The Do-Nothing Republican Congress

This current Congress is controlled by Republicans with the sole purpose of preventing the President and the Democratic Senate from doing anything constructive. Their only declared goal: to make sure Obama is a one-term president. Historians from both ends of the political spectrum are calling it one of the most dysfunctional, least constructive Congresses in American history. This NPR story draws its insights from, among others, Norm Ornstein of the conservative American Enterprise Institute, who has co-authored two books on the scorched earth brand of Republican governance.

Contrast this Republican/Tea Party Congress with the Congress from Obama's first two years. Democrats achieved more in two years than any Congress since the '60s, some say more than had been acccomplished since the '30s. Democrats do things for regular people. Republicans cater to the top 1%. The partisanship has come from one side, the Republican side. All the compromising, flexibility, practicality and patient toil has been on the Democratic side. It's as if Republicans want democracy to fail rather than inconvenience their corporate clients. This Bloomberg article lists the achievements of Obama's first two years. Have we all forgotten? (And Bloomberg is hardly a liberal biased publication)

This Christian Science Monitor cites the six very big achievements Obama had with a Democratic Congress, over the intense blockade by Republicans.

This Washington Post article calls them "forgotten accomplishments".

Why forgotten––and forgotten already at the close of 2010? Because of the intense and constant abuse from FoxNews. Not only do more Americans "get their news from FoxNews" but those who do know less––less than people who don't read or watch any news at all. Consider it a nationwide brainwashing.

The sole failing of the Democratic Congress of 2009 and 2010? They didn't brag enough. They just got things done.

Contrast that with the Republican juggernaut that swept in in late 2010. The Republican goal? Same as it had been for the previous two years, but bolder and stronger. Block a recovery that Americans needed. Block reforms. Block jobs bills. Block consumer and environmental protections. (What they couldn't block they watered down.) Block increased taxes on the top 1%, whose wealth had grown in the aftermath of the financial crisis while most Americans suffered. Their goal was to make Americans angry. Discontent and anger helped them regain the House in 2010, it could help them retake the White House in 2012.

The only medicine that can help the nation recover from eight years of Bush, and now two years of a Tea Party relapse is a more Democratic Congress.