The Do-Nothing Democrats

Dan Joppich

"Pass this bill now." Obama is still repeating this slogan ad nauseum. The problem is that after more than two weeks, still no bill has hit the floor for a vote in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

So who's to blame for his bill not being passed yet?  BO would have us believe it's Congress and in particular the Republicans, of course.

"This Congress, they are accustomed to doing nothing, and they're comfortable with doing nothing, and they keep on doing nothing," President Obama complained at a September 15 Democratic National Committee gathering in a private Washington residence.

Obama spent the summer alternating between campaigning and luxe-vacationing and found time for a quick speech and the unveiling of a vague stimulus spending plan before heading back out for another month or more of campaigning.  And he has the audacity to refer to Congress as do-nothing? There is no adult in the room.

Deroy Murdock at the National Review rightly points out that we may have a do-nothing Democrat-run Senate but the Republican-led House of Reps has been very busy.

"Through September 15, the Republican House had been in session for 120 days. The Democratic Senate through the same date had been in session only 115 days."

"In terms of recorded votes, the two bodies are as different as Times Square and the Everglades. Through September 15, the GOP House had voted 711 times. Meanwhile, across the same period, the Democratic Senate had only 137 recorded votes. So, the allegedly lethargic GOP legislators whose sloth dooms the nation actually are five times as energetic as their indolent counterparts in the Democratic Senate. "

..."Our new majority has passed more than a dozen pro-growth measures designed to address the jobs crisis," Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor wrote Obama on September 6. "Aside from repeal of the 1099-reporting requirement in the health care law, however, none of the jobs measures passed by the House to date have been taken up by the Democrat-controlled Senate."

"These have included bills to reduce anti-business regulations, accelerateoffshore oil production, and speed the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry Canadian oil to refineries in Texas. The pipeline alone would create 20,000 jobs."

The House passed a budget on April 15^th of this year while Harry Reid and the Dems haven't presented a budget since April 29, 2009. The Senate Democrats still haven't presented a continuing resolution to pay the bills come October 1^st but they were quick to vote down in unison the hard-working Legislature's proposal.

One of the few actual votes in the Senate was the 0-97 vote on Obama's budget plan this year. Looks like they could find time to get behind one piece of legislation.

So where is Obama's latest stimulus deficit spending plan, the American Jobs Act? Sitting on Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid's desk because he can't even get his own Democrats to accept it. While Obama still continues to chime, "Pass this Bill," Reid says, "We've got to get rid of some issues first," he's not sure "exactly what I'm going to do yet with the president's jobs bill."

The Senate Democrats won't stand behind their president's plan, they're too busy doing nothing to propose a plan of their own, and they won't take the time to consider the Republican House jobs bills.

Obama can't blame Bush anymore. What he should be blaming is the do-nothing Democrats in the Senate.