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Health & Fitness

An Obstinate Senate

Here are some comments from Alan Caruba, writing for his Facts Not Fantasy blog, in which he concludes that the federal government shutdown is actually a good thing, and that the Republicans actually have the ‘high ground’, notwithstanding all the negative criticism from the usual players, the leaders of the Democrats and the mainstream media:

Congress was not designed to operate in this fashion. In practice, the Senate is supposed to conference with the House to arrive at a compromise solution.

“The Senate voted 54-46 to reject a motion to go to conference with the House on the issue of funding the government, marking the third time in 24 hours the Senate has rejected an overture from the House related to avoiding a government shutdown. Senate Democrats have insisted they will accept from the House only a six-week funding bill with no provisions related to Obamacare.” – www.politico.com, Tuesday, October 1.

In a history of the Senate, “The Most Exclusive Club”, published in 2005, Lewis l. Gould noted that “For most members, as the 1990s began, it was more business as usual. That process led to another ten-year period when the Senate slipped further in public esteem and failed to meet its political responsibilities. By the end of the century, civility and a sense of common purpose had vanished from much of what the Senate did.”

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Gould is the Centennial Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Texas. “Political oratory has been in steady decline over the course of the past century, if the Senate is any indication. Most Senators read speeches that staff has written for them. In hearings members often rely on questions that staff has prepared…Few modern Senators can think on their feet or make a sustained argument without supporting information or props. ’We’re just no longer a debating forum,’ said Robert C. Byrd in October 2004.”

“It is hard to overstate this loss to American political life,” said Gould. “The Framers of the Constitution envisioned a Senate that would function as a wise and judicious check on both executive power and the House of Representatives. They did not imagine a body that would act as a rubber stamp for an incumbent president.”

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