What pisses me off about this is the seemingly indifferent attitude towards actually making investments the country desperately needs and, more importantly, paying for it in ways that we should be doing anyway. Unless they have a better, more viable way to pay for it that isn't politically toxic or totally unrealistic, they should stop complaining and stop bending over backwards to protect rich people and corporations, who have taken advantage of the system for way too long as it is.
Think about it from the perspective of Warner or any other swing senator. You can vote to raise your own taxes for no personal benefit or you can sell that vote to the highest bidder and become the richest man in the Senate.
Republicans have to at least
pretend to represent their voters because if they're too soft they'll face a serious primary challenge, and even if they win there are enough Republicans willing to
vote third party even in extremely close and decisive elections that they can't just do whatever they want. Whereas Democrats have an inexplicable fear of throwing out incumbents who go rogue and take bribes instead of actually holding their feet to the fire. If there's no risk to focusing entirely on personal advancement then of course politicians will take advantage.
