Filibustering the Budget: Hypocrisy or Business as Usual?

Photo of Sen. Kit Bond from source, Think Progress

Typically, a bill in the Senate requires a simple majority, and if there is a tie, the Vice President breaks it. In extraordinary circumstances, minority Senators can filibuster, and force a 60-vote threshold for passage. But these days, the Republican minority is threatening a filibuster routinely, making it an "ordinary" circumstance.

Now, I suppose it is true that when parties change places, hypocrisy is routine. Flat statements of "fact" in one year are ignored when the shoe is on the other foot. Not being a poli-sci expert, I really don't know if one party is worse than the other. But I do know that in the case of the filibuster, the current GOP has used it much, much more than at any other time in history. This from the same party that threatened to invoke the "nuclear option," and remove the filibuster rule, if the then minority Democrats didn't play along.

I guess my question is, why do we as a public continue to play along? We've seen certain politicians declare that the other side is wrong, and then turn around and do the same thing they previously decried. We just shrug and say "well, that's politics." Hypocrisy and deceit have become commonplace, even expected. Why do we put up with it?

[Excerpt]

GOP Senators Who Used Budget Reconciliation To Pass Bush Agenda Items Now Calling It ‘Chicago Style Politics’

Today, Politico reported that Republican senators are prepared to go “nuclear” — essentially shutting down the Senate through the use of parliamentary maneuvers — if President Obama attempts to use budget reconciliation to pass key parts of his legislative agenda, such as health care reform and and cap-and-trade. Reconciliation allows some legislation to be protected from filibusters and passed by a simple majority. On NPR this morning, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) repeated a now familiar attack on budget reconciliation. . .

Read more at: Think Progress