Blog 2.5

1. What was the makeup of the Congress that began in 2009 with Obama's first term?

2. What is the current makeup of the Congress (Before the new one takes office in January)?

3. Why is a 60 vote majority so critical in the Senate?

4. When did the Republicans take control of each house of Congress?

5. Why was Republican John Boehner forced out of his role as Speaker of the House?

6. What has been the main issue that Obama [and] Congress have been fighting over?

7. How are the Tea Party Caucus and the Freedom Caucus different from other Republicans?

8. What is happening to moderate Democrats and moderate Republicans? Which types of elections are they losing to lose their seats?

9. Why does the article predict that there will be little conflict between the president and Congress over his last year in office?

Answers:

1. "Democrats held a 16-seat Senate majority and 79-seat House edge."

2. "[Paul] Ryan leads 246 House Republicans, [and] Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell... has a comfortable majority of 54 Republicans."

3. 

4. "A GOP takeover of the House [occurred] in 2010. The Senate fell into Republican hands in 2014."

5. "The Ohio Republican [John Boehner] was ousted... by conservatives dissatisfied with his leadership."

6. The arguments were largely related to the economy of the United States.

7a. The Tea Party Caucus believes they are more conservative than the leaders of the Republican party. The group has previously pushed for reduced spending and the elimination of taxes, for they believe doing such would reduce our debt and deficit.

7b. The Freedom Caucus formed out of dissatisfaction in the GOP agenda. They desire the "[empowerment of] rank-and-file members, [the rewriting of] the tax code, [an overhaul of] Social Security and Medicare, and [the offering of] a Republican alternative to Obamacare."

7c. Both caucuses have a problem with core elements of the Republican party, unlike one's everyday Republican representative.

8a. Both parties are seeing their number of moderate party members decrease in Congress.

8b. Midterm elections (I think) are taking the greatest toll on the moderates.

9. There is virtually nothing left to argue over in the Obama Administration, for Congress does not want to work with the White House in Obama's last year.