What Did Bernie Sanders Actually Accomplish with his "Filibuster"?
Other than making a great decision to repeatedly quote CG&G's own Bruce Bartlett, what did Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) actually accomplish with his 9-hour speech against the tax deal this past Friday? Did he...
- Change any votes?
- Force the leadership to change the tax deal so that it was more to his liking?
- Demonstrate enough Democratic disagreement with the deal that the White House felt the need to revise it?
- Demonstrate a new coalition with Republicans that made it clear the deal in doubt?
- Stop the Senate from considering the deal?
- Stop the Senate from considering anything else?
- Make it clear that he was able and willing to stop the debate from occurring by using the tactic again?
The answer to all of the questions above is a resounding no.
Why didn't he actually filibuster and stop everything from proceeding? Yielding the floor on a Friday evening?
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I wonder if he encouraged any House Democrats to push to see how important the surprising estate tax provisions are to the Senate Republicans (and some Democrats? Would the Senate scuttle the whole deal if the House set those provisions at $3.5 million exemption/45% top rate?
Bernie Sanders filibuster
Bernie just started sending out solitications for contributions to his 2012 campaign. Bernie's goal may have just been to help gin up contributions from his progressive base. A lot of smaller contributors love listening to him slam purported corruption by the wealthy, big business, republicans ...
Sanders could win if he spent $0 next election
Sanders doesn't need money in Vermont...take it from a Vermonter. There is no one, not even Jim Douglas, who could so much as scare Bernie in a 2012 Senate run in Vermont. If he still has his health, he will win 65% of the vote without running a single commercial. He really didn't do it to raise money, he is as much of an ideologue as Jim DeMint.
He raises money to transfer to other Progressive candidates.
Small step to change the conversation
Bernie Sanders' long speech, and the overwhelmingly positive response it received on the web, was a further step in highlighting the biggest economic failure of the US over the last 30 years (and there have been more than a few): the growing concentration of income and wealth at the very top of the distribution spectrum and an accompanying stagnation of median incomes. For once the focus was on the compelling need to begin to redress this (and not to continue to make it worse) for both economic and fairness reasons.
For me, as someone who grew in the much more economically egalitarian world of the 50s and 60s, the extent of this is a more unexpected development to me than the election of Barack Obama. The top 1% earns more each year than the bottom 50%. In 2007, 400 households accounted for $138 billion in income, while the bottom 20% of households (accounting for 60 million Americans)earned about $255 billion.
And those 400 households paid federal income taxes at an average rate of 16.6%.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/18/business/economy/18irs.html
http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxann07.pdf (see p. 8)
Finally, a larger segment of Americans is becoming aware how much like the Brazil of my youth we are becoming (probably the biggest factor in why Brazil never had the promised economic take-off at that time that Japan, Taiwan and Korea enjoyed instead).
For most the last decade many Americans were sustaining lifestyles through debt. It's hard to see strong domestic growth (other than export-led growth following a massive fall in the dollar) ending this recession until this extreme economic inequality is addressed. .
As someone who was once sympathetic to the DLC in the late 1980s and who never expected that Bernie Sanders would one day be a hero to me, I now feel extraordinarily grateful to him for highlighting this issue to a greater extent than any national politician has in my lifetime.
It is important from a
It is important from a political point to clearly pin the authorship of the tax breaks for the wealthy on the Republicans. While financial columnists may understand that is the source, lots of people still do not. It is important because, come next elections, the Republicans will again come out against "high deficits".
Senator Sanders Critic
I've noticed that it's so easy for some to criticize people who try to speak the truth. I applaud, and by the way, it's Senator Sanders, for taking the time and effort, which may not have been easy for his age, to pass on some valuable truths to the Senate and to the public, thanks to C-SPAN. He's doing alot more than the rest of those lazy no-account pols who probably spend alot more time glad handing lobbyists and contributors and then with the a wisp they hold up the peoples business by proclaiming a filibuster for some unknown reason.
Give me a break, enough is enough.
he got you and a lot of other
he got you and a lot of other people to write about it...not bad for 9 hours work...
I suspect that most people in
I suspect that most people in the Senate have their minds made up on most issues well before any votes are ever taken.....especially when it comes to republicans and tax cuts for really rich people. That doesn't mean that Bernie should not have made the effort. It's just too bad that the whole demoweenie caucus won't go along with him to stop the whole bill.
Bernie Sanders spoke for me
You know, it doesn't bother me if no votes are changed, no language revised, etc., as an immediate result of Sen. Sanders's intervention. I wouldn't expect anything to change anyway. He's just speaking for me, for a great majority of my fellow Vermonters, and perhaps for millions of other Americans. What a silly notion, that mere citizens should be able to influence the legislative process. What does he think this is, a democracy?
So what if Sen. Sanders hasn't blocked the tax cut deal? He exposed it as a ruinous sham. As long as the US has a government that is occasionally of, by, and for the people, this makes a difference.
The benefit may be minimal,
but there wasn't any cost to him. (and there may be benefit if it contributes to opposition to lower rates, et&)
FYY: Sanders started his
FYY: Sanders started his mock filibuster at 10:30 in the morning.
And if he hadn't spoke?
Thank god he did. The question should be why didn't more of Congress speak out.
Bravo, Senator Sanders
I was very disappointed that C-Span's Washington Journal show DIDN'T discuss the Sanders speech in the caller phone-in segment the following day.
But the Senator was absolutely correct when he talked about the companies that love to do business in China, but come whining to the US Taxpayers for bailouts.
You can get the full text of Sander's speech on his Senate website.
NYT Coverage
Good to know the NYT covered the mechanics of what Sanders did and how he said he should have had a stool to sit on, but not the content...