For the past two years we've been pummeled by the news services with all the rhetoric of how the Democrat's can't do anything in Congress because the Republicans have become the party of NO! I've done the briefest of research on the matter, but it seems to me both houses only require a simple majority (50%+1 vote) to pass a bill. Let's review the bidding on the last election.
Since 2008, Democrat's have held 257 seats in the house, and 57 seats in the Senate. Pretty much a majority. All they had to do to be effective was to offer enough room for compromise to persuade 1 Republican and 2 independents in the Senate and a handful of Republican's in the House to join them and they could steam roll any legislation through. Their strategy seemed to be focused on achieving this singularly shortsighted goal.
The net result -- polarizing debate, passage of a couple of social engineering programs, huge increases in entitlement programs, and an almost complete stalemate on doing the vast majority of government business.
With this approach to government I now know that Congressional stalemate is not necessarily a bad thing. I would draw from the wisdom of Barry Goldwater, a conservative Senator who argued for smaller government -- "Remember that a government big enough to give you everything you want is also big enough to take away everything you have."
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