By Carol Platt Liebau at townhall.com
This year, for the first time since modern budgeting began, the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives has simply refused to pass a budget resolution. Presumably, the failure even to take up a budget would free plenty of time for the Congress to complete the rest of its work. But remarkably – and disturbingly – plans are already in the offing to postpone important legislative business until after the November elections.
Politico’s Mike Allen recently reported that The White House plans to schedule the Senate-House conference on a cap ‘n trade bill for after the upcoming elections “so House members don’t have to take another tough vote ahead of midterms.” And just last week, Democratic Senator Tom Harkin suggested the same technique might work to pass the unpopular card check legislation, noting that “[a] lot of things can happen in a lame-duck session.”
If either cap ‘n trade or card check legislation should pass in a lame duck session, it won’t be the first time that the Obama White House and the 111th Congress has resorted to trickery in order to ram through unpopular legislation. In fact, it won’t even be the most glaring example. That distinction, of course, belongs to ObamaCare, where Democrats resorted to an unprecedented use of the budget reconciliation process in order to pass the most sweeping social legislation in a generation, defying outspoken public opposition.
No comments:
Post a Comment