Dream Act passage in a lame duck session?

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

All Obama has done since taking office is reaching out towards Republicans. Remember the debates over the stimulus? It should have had bipartisan support. Republican leaders should have stood up in support of the bill so that the country could have a united fiscal response against the economic situation plaguing the nation. They could have made any further economic stimuli more in line with their ideology. Butterfiles, sugar and bunnies would spring forth from the earth and a new era of bi-partisanship would reign in Washington forever thanks to Moderate Hero Obama!

Oh wait, this would be an awful strategy for the Republican Party. Why would they endorse long term economic strategies when the economic strategies could ultimately be blamed for the state of the economy and they could have a tremendous rebirth of their party thanks to this without making difficult policy decisions or ideological reversals? This goes for all economic policy. Because they distanced themselves as far away as possible from anything coming from Obama's mouth, even if it was only tax cuts for small businesses, they reaped the benefits. The Obama administration should have seen this coming. These people have no scruples and never will...

Why is bi-partisanship even placed on a pedestal anymore? This is a serious question. As has been said before, the role of the opposition is to oppose. As much as I find this to be unconstructive, it's a truth that certain political leaders need to understand.

Well first off, the stimulus bill was never going to gain meaningful pub support, even though they spent like drunken sailors during the Bush time......

Bi-partisanship?  I agree......hogwash.  Was W bi-partisan when he rammed it up the Dems ass hard and heavy toward the end of his presidency?  He said all the right words but hell no.....

Reaching out isn't always reaching out......

Yeah the first paragraph was sarcasm. I don't actually believe that it would be a smart political strategy for the Republicans to back the stimulus. It might be better for the country but that's entirely different.

[Sbane]

It is going to be a very rough two years, and the election in 2012 is going to be brutal. Obama seems to have no interest in triangulating, and pushing through controversial legislation like this in a lame duck session, would poison the waters. But it will be filibustered, and die. I am beginning to think that Obama just is not a very effective politician. Bring back Clinton!

Considering that Republicans used to support this piece of legislation, I don't see why Obama pushing this in a lame duck session is so bad. I support this legislation and damn the Republicans if they filibuster it, or if the ones who support it don't vote for cloture. Are there any amendments to this bill that the Democrats are refusing to hear? In that case I would be more sympathetic. But from my view it looks like the Republicans are continuing their strategy of saying no to everything, the country be damned. The START treaty is a perfect example of that. And we are supposed to trust these people with governing, when they can't think beyond winning the next news cycle?

[Frink]

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The majority of the stimulus that would have directly affected anyone was done through middle class tax credits. Supposedly lower taxes was once a part of the Republican's ideology, but I guess as you said partisan obstructionism is more important to their long term electoral success. I haven't read the bill in a while, but there was something like $300 Billion dollars worth of tax benefits in it, IIRC.

There was a lot of pork in it as well.

[TheDeadFlagBlues]

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The majority of the stimulus that would have directly affected anyone was done through middle class tax credits. Supposedly lower taxes was once a part of the Republican's ideology, but I guess as you said partisan obstructionism is more important to their long term electoral success. I haven't read the bill in a while, but there was something like $300 Billion dollars worth of tax benefits in it.

There was a lot of pork in it as well.

Agreed. I still think that what happened after the stimulus was a fluke. The Democrats continued to try and push jobs bills that would win over their support. I guess Scott Brown is responsible because they could just filibuster anything that contained too much spending but if the Democrats actually had strategies that made sense, after the Republican unwillingness to respond to their outreach, their continued stimulus proposals should have been filled with infrastructure spending, urban improvements and new energy grid systems. Instead of realizing that continued bi-partisan outreach was futile they made the same mistake over and over and over again. It's sad.

[angus]

Senator Durbin suggested that the Senate might take up the Dream Act, which would give citizenship (or begin the process anyway) to illegal residents in the US who go to college or serve in military.  The question is, if the Senate passed it, would the house also take it up?
Also, would enough Republicans (perhaps bolstered by new members from Colorado, West Virginia, maybe even New York who I believe would join the Senate immediately after their election as their elections are special elections) in the Senate go along with this, or just filibuster it to death?

There seems to be broad support on this forum for the act (although not for its name), with nearly three-quarters saying that have a very or somewhat favorable view of the act in another thread.  I wonder if that is true with the general public.  I remember reading this summer that something like 70% of Americans supported the legislation.  I'll assume that this is still true today.

Let's just pass the bill already.  Seems that this would be one of the few safe bets for a lame duck session.

[Badger]

It is going to be a very rough two years, and the election in 2012 is going to be brutal. Obama seems to have no interest in triangulating, and pushing through controversial legislation like this in a lame duck session, would poison the waters. But it will be filibustered, and die. I am beginning to think that Obama just is not a very effective politician. Bring back Clinton!

Triangulation doesn't work very well when the opposition abandons previously held positions when you reach out to them.  Senate Republicans of '94 supported a basic health care plan that looks very, very much like the current law, but when Obama stepped out of the gate with it, they turned tail and called it "government takeover" and "socialism."  At the end of the negotiations on the '09 stimulus bill, Chuck Grassley said that he agreed with 90% of what was in it, and still voted against it and excoriated the president for supporting it.  A number of Republicans in the Senate supported the creation of a debt commission to make recommendations for dealing with the deficit, but when Obama declared his support for it, they withdrew theirs.  McCain pledged over and over and over again for the last four years that he would strongly consider repeal of DADT if a study was done which concluded that repeal would be feasible, and now that all that has been done, he has decided to stonewall.  Now, John Kyle, having asked for investments in shoring up existing missile defense as a condition for getting behind START has, now that it was provided, opposed the treaty. 

The notion that Obama has not reached out to Republicans in the last two years is just as ludicrous as the suggestion that Obama constantly caters to his base.  Bullsh**t.  Abject bullsh**t.  Obama's base, almost the entirety of it, is utterly and completely pissed at him, as the views expressed by posters on this very forum daily attest.  What is actually the case is that the Senate Republicans in the last two years have baited and switched on everything under the sun, and are nothing more than a bunch of unprincipled, hackish, cynical asswipes who ought not to be trusted with governing a telephone booth, much less a country.  And for their part, congressional Democrats have screwed the president six ways from Sunday since he took office.  I fault Obama for not being able to control his own caucus.  He has tried to triangulate plenty, but triangulation doesn't work when you're constantly trying to draw lines between disappearing dots. 

<Standing Ovation>

[Torie]

 
Anvikshiki (why can't you have a simpler screen name guy, I have to always copy and paste it, least I screw up your odd string of little letters ) and Badger (now that is a name I can handle!), I never said the Pubbies do not do, and say, dumb things. But I did not really see myself any really serious give and take negotiations. It was all just a stage show - particularly those staged televised "negotiations" over the Health Care Bill. What a cf that was! And there was a compromise to be had, if folks had well, listened to me for instance.

And it does not help for Obama to call for a meeting with the Pubbies, setting a date, via the press, without checking with them privately first, as to what would be a good date, allowing time for the Pubbies to get their act together, and formulate their position, so that something productive might happen. And then the Dems bitch that the Pubbies are being "rude" to Obama. This kind of thing is just not very helpful. It sucks.

And there certainly was no negotiations over that execrable stimulus bill, aka a massive borrowing of money to ship off to state and local public employees (overmanned, over paid, and over pensioned), which was the last place we needed to spend money. Much of the rest was supposed to go to shovel ready construction projects (a sop to the unions), which were not shovel ready, and a lot of that money just disappeared into the woodwork, and nobody will ever know where it really went. Some states and localities don't even keep adequate records of it. It still makes me angry just thinking about it.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Anvikshiki (why can't you have a simpler screen name guy, I have to always copy and paste it, least I screw up your odd string of little letters ) and Badger (now that is a name I can handle!), I never said the Pubbies do not do, and say, dumb things. But I did not really see myself any really serious give and take negotiations. It was all just a stage show - particularly those staged televised "negotiations" over the Health Care Bill. What a cf that was! And there was a compromise to be had, if folks had well, listened to me for instance.

And it does not help for Obama to call for a meeting with the Pubbies, setting a date, via the press, without checking with them privately first, as to what would be a good date, allowing time for the Pubbies to get their act together, and formulate their position, so that something productive might happen. And then the Dems bitch that the Pubbies are being "rude" to Obama. This kind of thing is just not very helpful. It sucks.

And there certainly was no negotiations over that execrable stimulus bill, aka a massive borrowing of money to ship off to state and local public employees (overmanned, over paid, and over pensioned), which was the last place we needed to spend money. Much of the rest was supposed to go to shovel ready construction projects (a sop to the unions), which were not shovel ready, and a lot of that money just disappeared into the woodwork, and nobody will ever know where it really went. Some states and localities don't even keep adequate records of it. It still makes me angry just thinking about it.

Especially after what happened at the last summitt, you would think the Republicans have a legitimate claim to having some "pre-conditions" set up and in place before going.

This actually seems like cover for the Democrats to buy them more time, hence announcing it without consulting with the GOP leaders first. The Republicans have a unified position on the tax cuts, extend them all permenently, but settle for temporary extentions if necessary. The Democrats are the ones who need to get on the same page. Kent Conrad has an idea, Warner and Schumer another, and Harry Reid wants to go down fighting to make sure the rich tax cuts expire in January.