More GOP obstructionism and wasting your tax dollars

[Thorgrim]

The Public Housing Asset Management Improvement Act was up for debate in the House, the GOP again, forced a vote on whether to strike the entire bill and replace it with Telecom immunity....which ofcourse had nothing to do with the House's work for the day and was struck down, and they perfectly well knew this but decided to make a show

Okay, they made their show, again, they've done this tons of times

However, one obstruction per bill apparently wasn't enough, they wanted to hold up the House even more, and they stooped to new levels of hackery

Republican Rep Bachmann insisted the whole thing be sent back to committee, but not because for telecom immunity (which the House just voted to reject as beyond the scope) but because she wanted to change it, and didn't like the current version

Steny Hoyer, the Democratic Majority leader, said this:

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentlelady.

Would the gentlelady agree to a unanimous consent request to make your amendment a forthwith amendment so that it could be voted upon? My presumption is the gentlelady wants the amendment adopted, the gentlelady believes the majority of the House is for it. Would the gentlelady agree to such a unanimous consent?

Mrs. BACHMANN. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the request from the majority leader; however, the answer would be no.

We are aware of this problem, and it's very important that we send this back to the committee so that it will be fixed.

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, so it's more important to delay it than to adopt it now?

Mrs. BACHMANN. Madam Speaker and Majority Leader, as you know, the important point is that the committee has a chance to look at this measure. They did not have a chance to do so. We want to make sure that they have the opportunity to fix the bill.

If you are missing the point of the conversation, Steny Hoyer is saying "why should this be sent back and delayed in committee...can we just agree to every single thing you and the republicans want, and pass this...it's not a partisan bill or anything...why is it so important to be delayed" to which the obstructionist replied that it wasn't enough to get everything they wanted, they had to get it back into the Democratic controlled committee and had to be delayed...why? There is absolutely no reason

This has become the MO of the House Republicans...take any bill, such as the widely popular AmeriCorps plan, which always recieves bipartisan support, and force votes to not renew AmeriCorps but instead just have telecom immunity, that fails, and then they bring up some moderate point that everyone accepts as reasonable, and refuse to change the bill, and insist it goes back into committtee

It's worse than a filibuster (which the GOP senators are setting records at...) because they are grinding tons of regular house action to a stop until AT&T gets their big retroactive immunity, that what they are paid for...

Ofcourse, it does not have the force of a fillibuster, so sometimes it just wastes time and the bill still gets passed, but sometimes they hit a sensitive nerve, bringing up things in renewal bills that the GOP itself didn't bring up when it controlled the House, obviously showing how insignificant it was in their ideology, but looks very bad to vote against...for AmericCorps, after several obstructions they moved to require certain positions require criminal background checks...now the GOP never wanted this, but in a TV ad it would sound horrible to say kids in AmeriCorps are being forced to work next to rapists because of the Democrats, so the Democrats eagerly want to add the provision the GOP asked for but never wanted when they were in power, yet the GOP refuses to add anything, it has to go back to committee, even though they support the program...

Your tax dollars at work, paying half of Congreess to slow down the entire house schedule to help AT&T get retroactive immunity, because who else will donate to the GOP? If you look at recent figures, almost no one

To Libertarians: Even Ron Paul is against this bullshit
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