prescription drug prices by empowering Medicare to negotiate discounts for its bulk purchases;

Investing billions in renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, generating green collar jobs, and paying for it by repealing subsidies for oil companies already pocketing the greatest profits in recorded history;

Providing health care for millions of children of working and poor families, giving them with a chance for a healthy start to life;

Ensuring that soldiers be guaranteed adequate rest and recovery between deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan;

The Congress also managed to pass the first increase in the minimum wage in a decade, the largest increase in college aid since the GI Bill, and cleaned up its own act a bit. Now this isn't everything, but stopping a bad war, changing our energy policy, caring for the troops and providing more affordable health care to seniors and children isn't a bad start.

What stopped these measures from becoming law was a purposeful and unprecedented "block and blame" obstruction strategy by the Republican minority. In the Senate, Republicans have routinely filibustered every major piece of Democratic legislation. As a report by the Campaign for America's Future which I help direct reveals, this has forced a record number of cloture votes that require a super-majority of sixty votes to end the filibusters. This was reinforced by over 131 veto threats by President Bush(who never issued a veto as the previous Republican congresses ran up record deficits). Majority rule has essentially been repealed.

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