[Goose]

Nonpartisan Concord Coalition encapsulates this 5600 page monstrosity into the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

https://www.concordcoalition.org/blog-po...9f345ee35e

This spending bill embodies everything wrong with the Congress. Where in the mother*cking hell are the hearings? The floor debate? Why not have a government spending bill, and a separate Covid Relief bill?  Why not have the House work in a bi-partisan fashion to get a bill passed, then have the Senate do one, and have a conference to reconcile the two? Not like they didn't have time.

Having a select number of House and Senate members negotiate with each other, instead of each house passing its own bill, is terrible. Not only does this not allow the Congress to work as designed, does anyone think House reps have the exact same interests as Senators? I'm guessing the House reps have much more interest in the interests of the cities and towns in their districts.

I don't know if booting McConnell out of power will help get us back to a functioning Congress, that has the Senate take up House-passed bills for debate, but we are going to weaken ourselves irreversibly if we keep on operating in this "here's a 5,500 page bill you've never seen before. We vote in two hours" bullshit.

Totally agree with the majority of your post. Unfortunately, I think the House and Senate members both are balancing their constituents at large and the special interests that got them elected. The main problem however is partisanship. Both Pelosi and McConnell have the positions they hold because they are capable of maintaining party discipline even in the face of massive problems with their party's position. The Republicans have supported Trump through thick and thin, no matter what he did. That isn't because they all loved him (although some undoubtedly do). It was because their party leaders told them that if they didn't toe the line, they would never get re-elected and would never get any bill (and associated pork) passed again. The Democrats do the same thing. Yes, these elected officials should stand up to party pressure, but they won't.

The USA made our two party system work because there was relatively light party discipline. Starting with Gingrich, that changed. Remember that Pelosi got her job originally because she could be the Democratic Gingrich. This highly partisan system is what has plagued many other Democracies and created very adversarial situations. It basically doesn't work. We now have it here in the USA. That is what must change. John McCain's vote in the Senate against destroying "Obamacare" is probably the last vote  of conscience we are going to see in our lifetime unless something radical changes. The rest of the Congress doesn't have it in them IMHO.

[Goose]

Nonpartisan Concord Coalition encapsulates this 5600 page monstrosity into the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

https://www.concordcoalition.org/blog-po...9f345ee35e

This spending bill embodies everything wrong with the Congress. Where in the mother*cking hell are the hearings? The floor debate? Why not have a government spending bill, and a separate Covid Relief bill?  Why not have the House work in a bi-partisan fashion to get a bill passed, then have the Senate do one, and have a conference to reconcile the two? Not like they didn't have time.

Having a select number of House and Senate members negotiate with each other, instead of each house passing its own bill, is terrible. Not only does this not allow the Congress to work as designed, does anyone think House reps have the exact same interests as Senators? I'm guessing the House reps have much more interest in the interests of the cities and towns in their districts.

I don't know if booting McConnell out of power will help get us back to a functioning Congress, that has the Senate take up House-passed bills for debate, but we are going to weaken ourselves irreversibly if we keep on operating in this "here's a 5,500 page bill you've never seen before. We vote in two hours" bullshit.

Totally agree with the majority of your post. Unfortunately, I think the House and Senate members both are balancing their constituents at large and the special interests that got them elected. The main problem however is partisanship. Both Pelosi and McConnell have the positions they hold because they are capable of maintaining party discipline even in the face of massive problems with their party's position. The Republicans have supported Trump through thick and thin, no matter what he did. That isn't because they all loved him (although some undoubtedly do). It was because their party leaders told them that if they didn't toe the line, they would never get re-elected and would never get any bill (and associated pork) passed again. The Democrats do the same thing. Yes, these elected officials should stand up to party pressure, but they won't.

The USA made our two party system work because there was relatively light party discipline. Starting with Gingrich, that changed. Remember that Pelosi got her job originally because she could be the Democratic Gingrich. This highly partisan system is what has plagued many other Democracies and created very adversarial situations. It basically doesn't work. We now have it here in the USA. That is what must change. John McCain's vote in the Senate against destroying "Obamacare" is probably the last vote  of conscience we are going to see in our lifetime unless something radical changes. The rest of the Congress doesn't have it in them IMHO.