The do nothing Congress does nothing

Patty Murray calls out the Republicans for failing to pass needed measures. From Oregon Public Broadcasting:

In a speech on the Senate floor Murray said failure to pass a new federal budget would cost more in the long run. She blames Republicans who are still in charge of the lame duck session.

Patty Murray: Everywhere you look we're going to pay a price if we fail to do our job. The Republican's mismanagement will hurt my state of Washington from the fight against drugs and gangs to the clean up effort at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation.

Murray said the lack of a new budget threatens to delay Hanford's vitrification plant.

Yesterday OPB had this item about how rural counties in Oregon will be devastated by the petty recalcitrance of the GOP.

For six years the federal government has provided about a half billion dollars annually to rural Western counties to help make up for a smaller federal timber harvest.

Oregon counties get almost half the funds and they're critical to rural county budgets.

But Oregon Representative Greg Walden says it's unlikely Congress will renew the so-called "county payments" program in the lame duck session.

So much for the old "progressives are city slickers who don't care about rural issues" line of argument. It's the Republicans who are refusing to act, and Democrats who are trying to address real issues.

If a rural county needs help because of economic conditions beyond its control, we should help them. Democrats won't hold up funding real people need out of spite, that's wrong and un-American.

Honestly, people are talking about how George W. Bush is probably the worst president in history, but this Congress is pretty awful in its own right. Corrupt, venal and incompetent--people need to take a good last look. Hopefully we'll never see a Congress like this again in our lifetimes.