To the do-nothing Congress: Bye-bye!
Good Riddance to Rottenest Congress in History
By Ezra Klein - Jan 2, 2013, Bloomberg
On January 3rd, the 112th Congress of the United States of America finally ends. Thank God.
To properly evaluate the 112th, consider the record of its predecessor, the 111th Congress, which ran from January 2009 to January 2011. The fighting 111th passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (better known as the “stimulus”), the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms. It passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and expanded both the Serve America Act for community service and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It created significant new anti-tobacco regulations, ratified the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty, ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the armed forces and agreed to the 2010 tax deal, which extended the Bush tax cuts in return for the passage of middle- class stimulus.
The laws passed by the 111th Congress were controversial, particularly among Republicans. They were also big, bold initiatives that, if not always fully equal to the size of our problems, surely perched on the outer edge of Congress’s capacity to deliver solutions. Love it or hate it, the 111th Congress governed. No Congress in recent history has a record of productivity anywhere near it.
Terrible Policy
What’s the record of the 112th Congress? Well, it almost shut down the government and almost breached the debt ceiling. It almost went over the fiscal cliff (which it had designed in the first place). It cut a trillion dollars of discretionary spending in the Budget Control Act and scheduled another trillion in spending cuts through an automatic sequester, which everyone agrees is terrible policy. It achieved nothing of note on housing, energy, stimulus, immigration, guns, tax reform, infrastructure, climate change or, really, anything. It’s hard to identify a single significant problem that existed prior to the 112th Congress that was in any way improved by its two years of rule.
(More here.)
By Ezra Klein - Jan 2, 2013, Bloomberg
On January 3rd, the 112th Congress of the United States of America finally ends. Thank God.
To properly evaluate the 112th, consider the record of its predecessor, the 111th Congress, which ran from January 2009 to January 2011. The fighting 111th passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (better known as the “stimulus”), the Affordable Care Act (aka “Obamacare”), and the Dodd-Frank financial reforms. It passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and expanded both the Serve America Act for community service and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. It created significant new anti-tobacco regulations, ratified the New Start nuclear arms reduction treaty, ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” in the armed forces and agreed to the 2010 tax deal, which extended the Bush tax cuts in return for the passage of middle- class stimulus.
The laws passed by the 111th Congress were controversial, particularly among Republicans. They were also big, bold initiatives that, if not always fully equal to the size of our problems, surely perched on the outer edge of Congress’s capacity to deliver solutions. Love it or hate it, the 111th Congress governed. No Congress in recent history has a record of productivity anywhere near it.
Terrible Policy
What’s the record of the 112th Congress? Well, it almost shut down the government and almost breached the debt ceiling. It almost went over the fiscal cliff (which it had designed in the first place). It cut a trillion dollars of discretionary spending in the Budget Control Act and scheduled another trillion in spending cuts through an automatic sequester, which everyone agrees is terrible policy. It achieved nothing of note on housing, energy, stimulus, immigration, guns, tax reform, infrastructure, climate change or, really, anything. It’s hard to identify a single significant problem that existed prior to the 112th Congress that was in any way improved by its two years of rule.
(More here.)
Powered by Blogger
1 Comments:
While Mr. Klein may see this as an "unproductive" Congress, someone like Chairman John Kline would see this as "highly successful".
Was the goal to be "pro-active" or to "defend" ?
With the Senate and White House controlled by Democrats, the goal is to stop legislation ... and that the House Republican Leadership did quite successfully.
Take the Farm Bill ... the Senate passed one that cut the deficit by $25 Billion over ten years making reforms (such as direct payments program which was eliminated in both the House Ag Committee and Senate versions of the 2012 Farm Bill) and the House Ag Committee (led by Republicans) approved a bi-partisan bill 35-11 with Peterson and Walz agreeing with the Republicans in cuts that would reduce the deficit by $35 Billion.) Speaker Boehner instead objected ... after all do you listen to the Ag Committee ---or--- Kraft Foods, who lobbied that dairy prices would rise and the bill cut Food Stamps which are used to buy Kraft products.
The House played Defense and just forced an extension of 2008 Farm Bill through Sept. 30, 2013.
The goal in playing Defense is to force a Punt ... Speaker Boehner did ... he wins.
Let's look at Chairman Kline ... he started the session "mouthing" the words that No Child Left Behind would be reformed ... he never had the full House vote on legislation that was largely passed in his committee on a Republican-only basis.
Stafford Loans got an extension for one year ... another Punt ... another win.
Post a Comment
<< Home