US Congress can't be trusted to govern

Posted on Friday, July 15, 2011 at 09:23 AM

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The debt ceiling will be raised. That much seems clear.

But in getting there the damage has already been done: namely, by the GOP controlled Congress who have demonstrated they can't be trusted to govern the United States in a responsible manner.

With the Republican rank and file putting the party and ideological purity before the common good and all common sense, at the moment it looks like no deal is possible.

On Wall Street big, intractable problems tend to get resolved with urgency and without political posturing, but the opposite happens in Washington. Thanks to this lingering debate mistrust and ill will have grown between the parities.

But it's become quite clear that in drawing a line in the sand over the debt ceiling the GOP House has miscalculated, because what looks like good good sense to their Tea Party base looks like political and economic suicide to the American public.

The business community have been patient. They have waited for sense to prevail. But this week they lost faith in the GOP's ability to govern. That's why 470 CEO's sent a letter to every member of Congress and the White House urging action on the debt ceiling and expressing support for deficit reduction.

If anything has to convince you that the GOP have reached a further shore of governmental hubris, it's the sight CEO's reduced to begging our congressional representatives to reach agreement.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell put his cards on the table long ago: his job, he said, is to stymie President Obama. McConnell's convoluted plan to give the President unilateral power to raise the debt ceiling is really nothing more than a gambit to ensure he'll get all the political blame for an out-of-control budget.

This is the kind of blatant tactic that convinces the US business community that GOP politicians are ignoring extremely harsh realities to further their party's political interests.

The nation is looking on and coming to the same conclusion.

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joan1954 | Jul 15, 2011, 01:13 PM EDT

Face it, they are all out for their own pockets and constiuentcy and to hell with the rest of the country at large. But "we the people" are expected to live within our means but Congress and senate are not. Granted many people use the plastic while forgetting that they must pay the piper at some point. Comeon people all parties are to blame in this, one for holding hostage sort of and the other for living beyond its means. Get real the middle class is almost extinct, it is the very wealthy or the very poor. There is no money being made for those who have a little to save. Why? Interest rates are non existant.

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carrickcourt | Jul 15, 2011, 11:48 AM EDT

I have to get my two cents in on Mr. O'Doherty's very good column concerning the debt limit 'game' the Republican party is playing in the House of Representatives. The comments on this issue so far appear to be the standard Fox News line of blaming the President for something that is clearly now responsibility of the Republican party. The Republicans even pulled back from a commitment to reduce the deficit from the amount they had originally agreed with with the President on. The problem with the debt and the deficit is the refusal of the Republicans to be deal with this issue in a responsible way. The debt limit has never been held hostage by a party in the past and should not be held hostage now. The problem with the deceit is the failure of the Republicans to acknowledge that the deficit has to be addressed by cutting government spending and increasing revenues to pay for the bills we have. Asking the billionaires to pay their fair share of America's bills will not stop job creation especially if we are talking about things like taxes on corporate jets. Of course the Republican party tend to be the billionaires' party so we cannot expect the Republicans to ask their billionaire buddies to pay their fair share.

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PhlutiePhan | Jul 15, 2011, 10:51 AM EDT

In our system of government, we are a representative democracy and not a democracy. This means that the Congress is the people. The president is the cheif executive and carries out the wishes of the people.

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kelauggie1 | Jul 15, 2011, 10:40 AM EDT

Your blame could not be more misplaced. Our current president is a democrat, congress has been in democrat hands from 2006 to 2010, and this time represents the largest debt increase in the history of the world. Now when the republicans want to stop this runaway disaster, you want to accuse the GOP of failure to consider what's best for us? It's back to Economics 101 for you - we'll wind up like Ireland if we don't gain control of our spending immediately. And it's back to Politics 101 for you - your article is an editorial, with a heavy slant on socialistic democrat thinking. Thankfully there are many more Americans who disagree with you than agree with you.

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TomFitz | Jul 15, 2011, 10:25 AM EDT

As if we haven't got enough lazy liberals over here in the states! You people have to add you idiosity to all the lies and scare tactics that Obamination has already spread throught the country! I thouth this was "Irish Central" with news about Ireland not another political agenda to boost this idiot Obama. The only reason he got elected is because the "Minority" is now the majority! There are more lazy ass peope getting hand-outs from the government than there are hard working folks who pay the tab for them with their taxes! So of course the leeches within the US will do anything to keep him in office. Obama's desperate need for attention is clearly a psychological condition. He drinks in applause like a washed-up movie star. It is usual for neglected children to develop narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), typically characterized by an inflated sense of self-importance, a strong sense of entitlement, preoccupations with utopian fantasies, elitism, manipulative tendencies and pathological need for praise. President Obama was abandoned by his parents during childhood. Now he exhibits the textbook symptoms of NPD. He thinks his powers are godlike in import; "I have a gift, Harry," Obama once told Sen. Harry Reid. He believes he is entitled to positions of power and prestige. He has never worked a real job in his life, yet deigns to tell the rest of us that he embodies our hopes and dreams. He is obsessed with nonsensical utopian fantasies of one-world peace and harmony in which nuclear weapons are beaten into plowshares.

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shamrock99 | Jul 15, 2011, 10:20 AM EDT

WOW ! What planet are you living on? Your hatred of the Republican Party totally blinds you of factual information.

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