By Rep. Dennis A. Cardoza (D-Calif.)
Favorability ratings don’t lie. In politics, when your approval rating is below 50 percent, you’re on shaky ground. When you’re between 4 and 13 percent — as this Congress consistently is — you’re in revolution territory! Congress is officially broken due to extreme partisanship on both sides. The real question, however, is who is left to step up and fix it?
By Juan Williams
The Founding Fathers designed Congress to represent the will of the majority of Americans. Yet, even as more Americans identify themselves as independents — not Democrats or Republicans — there is a painfully sharp decline in moderate and independent voices in both houses of Congress.
While both parties are resorting to partisan trench warfare, they still share a common set of goals that should be driving the debate. In particular, we see three goals that can provide a pragmatic, non-ideological framework for a sensible debate on taxes.
By Froma Harrop
To many New Englanders, Olympia Snowe had come to resemble Marilyn of “The Munsters” TV family. The senator from Maine seemed a normal Northeast Republican surrounded by party leaders sprouting fangs and cooing at bats — but who regarded her as the odd one.
By Nathan Sermonis
With this week’s announcement by Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, prospects of a more united Congress grew a shade darker. Snowe’s plan to retire at the end of this year brings the casualty count this Congress for Senators widely seen as moderates to three – Snowe, Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb., and Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn. And the situation looks just as, if not more, worrisome in the House.