Why Can't Congress Get Any Work On The Budget Done????????

Politics has become far more ideological and nasty the past few years, making compromise extremely difficult. In the 2010 election the House of Representatives switched from a heavily Democratic to Republican majority. It elected many Congressmen backed by the Tea Party who want to drastically gut most government programs. At the same time, 256 members signed a written pledge with someone named Grover Norquiest not to raise taxes to increase revenue under any circumstances. While polls show most Americans want a combination of spending cuts and tax increases to balance the budget, the Republican-controlled House will not agree to that. Another theory is that the House GOP will not agree to any new debt ceiling and the debate about it has been a charade. Based on that assumption, Obama will be blamed and the GOP chance of retaking the White House in 2012 vastly improved, particularly if U.S. faces a real default and our economy falls off a cliff. That is the worst form of low-life, sleazy politics that I hope is not true, but the scenario seems possible. I'm no Obama fan but believe Congress is acting stupidly and is totally irresponsible. An interesting sidelight is that if the debt ceiling is not raised, the President and Treasury can decide how to prioritize federal spending from existing tax revenues each month. Payment of interest on U.S. debt obligatons would come first. No doubt the government would continue social security, medicare, and disability payments, and the cost to finance our current military obligations. Wouldn't it be great if the President could withhold Congressional salaries and benefits? I would also like to see federal spending for projects stopped n districts held by Congressmen opposing a rise in the debt ceiling on the ground that federal spending should be drastically cut.

Every one can thank the Tea Party Republicans for why we can't get a bill done in congress. The President and Boehner pretty much had a deal done. The deal fell apart when Boehner had to run it by the freshman Republicans. They did not like the fact that they had to sacrifice some of their points like the rest of congress. This, "its my way or the highway" approach might work if you are a owner of a business, but it does not work in a democracy. Now Democrats pretty much have one bill that they are sitting on which they know will probably not pass the house. So they are are just letting Boehner come up with a bill to see if he can even get a bill by his own party. So far the Republicans can't even get a bill by these freshman Republicans. All though the word is the are getting closer. The problem is they have been saying that for 5 or 6 weeks now. Hopefully Americans will learn their lesson after this. This is why you don't elect extremist to congress. Not only do we look like idiots to the world right now, but it is a F You to our troops. They have been fighting in all these wars for the past 10 years to protect our freedoms just to watch our dysfunctional congress throw it away. All because they can't check their egos at the door.

I'd say politicians, on both sides of the aisle, are more concerned about getting re-elected than doing what's right for the country. While I tend to agree with the tenants of the tea party, now is not the time to be hard-nosed about the budget. We have had many years in the past to sit down and discuss the issues with spending, raising the debt ceiling isn't going to change the fact that we have a problem with our budget. We should raise the debt ceiling and then discuss what can be done to prevent it from being raised again. Tea party members should be focusing on the long term effects of our budget, not trying to force their ideas on to the budget talks right now. Let's get rid of the immediate crisis first and then work out what needs to be done with spending and taxes.

The wheels of government move very slowly. Our forefathers actually designed it that way. They wanted to give the people time to take an interest in what the government is doing. They can get voted out. But it is the people of Nevada that need to do it.

The problem isn't that they are not doing anything. They are working on it. The problem is the two groups have opposing views on what to do with the budget. One group believes we need to cut the size of these programs, down to what we can afford. Now of course, that means people are going to receive smaller, or less benefits from the programs. The other groups believe we simply need to tax more and more and more money, to pay for even more benefits than we already have. And of course both groups absolutely hate the other groups plan. This is whole problem, is exactly why we should never have had Social Insurance to begin with. Once you politicize something, you always ruin it. Welcome to American Socialism, trying to recreate the Soviet Union one policy at a time.

I do not know why politician are just play games with the life of the american nation. They simply want the electorate to dance to their tune. Many american family are facing difficult times yet the politician are not able to reach a compromise agreement.

I think they're too busy pitting each other (Democrats's against Republicans, etc) to ever bury the hatchet and actually DO something constructive and productive! It seems that all they want to do is play the blame game instead of working together to resolve the issues. I also think that since they are guaranteed a paycheck, they have no vested interest in what happens to the rest of us. What other group of people can vote their own payraises? Or have job security even if we don't do our jobs? Us common folk, if we're lucky enough to even 'hear' the word raise, get performance reviews or such, before getting any kind of raise. I would love to see how they'd probably shape up and act responsibly if the general public had to vote on whether they each got a raise or not! And they wonder why people hate and distrust politicians lol...

Hahahahahaha!!! Yes they are all old (besides obama) idk why they just dont come to an agreement!?!?! They NEED to put our nation FIRST before themselves......Isnt that their JOB to do?xD