Come January, the first order of business for republican lawmakers will be to restore the legislative process of congress that has been trampled on by the current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, during her tenure as Speaker of the House. Once complete, it’s on the greater task of restoring the people’s confidence in congress which means getting something done!
Republican lawmakers are already getting their ducks in a row and are likely to test the presidential waters, so to speak, by delivering a few key pieces of legislation to President Obama’s desk. Approval of the Keystone XL pipeline or the repeal of the Medical Device tax are two likely candidates and will come as no surprise to the president as they have been highly publicized in the media. A repeal of ObamaCare may also surface but would be nothing more than a symbolic gesture as republicans do not have the votes to override a presidential veto, at least not at the moment.
Once the waters have been tested, Senate Republicans will then have to roll up their shirt sleeves and dig into the mountain of bills that have been collecting dust on Harry Reid’s desk over the past several years, 342 bills as identified by Politifact. In fairness however, many of those bills are currently in committee as well as some may have a companion bill already working its way through the legislative process. None the less, the task of sorting through, prioritizing and bringing to the floor all these bills, whatever the number may be, will be a daunting task for Senate Republicans. Some of these bills will be defeated but most will pass a Senate vote and will then head on over to the president for him to sign in to law or veto.
The larger percentage of bills sitting on Harry Reid’s desk are sponsored by republicans and there are a good number sponsored by democrats as well. Virtually all of these bills passed a House vote with strong bipartisan support with roughly half receiving unanimous approval. Of course, not all of the bills sitting on Reid’s desk are major pieces of legislation aimed to put Americans back to work and get the economy moving but this does not diminish the need to allow these bills to see a floor vote. All these bills are important to someone or something or else they would not exist.
So why has Harry Reid been sitting on these bills, even those of lessor significance? The answer is two-fold.
First, by preventing a vote on a bill that does not fit the president’s progressive agenda, Reid protects the president from the political and media backlash that would arise if he were to veto any piece of legislation aimed at creating jobs and moving the economy forward. Second, and sadly foremost, by voting on virtually nothing, this allows the perception of a “do nothing” congress to be maintained, which has been important for democrats who would otherwise be portrayed as the party in control of a Senate capable of passing only easy legislation of little substance.
Republicans taking control of the senate means that President Obama has lost the protection of Harry Reid. Come January the president will sit poised, with pen in hand, ready for the onslaught of bills that he knows will be heading his way.
Unable to run for re-election, his job approval rating at a record low and already having been labeled as a lame duck, President Obama has nothing personally to lose by vetoing every last one of the bills placed before him. The president has a nearly 6 year record of placing his failed agenda ahead of the will and better good of the people he was elected to serve, so there is little to make anyone believe he will do otherwise.
President Obama’s mass vetoing of the bills that are to hit is desk will dispel the rumor of a “do nothing” congress and will drop its dysfunction right in the laps of democrats. But all the blame should not be directed at Harry Reid as there have been 50 plus senate democrats who have stood idly by and even supported the dysfunction perpetuation by the Senate Majority Leader.
Senate democrats allowed one man to shut down our nation’s legislative process in order to protect the will of the leader of the executive branch. This goes against the very principles of which our government was founded. This is not a democrat or republican issue, this is not about being a conservative, a moderate, a liberal or a progressive, this is simply about what is right and wrong. Senate democrats have failed this nation and we the people should be outraged.
But the question still remains, will the gridlock continue? We will all see soon enough!
No comments:
Post a Comment