It's Time to Legislate

I have no intention of this blog only being a commentary on politics; but, at the moment, it's politics that has my attention.

The new Congress was sworn in on Wednesday.  The House is now under Republican control, and the Republicans have promised a fiscally conservative approach to legislating.  They were swept into office on promises of reducing the deficit, maintaining (or reducing) taxes, and ensuring that no new legislation is passed without knowing how it will be paid for.  I happen to believe that these are all respectable goals. 

So, what was the first thing our new House of Representatives did?  They read the Constitution on the floor.  Hmm...not sure how that fits in, but, they claim that it's to remind themselves of their responsibility to the Constitution, and the people.  All right, I'll grant that that is a noble concept, and, I'm pretty surprised that this was a first for the House.  I'll even go so far as to suggest that every Congress begin their session with a reading of the Constitution after the swearing in ceremonies.

Today, the Republican leadership has announced that it will take action to repeal the Health Care Law.  Here's the link to the Associated Press story.  It did so on a purely party line vote.  It also did so knowing that the Democratically controlled Senate will not pass this new bill; and that the President will veto this new bill.  So, exactly why are they even attempting this legislation?  Because they believe it will generate political traction for themselves in the 2012 elections!  Here we go, a Congress that promised to govern differently, and the first actions they take are a bid for elections TWO YEARS from now.  This is beyond insanity.  Maybe it's time to term limit all of Congress....to one term, period.  Spend your time LEGISLATING rather than politically positioning yourselves for reelection.

The CBO has reported that repealing the Health Care Law will actually increase the deficit by $230 BILLION from 2012 to 2021.  But, wait, you say...the Republicans passed new rules in the House that requires all bills to be deficit neutral.  How could they pass a bill that is not neutral?  Easy....when they drafted those rules, they specifically exempted any attempts at repealing the Health Care bill.

House Republicans response to the deficit increases?  They counter that even if it's technically true, it would save money in the long run.  Translated:  We're not really sure what's going to happen in ten years, good or bad, but, because we don't like that the Democrats passed this bill without us, we're going to try to thwart them now.  If we're right, we'll say we told you so.  If we're wrong, we'll blame it on President Obama anyway.

If this is what we have to look forward to for the next two years from this Congress, then I'm afraid that nothing of any substance will be achieved.  I would also expect to see the Republicans soundly thrown out of the Capitol come 2012, and a relatively easy reelection campaign for the President.