Robert Draper: The TT Interview
Robert Draper's new book, Do Not Ask What Good We Do, is a look at a bitterly divided Congress that seems unable to get anything done because of irreconcilable political differences among its members. He focuses on a number of characters, including two from his native Texas — Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston and Republican Blake Farenthold of Corpus Christi — in telling the story of what's gone haywire in Washington, D.C.
Draper, a correspondent for GQ (and a former writer for Texas Monthly) has written a number of other books, including Dead Certain: The Presidency of George ...
Comments (4)
Karen Spivey-Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Actually, the Dems have tried to negotiate across the aisle. GOP say Hell No. Our way or the highway. Compromise is a dirty word. No New taxes revenue EVER. But, the want to make the Bush Tax Cuts permanent and the Ryan Budget increases them for the wealthy which will increase the deficit if you don't pay for them. Guess how they want to pay for them? Cutting benefits to the poor, middle class, elderly, children, disabled. Cutting services for ALL Americans. Very sad indeed. GOP are NUTS.
Adele Roberson
John Cornyn and Pete Sessions and the other dimwitted people who reign over us are always whining about how the Obama Administration hates the oil business. How this administration is keeping Big Oil friom saving humanity. and keeping them from doing all the things they have do to rescue us peons who drive cars.
Then I pick up the newspaper this morning and see where Anadarko is moving in to Utah to drill thirty-five hundred wells. That's 3500. Almost every day the Houston Chronicle is talking about the enormous amount of drilling activity in the US. Unprecedented they say.
A few more headlines like that one and I will be forced to stop believing the Republicans who always tell us the truth... the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
John Cornyn talks about distraction... well, he is a master of distraction. At his command Texas gave retailers a break of more than $200 million in 2010 just to file their sales tax on time. . Sort of an incentive to do what they are supposed to do anyway. Enormous and very profitable national corporations owe hundreds of millions in sales tax that the State does not bother to collect.... You know... your my friend... and please remember me at donation time.
In the 2012-13 budget Rick Perry ran amok slashing funds to schools and nursing homes but bless his fradulent heart... he found $32 million to subsidize Hollywood movies. In another one of these loopholes Texas gave away more than $ 7.4 Billion in "tax breaks" for new drilling operations. from 2004 to 2009 These funds do not go to Mom & Pop companies... they go to international companies with billions of dollars in profits every year. And if someone does not get at least this one loophole out of the system it will cost Texas another $7.4 Billion over the next decde.
Republicans are always yelling about the deficit in Washington but here in Texas our tax code is riddled with tax breaks, giveaways and loopholes that no one seems to even review the tax code anymore.
They are too busy running for the next election.And hell, they probably don't even know there is a tax code
Philip Diehl
Robert Draper's book is an excellent example of mainstream reporters' and analysts' misrepresentation of the state of our politics by adopting a position of political relativism. He is careful to avoid attributing the paralysis in Washington, DC to one party or the other, though he does point his finger at the "Pelosi Democrats" and the Tea Party Republicans, assigning equal blame to both. Where has he been for the last two years?
For the most part, however, his criticism is directed at the institution of Congress; he says he came to like the individual obstructionists. All of these people are good people, it's Congress that's at fault. While this may suggest a praiseworthy open-mindedness on Mr. Draper's part, it's also the ultimate copout.
There's no doubt that rule and procedural changes are overdue in Congress. But who does Mr.Draper think controls those rules and exploits them to ram wrenches into the machinery of governance? Who does Mr. Draper think created the poisonous environment in which cross-party cooperation is impossible? Who has taken blood oaths on critical policy questions, punished those who refused to sign, and created an atmosphere of fear in which bipartisanship is impossible. Who said that bringing down the opponent party's president, not achieving some policy goal for the sake of the country, was their top priority?
It wasn't the institution of Congress.
Mr. Draper has written a book that obfuscates why, in fact, we SHOULD being asking what good Congress does, why it does so little good, and why so much of what it has done in the last 30 years has been destructive. I find it difficult to escape the conclusion that Mr. Draper lacks the historical and analytical depth to tackle his subject or, less charitably, has written a book designed to offend no one and sell to the broadest market possible.
Adele Roberson
Thanks to Republican Representative HAROLD ROGERS from Kentucky, who is now the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, who added an earmark to a 2009 spending bill, the Army has bought about $6.5 million worth of drip pans in the past three years to catch transmission fluid on Black Hawk helicopters. The Kentucky company, Phoenix Products sell the drip pans to the Army for $17,000.00. EACH
Similar pans can be bought anywhere in this country for $2500.00 or less. Because of HAROLD ROGERS authority and intervention, the contract was awarded to Phoenix without competitive bids.
Republicans are always cutting funds to the poor and the destitute. To the children who go to bed hungry. To women who have breast cancer. Yet the very same Republicans who shout austerity , never practice what they preach because they think you will not find out how really mentally sick they all are. How greedy they are and how deceitful they are. We need to remember that Kentucky is the State where Ron Paul talks eternally about the Obama Administration's wasteful spending. And of course, Kentucky is the home of ol' turtle face, Mitch McConnell.