Olympia Snowe On Debt Ceiling Debate: 'I've Never Seen A Worse Congress'
First Posted: 8/10/11 12:27 PM ET Updated: 8/11/11 01:02 PM ET
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) talked to people in Saco, Maine about the debt ceiling negotiations Wednesday, and lamented the extreme partisanship that characterized the debate this summer.“I’m embarrassed by all of us,’’ Snow said, according to the Associated Press. “I’ve never seen a worse Congress in my whole political life.’’
Polls conducted after the debt ceiling deal have showed that Americans hold an increasingly negative view of Congress. A New York Times/CBS News poll last week showed Congress' approval rating falling to 14 percent, with a record 82 percent of Americans disapproving of the way Congress is handling its job -- the most since the Times first began asking the question in 1977.
A CNN poll this week showed, for the first time in its history, that most Americans think their own representatives do not deserve reelection.
Snowe, who served as Maine's congresswoman from 1979 to 1995 and has been a senator ever since, is being targeted by the Tea Party for voting in favor of the debt ceiling deal despite the fact that it did not include a balanced budget amendment.
"Just 25 days ago, Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe told us she would vote for a debt plan with a balanced budget amendment," Scott D'Amboise, a conservative Republican who is challenging Snowe for her Senate seat, wrote in the fundraising letter just hours after the debt ceiling vote. "However, today Snowe betrayed us by voting with the Democrats for a debt deal that gives President Obama a blank check in exchange for only token spending cuts and no promise for a balanced budget amendment."
