2012 Presidential Election

Originally posted by chillwill   I will let my position be known if asked, but I have found that after debates and arguments, people rarely (if ever) change their stance.

I see what you are saying, but conversation isn't always about winning, or changing someone's mind.    For a Political discussion this was pretty civil.  At least no one threw a shoe.

Originally posted by shing02 Originally posted by Ejekted Over 15million dollars were spent last week on political ads just in the state of Colorado. Imagine if they spent a quarter of that on helping homeless or putting it towards education or feeding starving people. I think our country would be a much better place. instead, now you get to see the same ad...over...and over...and over... i wonder if there's a law of diminishing return on this kind of investment...seriously, this crap is annoying as hell. @nickin: well, it did take us 8 years to get to where we are now :D...are we better off than we were in 2004? arguably not, but I'd like to think we're better than we were in 2008. on that note, our...pickings are pretty weak...unless you're vouching for a 3rd party candidate, i feel like it's picking between the lesser of two evils. it's almost obvious romney is incredibly out of touch and only says what people want to hear (but he lacks the words to really do it and ends up just...pissing...everyone...off...*lol london/his foreign policy experience*) and ryan...i don't know about a guy who tried to kill medicare and representatives in his own party didn't seem to like it either... BUT if you're talkin' 3rd party....i have no idea who's running...

Originally posted by CoMtnRider Originally posted by NickinChicago Originally posted by shing02 Originally posted by Ejekted Over 15million dollars were spent last week on political ads just in the state of Colorado. Imagine if they spent a quarter of that on helping homeless or putting it towards education or feeding starving people. I think our country would be a much better place. instead, now you get to see the same ad...over...and over...and over... i wonder if there's a law of diminishing return on this kind of investment...seriously, this crap is annoying as hell. @nickin: well, it did take us 8 years to get to where we are now :D...are we better off than we were in 2004? arguably not, but I'd like to think we're better than we were in 2008. on that note, our...pickings are pretty weak...unless you're vouching for a 3rd party candidate, i feel like it's picking between the lesser of two evils. it's almost obvious romney is incredibly out of touch and only says what people want to hear (but he lacks the words to really do it and ends up just...pissing...everyone...off...*lol london/his foreign policy experience*) and ryan...i don't know about a guy who tried to kill medicare and representatives in his own party didn't seem to like it either... BUT if you're talkin' 3rd party....i have no idea who's running... Do you just repeat what you hear or read from liberal media? Kill medicare really? You do know that Obama took millions from medicare to help pay for his health plan right? Not to stir the pot but everything you have posted has basically been, "Obama did this" instead of "My candidate would change that by...."   Just saying.  You seem so adamant about calling people out because they only get their information from "the liberal media", but start looking in the mirror dude.  I'm still waiting for you to throw around some specific facts to back your arguments up that you DIDN'T get from the political ads.  Until I see some of this you still fall under the "He's not Obama" camp to me.

Originally posted by NickinChicago Oh and just saying over and over that you haven't seen why I support Romney only proves that you can repeat the same shit over and over. If you read over my posts you can get an idea of why I will be voting the way I do. Not really sure what you aren't understanding.

I read you very clearly.  You made not a single SPECIFIC fact of what he stands for other than what the "non liberal media" I suppose is telling you.  My point was you call everyone out for not doing their research when honestly I don't think you have done any either.

Originally posted by CoMtnRider Originally posted by NickinChicago Oh and just saying over and over that you haven't seen why I support Romney only proves that you can repeat the same shit over and over. If you read over my posts you can get an idea of why I will be voting the way I do. Not really sure what you aren't understanding. I read you very clearly.  You made not a single SPECIFIC fact of what he stands for other than what the "non liberal media" I suppose is telling you.  My point was you call everyone out for not doing their research when honestly I don't think you have done any either.   The fact that all you got of of my thoughts was I don't like Romney because he doesn't support legal Marijuana shows you lack the reading comprehension skills necessary to debate this issue.  You are the kind of people that make people hate debating politics because you don't listen to anything anyone says, and keep spouting off the same catch phrases like ""Liberal Media".  You want to vote for a guy just because he isn't the same guy that is currently in office, or because of what party he is affiliated with (by the way it's obvious you are a republical the way you speak), then more power to you.  That is your right as an American citizen.  However, it's clear you are someone that doesn't even listen to other opinions, so really it's not worth debating this issue with you.  With that I'm done with this thread.   Good day sir.

Did I say something bad?

@nickin: I noticed you used the word "liberal media". could you tell me what you define as moderate? (just wondering, i mean this with no offense)

also, abortion is tricky because you can be the smartest person in the world...and still get raped and carry a rape baby. don't try to simplify it that far...just a heads up for future arguments in abortion...and basing your vote on that is PRETTY important if you're a woman, otherwise it's back to the clothes wire hanger!

i agree with you, romney did everything "by the book". the problem is that people have problems with that "book" (loop holes/offshore accounts/people not paying taxes on money accumulated via interest).

@cooperla: THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE TYPE IN CAPS, speak condescendingly to each other, and make personal attacks by throwing labels on each other (liberal/conservative/etc.)

Abortion: I think one of the issues is that the legislature keeps on pushing legislation that focuses on the extremes. For instance, your view on "abortion" is not even remotely close to the issue because you are phrasing it strictly from the stand point of its usage as birth control and if people used birth control it wouldn't be a problem. Unfortunately, several anti-abortion groups also push anti birth control legislation such as the denial of birth control even in the usage of the Morning After Pill as well as pushing for life begins at conception. Which means the second the sperm penetrates egg, that's life. Not to mention denial of abortion (some consider usage of the morning after pill as abortion) for reasons of rape, incest, or even health related. When one group is arguing no exceptions and another group is arguing you should have a choice upon your own personal beliefs, it's not from one extreme to another. It's really someone pushing their beliefs onto another person. I personally believe that one should be able to control their own body.

Taxes: The main issue with the tax issue is that Mitt Romney is running on the platform that as a successful businessman he would know how to fix the economy. If that is the case, it would seem logically that we should see some insight on how he runs his businesses. As far as legality, they also want to see if he took part in the Tax Evasion Amnesty, which means at a time he did do something illegally, but amended his tax returns to reflect the amnesty. He won't release the year when the amnesty took place. In addition, he was cited as being influential in the Marriott tax shelter. This typically works by having a shell company and then creating fictional transactions to pose operational losses to that company which they did in the tune of $70 million and then use that $70 million to negate what would normally be $70 million in taxable profit. There is still some debate if he was directly involved in it, he says no, but it's unlikely he wasn't.

I'm sure both sides make false statements and half truths. I usually go through a non-partisan fact check website like politifact or factcheck.org and then use that for my basis.

Originally posted by twolf123 @nickin: I noticed you used the word "liberal media". could you tell me what you define as moderate? (just wondering, i mean this with no offense) also, abortion is tricky because you can be the smartest person in the world...and still get raped and carry a rape baby. don't try to simplify it that far...just a heads up for future arguments in abortion...and basing your vote on that is PRETTY important if you're a woman, otherwise it's back to the clothes wire hanger!

Originally posted by twolf123 @nickin:......lets see... if Fox News is Right as can be and MSNBC is Left as can be, what or WHO would you consider a RELIABLE/accurate middle? or is that not enough? personally i enjoy multiple viewpoints, esp. by shep smith or even media outlets like aljazeera (because i've heard ENOUGh about robert pattinson but that's just me complaining). otherwise i find AP pretty decent. as for the abortion comment, i just said they because you happened to simplify it as "don't have unprotected sex" which a home schooled 10-13 year old might not understand...or a rapist...i threw that out as to enlighten you on a few potential complications

^^ That is awesome

That looks great. I really think many people are waking up.

Originally posted by NickinChicago Yeah I heard of it. I decided since I already know about the guy that I should just buy some independents some movie tickets to go see these films.

Originally posted by NickinChicago Really? I'm pretty sure in my last post I clearly responded to what you said about Romney. See this is what liberals do (and don't try to claim you aren't liberal because it shows.) They keep repeating the same thing over and over in the hopes that the other person looks stupid. While in reality you look like an idiot because I'm pretty sure most half way intelligent people could figure out why I was voting for Romney.

Originally posted by 360faceplant Originally posted by NickinChicago Originally posted by twolf123 @nickin: I noticed you used the word "liberal media". could you tell me what you define as moderate? (just wondering, i mean this with no offense) also, abortion is tricky because you can be the smartest person in the world...and still get raped and carry a rape baby. don't try to simplify it that far...just a heads up for future arguments in abortion...and basing your vote on that is PRETTY important if you're a woman, otherwise it's back to the clothes wire hanger!  There is no moderate when it comes to the media. Some lean right while most go left to far left. Also I can't agree with your abortion comment.  I have never said on here I am against it for rape or to save a mothers life, ect.. I'm against it for people who use it as another form of birth control. The women that it is important to and make it an election issue need to figure out how to avoid the pregnancy instead of just using the kill the baby option. My wife and I are both 31 years old and have managed to not have a baby in the 12 years we have been together. It really isn't that hard.   I'm pretty sure that the women making it an election issue are the ones who are using the rape/incest argument and not the convenience argument.   Also, congrats on not getting your wife pregnant.  I'll put it bluntly, but I'm not trying to be rude.  Have you ever tried?  If you haven't and never went to a Dr. isn't it possible one of you are unable to have children?  Couldn't that be the reason?

Originally posted by 360faceplant Originally posted by NickinChicago Originally posted by 360faceplant Originally posted by NickinChicago Originally posted by twolf123 @nickin: I noticed you used the word "liberal media". could you tell me what you define as moderate? (just wondering, i mean this with no offense) also, abortion is tricky because you can be the smartest person in the world...and still get raped and carry a rape baby. don't try to simplify it that far...just a heads up for future arguments in abortion...and basing your vote on that is PRETTY important if you're a woman, otherwise it's back to the clothes wire hanger!  There is no moderate when it comes to the media. Some lean right while most go left to far left. Also I can't agree with your abortion comment.  I have never said on here I am against it for rape or to save a mothers life, ect.. I'm against it for people who use it as another form of birth control. The women that it is important to and make it an election issue need to figure out how to avoid the pregnancy instead of just using the kill the baby option. My wife and I are both 31 years old and have managed to not have a baby in the 12 years we have been together. It really isn't that hard.   I'm pretty sure that the women making it an election issue are the ones who are using the rape/incest argument and not the convenience argument.   Also, congrats on not getting your wife pregnant.  I'll put it bluntly, but I'm not trying to be rude.  Have you ever tried?  If you haven't and never went to a Dr. isn't it possible one of you are unable to have children?  Couldn't that be the reason? Really? Are you dumb? You do realize smart people that plan their lives go years without having a child and then try when they are ready? You do know there are methods to prevent a woman from getting pregnant right? This is not some strange concept.   No, actually I'm well aware of something called birth control.  That doesn't change the fact the just because you haven't had kids yet, doesn't mean you can.  So you saying you haven't had kids for 12 years is a moot point if it turns out one of you is sterile.

Why the hell are you talking about me or my wife being able to have children? You do realize millions of people choose to not have children and it has nothing to do with their ability to have them. Go to the world a favor and drive your car into a nice thick wall. You are pretty much worthless to society.

Originally posted by NickinChicago Originally posted by ctoma This exchange is just begging for.... No I'm done with the idiot. He has proven to be nothing but a jackass the entire time he has been on this site. If he acts the way he does in real life like he does on the internet I can assure you he has had several face smashings in his life.

Here's an interesting read for anyone out there who believes Obama has a poor job creation track record.

Has Obama Made the Job Situation Worse? By ROBERT MCELVAINE “Without a doubt President Obama inherited a difficult situation. Here’s the problem. He made it worse,” Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential candidate, has been saying in his stump speech. Ryan’s statement consists of two parts; the first is gross understatement, the second gross misstatement. It is the misstatement that is the essence of the case Republicans are putting before American voters: That President Obama has made the economy worse. Getting voters to believe that assertion is probably the Republicans’ only hope of winning the election. In the latest poll (a Wall Street Journal and NBC News survey released on Tuesday), respondents favor President Obama over Gov. Romney — generally by wide margins — in almost every category other than improving the economy. On “caring about average people,” for example, Obama is favored by an extraordinary margin to 52 percent to 30 percent. So the argument that President Obama has made the economy worse is not only central to the Republicans’ case, it’s pretty much all they have. But the facts do not support their claims. The following graph, which I put together using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, traces the annual rate of job creation under Democratic and Republican administrations from Harry Truman to Obama — with 2009 separated out as a year in which any fair-minded person would agree that the “difficult situation” Obama inherited was the main driving force. It dramatically illustrates just how wrong Ryan’s assertion is. Republicans who are wondering how Obama could be polling as well as he is with unemployment above 8 percent might want to take a look at this graph. It makes two points very clear. First, jobs have historically, without exception, been created at a much faster rate under Democratic presidents than under Republicans. Look at the 64-year period from the start of Harry Truman’s presidency to the end of that of George W. Bush (1945-2009). During the 28 years of Democratic administrations in that period, 57.5 million new jobs were created, an average of 2.05 million per year. During the 36 years of Republican administrations in that period, 36.2 million new jobs were created, an average of 1.0 million per year. The bottom line is that over the 64 years leading up to the inauguration of President Obama, jobs were created more than twice as fast under Democrats as they were under Republicans. Even a glance at the graph shows that Barack Obama and his policies did not make the “difficult” — disastrous would be a more accurate term — situation he inherited worse. Here is a second graphic illustration of what has happened in job creation under George W. Bush and Barack Obama. It also uses data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In the eighteen months from the beginning of 2008 through the middle of 2009, a period fully shaped by the Bush economic program to which Republicans now want to return, (but before the Obama stimulus had a chance to take effect), approximately 7.5 million jobs were lost. Over the most recent 18 months of the Obama administration, approximately 2.8 million jobs have been added. That means that the average monthly job loss during the “difficult situation” before Obama’s policies took effect was 417,000. Over the last year-and-a-half, the average monthly job gain has been 155,000. If Rep. Ryan and Gov. Romney see that as making a bad situation worse, it should tell us something about their “vision.” Robert S. McElvaine is a professor of history at Millsaps College. His most recent book is the 25th anniversary edition of “The Great Depression.”

Obama also likes to include seasonal, part-time, and underpaying jobs in the jobs he has created. Sorry but people getting retail jobs during the christmas season is not job growth. Someone that went from making $60,000 to $30,000 is not job growth. 

I'd like to interject with the summary of my thoughts on political elections in USA and Canada.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viVAAy_qkx0

I've always been a big fan of Hillary.

Originally posted by grapeape2669 There was a huge economic crisis at the end of 2008, which is clearly shown on that bottom graph. You may remember it. And then the rest of this curve is a rebound. Those Obama-created jobs are simply a natural recovery. If everybody loses their job, and then 90% of the people get them back eventually, you didn't create jobs for that 90%.

I don't think anything about that recovery is natural, as you put it. If the wrong economic policies had been pursued the economy could have just as easily continued to decline leaving us with a situation like the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Originally posted by NickinChicago Obama also likes to include seasonal, part-time, and underpaying jobs in the jobs he has created. Sorry but people getting retail jobs during the christmas season is not job growth. Someone that went from making $60,000 to $30,000 is not job growth.

While Obama may or may not do this (I have never read or seen anything about this), the numbers used by the author are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS is "an independent statistical agency... providing products and services that are objective, timely, accurate, and relevant" (BLS, 2012). This means you're looking at the same kind of numbers regardless of which administration was in power.

Originally posted by NickinChicago Also democrats controlled congress the last two years of Bush. So how is everything his fault when in those last couple years he only controlled one branch of government?

Thanks for bringing this up. Because Obama is in the exact same situation right now and yet a lot people are blaming him for "not getting anything done". Interestingly, the current 112th Congress seems to be well on its way to be the least productive Congress since World War II (USA Today, 2012). Meaning Republicans in Congress right now are blocking more Democratic initiatives than vice versa during the period you addressed. Here's a little more on the shenanigans the 112th Congress has been up to:

14 reasons why this is the worst Congress ever Posted by Ezra Klein on July 13, 2012 This week, the House of Representatives voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. On its own, such a vote would be unremarkable. Republicans control the House, they oppose President Obama’s health reform law, and so they voted to get rid of it. But here’s the punchline: This was the 33rd time they voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Holding that vote once makes sense. Republicans had promised that much during the 2010 campaign. But 33 times? If doing the same thing twice and expecting a different result makes you insane, what does doing the same thing 33 times and expecting a different result make you? Well, it makes you the 112th Congress. Hating on Congress is a beloved American tradition. Hence Mark Twain’s old joke, “Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” But the 112th Congress is no ordinary congress. It’s a very bad, no good, terrible Congress. It is, in fact, one of the very worst congresses we have ever had. Here, I’ll prove it: 1. They’re not passing laws. Let’s start with the simplest measure of congressional productivity: the number of public bills passed into law per Congress. The best data on this comes from the annual “resume of congressional activity,” which goes back to the 80th Congress — the same Congress President Harry Truman dubbed the “do-nothing Congress.” But they did a lot more than this Congress: The 112th Congress — this Congress — is the last bar on the right. The one that’s way smaller than the other bars. To be fair, the 112th Congress remains in session, while the other congresses on the chart have completed their work. But the 112th is three-quarters done, and it’s not yet half as productive as the next least-productive congress. Plus, Congress doesn’t typically work in last-minute sprints; most bills are passed in the first half of a congressional session. As such, it’s very unlikely that the 112th will manage to pull even with anyone else on the chart. Now you may say that this simply reflects divided government. But while there are many instances of divided government on that chart — the 104th Congress, for instance, when Newt Gingrich and his Republican revolutionaries faced off against President Bill Clinton and still managed to pass 333 public laws — there’s no session of Congress with such a poor record of productivity. 2. They’re hideously unpopular. According to Gallup, the 112th Congress set a record for unpopularity in February, when only 10 percent of Americans said they approved of the job Congress was doing. The previous record was set in December of 2011, when only 11 percent approved of Congress. So this Congress is number one … in being hated by their constituents. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado made this memorable graph of all the things that are more popular than Congress: 3. They’re incredibly polarized. The best measure of congressional polarization — which is to say, the distance between the two parties — is the DW-Nominate system developed by political scientist Keith Poole. DW-Nominate works by measuring coalitions. It looks to see who votes together and how often. And it works. Its results line up with both common sense and alternative ways of measuring ideology, like the scorecard kept by the American Conservative Union. So what does it say about this Congress? Well, the 112th Congress is the most polarized since the end of Reconstruction: Another way of seeing the same thing is to look Congressional Quarterly’s “Party Unity” score, which measures the number of “in which a majority of Democrats opposed a majority of Republicans.” In 2011 — so, in this Congress — the House set a new record on that measure, with 75.8 percent of its roll call votes pitting Democrats and Republicans against each other: That’s what you get when you vote to repeal the other party’s signature legislative achievement 33 times. 4. They’ve set back the recovery. In 2011, congressional Republicans came closer than ever before to breaching the debt ceiling and setting off a global financial crisis. In the end, they pulled back moments before we toppled into the abyss. But by then, they had already done serious damage to the recovery. Early in the year, the economy seemed to be gathering momentum. In February, it added 220,000 jobs. In March, it added 246,000 jobs. In April, 251,000 jobs. But as markets began to take the Republican threats on the debt ceiling more seriously, the economy sputtered. Between May and August, the nation never added more than 100,000 jobs a month. And then, in September, the month after the debt ceiling was resolved, the economy sped back up and added more than 200,000 jobs. Payrolls weren’t the only evidence that the debt ceiling fight interrupted the recovery. You can see it in Gallup’s data on consumer confidence, too. “Confidence began falling right around May 11, when [House Speaker John] Boehner first announced he would not support increasing the debt limit,” observed economists Betsey Stevenson and Justin Wolfers in a column for Bloomberg View. “It went into freefall as the political stalemate worsened through July. … After July 31, when the deal to break the impasse was announced, consumer confidence stabilized and began a long, slow climb that brought it back to its starting point almost a year later.” Perhaps, after this near-death experience, you would expect the leaders of the 112th Congress to be chastened. Your naivete is touching. Among congressional Republicans, the debt-ceiling debacle was viewed as something of a success — and certainly a strategy worth repeating. “Whoever the new president is, is probably going to be asking us to raise the debt ceiling again,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. ”Then we will go through the process again.” Speaker of the House John Boehner was even more direct. ”We shouldn’t dread the debt limit. We should welcome it.” 5. They lost our credit rating. After the debt ceiling debacle, Standard & Poor’s downgraded the United States’s credit rating for the first time in the country’s history. Why? Because the 112th Congress convinced them that they could no longer trust the American government to refrain from crashing the global economy for no good reason. Or, as they put it, “the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges.” 6. They’re terrible even when they’re “super.” The supposed upside of the deal to lift the debt ceiling led to the creation of the Special Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction — better known as “the supercommittee.” The supercommittee, which was comprised of an equal number of Democratic and Republican lawmakers from both the House and the Senate could, with a simple majority vote, send its recommendations to the rest of the Congress, where they couldn’t be filibustered, amended or otherwise blocked. So that was the carrot: Figure this out, and, in a stunning break from business-as-usual in the sclerotic 112th, the members of the supercommittee could get some big done. There was also a stick: Failure would trigger the so-called “spending sequester,” which would cut more than a trillion dollars in dumb, blunt ways that neither party liked and that would badly damage a slowly recovering economy. So how did the supercommittee do? They failed. Now the sequester is armed and members of Congress are frantically trying – and, as of yet, failing – to find a way around it. That’s life in the 112th: Having proven incapable of solving one of the country’s problems, they voluntarily created another problem that they also don’t know how to solve. 7. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. Repeal. We’ve already covered this one, but it bears repeating: House Republicans have now voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act 33 times. Every time they take this vote, it’s time they could be spending on other issues. Other issues like, for instance, what they would do instead of the Affordable Care Act. But though they’ve found the time to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act on 33 separate occasions, they have voted to replace the Affordable Care Act exactly … never. 8. The budget shenanigans of Senate Democrats In 2009, Senate Democrats passed a budget. In 2010, they marked one up in the Budget Committee, but didn’t bring it to the floor. Beginning in 2011 — so, in this Congress — they just stopped bothering with the whole budget thing altogether. Publicly, they argue that budget resolutions aren’t binding, and that the 2011 Budget Control Act — the legislation that resolved the debt ceiling standoff — has done the real work of the budget by setting discretionary spending levels for the coming years. Privately, they say they see no reason to vote on a budget that House Republicans will never adopt. That’s also the reason they haven’t taken up President Obama’s budgets. (This has led to the odd sight of Republicans bringing Obama’s budgets to the floor so they can say Democrats voted against them.) Republicans argue, correctly, that budgets, even when they don’t pass, are where you lay out your vision for the country. Senate Democrats, in refusing to propose or vote for any budgets, are refusing to give voters that information. 9. They can’t get appropriations done on time. Arguably the most basic job of Congress is to fund the federal government — to simply keep the lights on. That’s done through the annual appropriations process, which requires Congress to pass 13 appropriations bills by October 1st. That hasn’t been happening lately. Now, to be fair to the112th Congress, they’re not the first Congress to fail to pass the required appropriations bills by the deadline. But as you can see on the graph below, most congresses manage to approve at least a few of them. In fact, the average is three. So how many appropriations bills did the 112th Congress pass by October 1, 2011? Zero. 10. The transportation-infrastructure fiasco. Surface transportation bills are where Congress deals with another of the most fundamental jobs of federal governance: Setting aside money for roads, runways, bridges, and subways systems, and other mainstays of our transportation infrastructure. Sen. Dick Durbin called them “the easiest bill[s] to do on Capitol Hill.’ At least, they used to be. In 2005, Congress passed, and President George W. Bush signed, the Safe, Accountable, Flexible, Efficient Transportation Equity Act. That bill expired in September 2009. But Congress couldn’t agree on a replacement. What followed were 10 short-term extensions of the transportation funding. “Stopgaps,” in congressional parlance. Finally, on June 29 of this year, Congress passed the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act. But rather than setting transportation policy for four or five years, as was the previous norm, it only set it for two years. And it left most of the major problems — like how to handle the the increasing inadequacy of the gas tax — for later. 11. The FAA shutdown When it came time to fund the Federal Aviation Administration, House Republicans wanted to cut $16.5 million in subsidies to rural airports and to rewrite the rules around unionizing airports such that workers who didn’t vote would be counted as “no” votes. Senate Democrats disagreed. On July 23, 2011, Congress ran out of time. That meant, in the midst of a severely depressed economy, 4,000 FAA workers and 70,000 airport construction workers were furloughed. The shutdown ended a few weeks earlier. The cost to the government from uncollected airline ticket taxes alone was $350 million. 12. Failing the Fed. Perhaps no single institution in Washington matters as much during an economic crisis as the Federal Reserve. And for most of the last six years, the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors has been missing a few members. There’s plenty of blame to go around here — including for the Obama administration, which was slow to name nominees and didn’t prioritize their confirmation when Democrats controlled Congress — but the most ridiculous chapter of the story began in 2011, when Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, blocked the appointment of MIT economist Peter Diamond. Diamond, who would win the Nobel prize in economics while Shelby was holding up his nomination, couldn’t have had a better background: As an expert on labor market and pension issues, he was ideally situated to advise the Federal Reserve on the nation’s short and long-term problems. But Shelby wanted payback for Democrats blocking one of George W. Bush’s nominees in 2007. The problem was he couldn’t come out and say that. Instead, he had to say this: “I do not believe he’s ready to be a member of the Federal Reserve Board. I do not believe that the current environment of uncertainty would benefit from monetary policy decisions made by board members who are learning on the job.” Shelby’s objection was transparently ridiculous. Previous nominees he had permitted to go through included Sarah Bloom Raskin, who was the Maryland Commissioner of Financial Regulation; Kevin Warsh, who had worked for George W. Bush; and Elizabeth Duke, who had been an executive at various banks. None of them had experience making decisions about monetary policy. Nor did any of them have a Nobel prize in economics or a world-class understanding of labor-market frictions. But Shelby was unrelenting, and the nomination was eventually withdrawn. Eventually, Jeremy Stein, a Harvard economist, and Jerome Powell, an official in George H.W. Bush’s Treasury Department, got named to the Fed, filling the board. Neither of them have a Nobel prize in economics, either. 13. The experts agree. Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein are probably the most respected scholars of Congress in Washington. For more than 40 years, they’ve been the staunchest advocates, and most respected interpreters, of the institution, tutoring legislators from both parties and serving on an almost endless number of commissions and projects dedicated to understanding and improving what they call “the First Branch.” Here’s what they say about the 112th Congress: We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional. Their new book, by the way, is called “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks.” And yes, it’s mainly about the 112th Congress. 14. There actually are problems they need to solve. If this was an age of peace, prosperity and rapid growth — say, 1997 — perhaps the 112th Congress’s failures would be an amusing sideshow. But this is not 1997. When the 112th Congress was sworn in, unemployment was at 9.1 percent. Since then, it’s fallen to 8.2 percent — and that’s been in spite of Congress’s disastrous handling of the debt ceiling, and its inaction on jobs. The 112th Congress has been an embarrassment — and its members know it. As Rep. Jim Cooper, a moderate Democrat from Tennessee who has served on and off in Congress since 1983, says, “America’s problems have rarely looked so large, and Congress has rarely looked so small.”

Originally posted by NickinChicago ^^^ You do realize that congress is the house and the senate right? So when you say that republicans in control are the least productive you are really just talking about one side. Dems control the senate so you can't put all the blame on one party. You especially can't put the blame on republicans when the dummycrats had the senate, the house, and the white house for 2 years but did nothing but spend money that did nothing to help. Good job trying to make it sound like republicans are to blame. To bad anyone with half a brain should be able to see through that.

I suggest you read the whole thing, then you'd see that it's not just the Republicans being irresponsible. Then again, Democrats haven't tried to vote on the same thing 33 times, thereby wasting US$48 million of taxpayers' money (CBS, 2012).

I get frustrated when people complain about the do nothing Congress. I always ask myself what exactly do these people want them to do......

Listen a 2 party system is designed so no one side can blast through policies that are not Representative of what the people of America want. There are going to be people who want to move to the right and there are people who want to move to the left. That is their choice and their RIGHT as an American. That is why this is the greatest country on earth. Arguing over each persons beliefs is pointless. No one Presidential candidate is going to do exactly what everyone wants them to when they want him to do it. Pick the person who most represents your beliefs and go out and vote.

For example I think its ridiculous that the US has been operating without a budget for what 3 years now. I believe that the US should have a balanced budget just like I have to run my household by

I believe in Health Care REFORM, not the a complete change of the system like the Affordable Care Act, Start by allowing shopping across state lines, adding catastrophic insurance, and tort reform

I believe in a Womans Right to choose however I dont think late term abortions are right and I defiantly dont think Plan B should be in vending machines in Colleges

I believe that its horrible when a CEO making millions of dollars lays off employees without taking a pay cut first, however i dont know the solution to this..... but I also believe a free market system is the backbone of the US and what gives most of us here our jobs to allow us to buy snowboarding gear and hit the mountain. I wanna be able to earn as much as possibly by my own hard work and not look to the government for assistance. Im not jealous of the guy who cant ride half as good as me rockin a brand new vapor when I got a ltd crew

Point is get educated, vote with your mind not your heart, and be gratefull we live where we live

I'm surprised that the articles didn't bring up the usage of Filibusters by Congress. NickInCongress one of the major problems of late is that nothing even gets voted on because of the Filibuster. Even if you can claim, the Democrats have a majority, unless they can get a 2/3rds vote (they don't have enough Democrats seated to do this, even counting the blue dog ones), they cannot even bring up legislation to be voted on. The stats on how many times the filibuster was used is astounding and is probably the primary reason that this is a Do Nothing Legislature.