Bush Complains About Congress

President Bush today said the current Congress had, “the worst record in 20 years.”

“Congress is not getting it’s work done,” Bush said, flanked by members of the Republican House leadership. “The House of Representatives has wasted valuable time on a constant stream of investigations, and the Senate has wasted valuable time on an endless series of failed votes to pull our troops out of Iraq.”

I agree. They have been unable to pass any of the important legislation facing our country: their bill to fund stem-cell legislation failed. Their bill to set a timetable for ending the worst foreign policy disaster in our nation’s history, the Iraq War failed. They have been unable to pass bills which extend leave time for the troops fighting this war, increasing numbers of which are returning with post-traumatic stress disorder as a result. They have failed to increase health-care coverage for poor children. They have failed to pass any substantial immigration reform.

Their most recent major piece of legislation, the Dream Act, was a tremendous disapointment to me. The Dream Act would have given immigrants who have lived in this country since they were under 16 and received a college diploma or served in the military an opportunity to become citizens. The bill failed under the fear that our future doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs and soldiers would have funny sounding last names.

Of course, these failure are not what President Bush and the Congressional Republicans were refering to. They are the ones who caused the above failures, either through vetoes, or by refusing to allow the legislation to even reach the floor for a vote. As the Democrats only have a razor thin majority in the Senate (51-49, 50-51 if you look at Joe Lieberman’s voting record on these issues and count Dick Cheney), they are unable to pass any legislation without some Republican support.

No, President Bush was upset over something else. He’s upset because he’s worried that as support for the Iraq War continues to decrease that he is being forced to reach compromises with the Democrats in order to continue to fund it. After spending 6 years with a rubber-stamp Congress and completely ignoring the Democrats, he is having a difficult time learning to work with the opposition party.

I plan to take high doses of Valium until January 20, 2009. Here’s a website that counts down the minutes remaining.

P.S. I am aware that given the volume of our readership, some of the readers, statistically speaking, must continue to support the President. I was very much appreciate if you would leave a comment about why you support him so that I feel less bad about our nation’s leadership (seriously, it might help me sleep better at night).