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Well, let's see if that's true. In 2001, Senator Jim Jeffords (VT-I) jumped ship on May 30, 2001 and turned control of the Senate over to Tom Daschle and the Democrats. Democrats held a 51-49 effective (including Independent Jeffords) majority whereas before the GOP held nominal control with a 50-50 margin with only Dick Cheney casting the tie-breakers. Nope, no solid control there. In 2002 elections, Republicans gained two seats and took control of the Senate with a razor-thin 51-49 margin, far shy of the 60 votes needed for solid control due to Senate rules that give much control to the minority. In 2004, the GOP won four seats in the Senate to have a 55-45 majority. That's a decent majority, but still not enough to stop filibusters.
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I also took a look at the House majority in 2001. Republicans controlled 222 seats (incl. one independent), Democrats controlled 212 seats
Poor Bush. He had a razor-thin majority against him in the Senate for a whole year. And he had a slim majority of only ten Congressmen for him in the House for only six years. How on Earth could the poor man get anything done at all, when Congress was so much not for him?

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It was during this time that Christopher Dodd and company killed McCain's bill that would have reformed oversight on Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac. The bill passed the House but failed to reach the floor of the Senate with Majority Leader Bill Frist knowing the bill would be filibustered.
Like you said, no wonder that the reform of Fannie and Freddie didn't happen since the evil Democrats had decided they would stop it by filibustering. The Republican controlled the Senate by 51-49, and the bill had already passed the House, but the super-powerful Democrats stopped it all by threatening to filibuster!

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How can we expect this big man to win when the small man is against him?

Tell me, Roger. Since you know about McCain's brave battle against Fannie and Freddie and I don't, can you explain to me why the Democrats didn't want to pass McCain's reform? Did they say, "No, we want Fannie and Freddie to keep on giving crazy subprime mortgages to people who are sure to default on them, and we want Fannie and Freddie to sell those bad mortgages as assets and allow those 'assets' to fester and blow up and take the rest of the economy with them!"?

Tell me. The Democrats must have disliked McCain's proposed reform for some reason. What was it? Was it simply that the Democrats are going to oppose anything that a Republican proposes, and they will filibuster until they are blue in the face just to make the Republicans lose?

I think it would be a very good idea to find that McCain proposal and the Democratic reply. If the Deomcrats said anything like what I have suggested above and that becomes common knowledge, then that must be the best reason to vote for McCain in November that I can think of. Because it isn't possible that that the Democrats voted against other things that came attached to that McCain proposal, is it?

I looked at that Wall Street Journal article you gave us a link to. This article compares the U.S economy during the Bush era with the economy of other countries. But it is an extremely well-known fact that the United States has for a long time been the world's economic superpower. What I have tried to discuss is how the younger Bush economy compares with the Clinton economy, which is something the WSJ article doesn't talk about at all. Well, the article does say that Bush will leave to his successor an economy 19% larger than the one he inherited from Clinton. However, Roger, may I suggest that much of that growth has been the mad swelling of a bubble? You keep saying that the U.S. economy grew during the clinton years thanks to tax cuts and the dot com bubble.

When the economy grew during Clinton's presidency, it was a bubble. But when the economy grew during the younger Bush's presidency, it was all because of his wise tax cuts.

Ooops, where did that bubble come from? Oh, now I know. It came from those filibustering Democrats. Of course.

Ann