Fiscal Cliff and Representative Government

bethsiddhe@gmail.com

Another experiment.  I'm trying to link this blog to my facebook account.  Will someone tell me if it works?
Anyway, this post is about a striking example of how dysfunctional our government has become, and how far we have strayed from the ideals of our forefathers - the authors of our Constitution.
-     First, it was understood that our citizens had the right and the responsibility to be well-informed on what Congress does. For that reason, there is a Congressional Record of everything that is said when Congress is in session, and it was in this forum that our representatives debated on the pros and cons of each piece of legislation.  Positions would be debated and amendments proposed to arrive at a decision that was mutually acceptable.  The purpose of this was to ensure that our citizens could hear the arguments made both in favor and opposed to each bill and that their representative would be held accountable for their position and the people that they represent would be able to see how well their positions were being represented.
-     Next, in the event that the debate process was not enough to arrive at an acceptable compromise, the party representing the minority opinion would be able to "filibuster".  In order to do so, they would take the floor to continue to argue for their position, and wold not yield it to allow for a vote until an acceptable compromise was reached.  By doing so, they would be able to delay a vote for as long as they were willing to continue to hold the floor in order to resolve the impasse.  Again, all of this was recorded so that people would be able to follow what their representatives were doing.
-     Over the past several years, all of this has changed.  Proposed bills are discussed behind closed doors. This ensures that comments, opinions, promises, etc are kept off the public record provided by the Congressional Record, and makes sure that no bill reaches the floor without a predetermined outcome.  That hasn't always been the case.  I remember when a controversial bill was being presented, the discussion and debate would already have been made on the floor of Congress, and the entire country could listen in on that debate and on the final roll call while the outcome was not already determined behind closed doors.  I believe the Senate rules have been amended so that if a minority opinion chose to filibuster, they would have to do it by taking the floor of the senate, and keep up on debating until everyone was agreed to let it come to a vote.  I don't know if the Senate Rules have been changed or not, but apparently today, all a group of senators has to do is to threaten to filibuster any bill they don't totally support, and the bill will not pass without a "super majority' of 61 votes, rather than a simple majority.
-      How does this affect the situation of the fiscal crises?  Well, the major sticking point holding up any resolution of the issue is the question of allowing  the special tax reductions granted to the upper 2% or so of the country's most wealthy to expire at the end of the year.  The senate version of a means of avoiding the cliff includes allowing the temporary tax breaks that were given to the ultra-rich to expire, while cutting spending in other ways in both military and domestic spending.  Recent independent surveys are indicating that a majority of Americans - 60% and rising as of a week or so ago - support allowing those tax breaks for the super wealthy to expire.
-    So how are the dreams of our forefathers being met?  We do not have access to the secret negotiations being completed behind closed doors - only the sound bites that are released by the party leaders so we are denied the right to hear from our representatives are representing our opinions of how the crisis should be resolved.  A threat to filibuster from ~40%  of the senators in Washington are refusing to accept the desire of over 60% of the population to avoid the fiscal cliff.  We, as a nation, need to demand changes to the operation of our legislature so that once again represents the view of people who have had the opportunity to hear all arguments in favor of or opposed to proposed legislation.  Let's return this country the kind of representative government envisioned by our forefathers.