Grant me fiscal prudence but not yet.
The editors of the Wall Street Journal declaim:
The GOP campaigned on a return to regular fiscal order, and why not start now? Democrats can threaten a government shutdown, but they’d own it as the party in control. If Republicans aren’t going to use their power to enforce some fiscal discipline, they might as well stay in the minority.
The risk here is that retiring GOP appropriators like Alabama Senator Richard Shelby see the omnibus as a last chance to pave his Birmingham streets in earmark gold. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell—a spender at heart—emerged from a Tuesday meeting with Washington leaders to declare “widespread agreement†on the need for an omnibus. Cue the Democratic high-fives.
Augustine of Hippo famously wrote: “God grant me chastity and continence but not yet”, explaining his profligate youth. It’s always springtime in the Congress. I don’t expect anybody to show fiscal prudence.
Of all of the reforms that are urgently needed high on the list is a “single-subject amendment” which would require federal legislation be limited to a single subject. Omnibus spending bills are an abomination but Congress finds them an irresistible abomination. It would have to be shoved down Congress’s throat. Any Congress.
I want some of what the WSJ is smoking.
I will be surprised if the House gets anything done – the majority is so slim that the internal divisions in the caucus will be difficult to overcome – and McCarthy doesn’t seem to have the talent or ability to make everyone play nice.
It will be Christmas Tree bill for sure, what we have come to expect. Next session should be King Log Rules, but, creative legal interpretations abound along with calls for the President to ignore Congress and/or the Courts.
I live in a battleground state and have been subjected to way too many ads, spam emails and spam texts for politicians. I dont remember any candidate in the last 4 years talking about a “return to regular fiscal order”. Maybe the WSJ wishes they would and maybe it does elsewhere but if they do it is not a major part of their message.
While I am sure that philosophically some/many Republicans like the idea of less govt spending when you look at what they do when in power they cut taxes, not spending. They might make some small cuts at the margins but make up for it with increases in spending they like.
Andy- I already told you what they will do. Would put a case offer on it. They will vote tp repeal some stuff that the Senate wont support. They will have lots and lots of investigations. I dont know if they will break the Benghazi record of 8 investigations on the same issue but I wouldn’t be surprised. I wont be surprised if just like the last time they controlled the House they fail to find anything with their investigations.
Steve
Steve
I suspect that quite a few are minarchists and believe in Grover Norquist’s dictum: “I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.”
Oddly, although they’re fine with “starving the beast” they’re not as fine with reducing the things that the federal government is taxed with doing. They don’t want to avoid foreign wars; they don’t want to reduce the size of the military; they don’t want to reduce entitlements; they don’t even want to reduce the regulatory footprint of the government to any great degree. The Reagan Administration didn’t eliminate a single federal agency. The GWB Administration actually added one.
I think it’s cognitive dissonance.
Just because the Reps/Dems don’t do what you think is obvious or even what they ran on (if anything) doesn’t mean they are doing nothing. They are doing all sorts of things their sugar daddies want, like adjusting the tax code or buying weapons of questionable utility.
And there are shakedowns. I believe the Library of Congress has a letter written by Daniel Webster to a railroad company demanding a bribe for approval of a land grant.