A Do Nothing Congress Might Be A Good Thing
By Erick Posted in Congress — Comments (17) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Andy Roth, over at Club for Growth, has been running some numbers and discovered something rather interesting. If you invested $1.00 in the S&P 500 only when Congress was in session, you'd get just a 2.25% increase in your money. If you did the same thing only when Congress was out of session, well, go check out Andy, then call your Congressman and tell him to vote to adjourn.
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A Do Nothing Congress Might Be A Good Thing 17 Comments (0 topical, 17 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
Congress is in session.
Actually, what real people expect from Congress is that they care about and take care of National Security. Anything else is simply wasteful. The Committee of 535 couldn't successfully solve a simple arithmetic problem without two weeks of hearings and legisilation that took up 150 pages.
And the worst part is that, by and large, they don't know much or do much that's worthwhile about National Security.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
still waiting for my first post you agree with lol :). I was listening to a comedian the other day. He was talking about when the government decided to send us all $300 (ball park figure) checks after 9/11 to spur the economy.
They sent us all a letter that told us we were getting checks. The cost of sending the letter was over $12 Million. In retrospect, the better idea would have been to send the letter with the check.
Erick already got rid of you, but come on, get your history right. 1929 was when the Republicans made their disastrous entry into protectionism. The Do Nothings came later, during the Truman administration.
Comparing now with 1929 is probably a really bad idea for you guys, because you guys are much more likely than not to try a tariff tax hike!
Run like Reagan!
Federalists, Whigs and Republicans had already proposed and implemented general tariffs for the better part of the 140 years before Hawley-Smoot, although 1930 represented an escalation of their long-standing policies.
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"Tradition is the democracy of the dead. It refuses to submit to that arrogant oligarchy who merely happen to be walking around"
-G.K. Chesterton
"A motion to adjourn is always in order." - Lazarus Long
. . . is that the entitlement programs created by previous Congresses and signed into law by previous Presidents are all on auto-pilot. Medicare and Social Security are still bankrupt and as we get closer to the day when baby-boomers begin to retire, the longer we wait, the more expensive the problem is to fix.
do you actually expect THIS Congress to actually deal with entitlement reform/reduction/elimination?
I'll not address "ANY Congress", just THIS one.
The really interesting thing will be to see how many bills Bush actually vetos in this Congress. I'm betting less than three. The result will be that the D's will howl about how they can "govern" and the R's will howl about how "bipartisan" they are.
And we lose.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
do you actually expect THIS Congress to actually deal with entitlement reform/reduction/elimination?
Yes I do since so many of the new members of Congress campaigned on “fixing” Medicare Part D by “closing the donut hole” by having the federal government “negotiate” lower prices with pharmaceutical companies which will enable them to truthfully say that they are expanding Medicare Part D coverage in a way that spends fewer rather than more tax dollars.
Personally I think it’s a bad idea because if the VA (which is the model touted by many Democrats who proposed “negotiating” drug discounts) or Canada are any indication, it will result in de facto price controls which could stifle innovation and have pharmaceutical manufacturers change their R&D based not on what a free market wants but based on the prices they will get from the government. Also many Democrats have said that seniors are “confused” by the “complexity” of Medicare Part D (my godmother who is a nurse and ordinarily quite conservative complained because she had to help my grandmother pick among 33 different plans which might change from year-to-year). At least a couple of the bills I’ve seen would reduce the number of plans offered but mandate that they cover certain drugs which is contrary to how many Republicans think we need to reform Medicare in the long-run by having more competition and few mandates.
but the cost isn't going down. Medicare is a smoke and mirrors game of the first order. Remember how the cost of this turkey tripled within a week or so of it's signing?
And there's a reason they call crystal meth addicts "tweakers". They're just like CongressCritters™ except the latter have access to unlimited funds. Ours.
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If "pro" is the opposite of "con", what is the opposite of "progress"...
a VA hospital? It actually looks more like socialized medicine than 21st century medicine.
As far as Meicare Part D is concerned, I can't wait to see the Dems "fix." In only its second year of existence, Part D premiums increased by over 40%.
is what is needed. I figure that if we told about 90% of government workers to just stay home and we would send them a paycheck we would save a fortune in what they spend trying to think up things to fill their days, build their fiefdoms and "help" the "people".
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
What good could possibly come out of this Congress, with Pelosi and Reid in charge? Even the "100 hour" agenda is cosmetic, and it will get worse from there. Besides opposing bad legislation, it's in our political best interests for nothing to get done - a do-nothing Congress is a great campaign issue in 08. Throw up the roadblocks, slow down the train, and blame it all on the donks.
is they worse thing to ever happen to this country since the civil war.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
Here are some reasons why:
1) It's the Congress before a Presidential election, with no sitting heir apparent (e.g., a sitting VP or past party Presidential nominee--and no, I don't count JFK as a real threat). That election will color anything this Congress tries to do. For that reason alone, don't expect much to get done. Let's face it--any legislation the GOP would want to see pass will be slowballed or killed by the Democrats, for spite if nothing else. It's gonna happen--let's accept that reality now.
2) If the President is freed from the expectation of getting something done with this Congress, it frees him to go after this Congress, and the Dems who lead it. Dubya can do lots of damage to the Dems with his veto and his bully pulpit. (If nothing else, he can talk and talk and talk about the dumb things the Dems say and do.) Let's send the message to the President that he's off the hook for getting anything done legislatively for the next two years. He--and we--can then focus on laying the groundwork for success in 2008. The legislative program he does forward should focus on two main themes:
- Getting measures passed/completed that the GOP and a majority of Americans will favor. Funding the border fence, for example.
- Measures that will make the Dems look bad. For example, a push to require photo IDs for voting. Let the Dems justify their opposition to THAT one.
If the President is freed from expectations for any grand legislative achievements in the next two years, it saves him from having to crawl to the Dems. (And, they WILL make him crawl). It frees him up to strike at their weaknesses.
"Who will stand/On either hand/And guard this bridge with me?" (Macaulay)
Congress is in session way too long. They have to keep making laws in order to explain their own existence. The funny thing is, the Ten Commandments pretty much covered 90 percent of needed laws. However, the tens of thousands of laws on the books have not stopped the needed laws from being violated every minute. I know, we need ten thousand MORE laws!, yeah, that's the ticket :)
Move back to 1929 and take Roth with you. Real Americans people expect a little more from Life--and Congress--than money.