Be Thankful for a Do Nothing Congress

Member Group : Jerry Shenk

Liberal Democrats and left-leaning independents call the current Congress "do-nothing" and "lazy."

One liberal critic wrote: "The 112th Congress [2011-2013] passed 220 laws…the fewest of any Congress since we began keeping track… But the 113th Congress is on track to pass even fewer laws than that."

That assessment is based on several misconceptions: The first is that passing legislation the American left favors has – or should have – no impediments; the second, that Congress’ raison d’être is to pass laws and grow government; and finally, the busiest Congress is the best Congress.

When in the minority, the left obstructs bills they dislike, but when liberals control any part of government — the presidency and/or one or more houses of Congress — the misconceptions become axiomatic, but only for things they favor.
Their sense of rectitude is so strong that it’s difficult for many progressives to grasp that the parties simply don’t agree. Governmental checks and balances – obstructions — designed by America’s Founders have practical purposes.

The 111th Congress (2009-2010), during which Democrats controlled both houses and the presidency, was far more "productive," but gave America, among other ill-considered, unread and un-debated legislation, a massive failed "stimulus," a costly bailout of the United Auto Workers Union and government-hijacked healthcare.

Reacting to Democratic overreach, American voters chose gridlock over "productivity" by awarding Republicans the House of Representatives following the 2010 mid-term tsunami and preserving their majority in 2012. House Republicans are doing the people’s business by obstructing the ambitions of President Obama and Washington Democrats.

Beginning in the years when they were unconstrained, in only fifty-four months, Democrats increased the national debt by nearly 60 percent. Imagine how much additional debt future generations would face if Democrats had held the House in 2010 or regained it in 2012.

But Democrats didn’t. That’s politics, an American system and practice which, if it could, the left would abolish in favor of "what we want."
In fact, the Republican House has been busy attempting to undo Washington Democrats’ 2009-2010 handiwork.

For example, the House has voted more than thirty-five times to repeal Obamacare, an action supported by a majority of Americans. Stronger majorities might support repeal, but, because implementation was intentionally delayed to improve Obama’s reelection chances, more than three and a third years after signing, roughly 10 percent of Americans remain unaware of Obamacare, and most who still support it, including Congressional Democrats who voted for it, don’t understand it.

None of the House bills have been considered by the Democrat-controlled Senate which has also ignored a myriad of House-passed job-creation, energy development, budget and tax and regulatory reform bills.

Realistically, considering the House’s activity, those who insist on placing blame should direct charges of indolence and inactivity at Majority Leader Harry Reid and his Senate caucus.

Is the Senate "lazy," or does its obstruction of bills passed in the People’s House only mean that Senate Democrats disagree? Why don’t liberal critics give House Republicans the same pass?

However, over-hyping charges of House "obstructionism" has been useful for the Obama administration. Obama and his media echo chamber have been manipulating the term to make principled, constitutionally-designed obstruction appear inherently illegitimate.

Obama’s enablers have adopted the mantra that, in order to bypass obstructions – the elected Congress — the president should unilaterally work his will by issuing hundreds of constitutionally-questionable executive orders and thousands of executive branch agency decrees.

The narrative holds Obama faultless for failing to get everything done during the years he had a friendly, filibuster-proof Congress — it’s House Republicans’ fault he can’t do it now. There’s no need, really, for Obama to reach compromise with his opposition as presidents before him have done.
Obama’s a busy guy. He can’t be bothered with a House that has legitimate disagreements with him on nearly everything. Never mind that American voters elected the House to rein him in.

Charles Cooke wrote that demonizing and alienating the opposition "leads to fatuous charges that the other side needs to stop being so ‘ideological’ and ‘political’ and ‘rigid’ and ‘extreme’ and get around to doing exactly what the party you happen to favor has proposed."

By acting extra-constitutionally and circumventing legitimate opposition, Obama has been ideological, political, rigid, extreme – and he has willfully polarized America.

The government is in the very best of hands…

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2013/07/be_thankful_for_a_do-nothing_congress_jerry_shenk.html#incart_river