Democrats have controlled Congress for 2 weeks now, so I think it’s time to review their performance, making snarky comments along the way.
First, in two weeks the House Democrats worked an astounding 87 hours and turned out 6 pieces of shit legislation:
- Raised the minimum wage (Thanks so much for making harder for Daughter to get that first job.)
- Lowered the rate on college loans (Apparently banks are in the business of loaning money at below market rates. Expect another Federal program for college loans as soon as the banks decide to bail.)
- Expanding stem cell research (Fully funding questionable science, just so the scientists won’t have to suffer the indignity of actual scientific research.)
- Forcing the government to “negotiate” prescription drug prices for Medicare recipients (This will probably end up more along the lines of “dictate” rather than “negotiate”.)
- Ended subsidies/raised taxes (depends on how you you look at things) on oil companies (Of course, no matter which action they took, the oil companies will simply pass it along to the consumers.)
- And finally, implement all of the September 11 commission’s recommendations (No matter how useless, ill-conceived, economically destructive, police state-enhancing or simply foolish they may be.)
Not bad work for 87 hours. Heck, they promised it in the first 100 hours (of actually working on these bills, whining about Iraq excluded, see dealer for details, your mileage may vary, void where prohibited by law), so they’re 13 hours ahead of schedule. (Of course, that averages out to 43.5 hours worked per week, so they’ll probably be asking for overtime.)
Of course, during this Herculean effort, the incessant whining about Iraq and the War on Terror was pursued with equal vigor. Of course, no thoughts on how to put Iraq on the path to being a functioning “normal” country (whatever that might be) and actually winning the war were put forth. (Probably because they don’t actually have any.)
And we should note another legislative triumph for the Dems, the vote to remove the requirement for a 3/5 “supermajority” vote for tax increases from the House rules. That should make it easier to raise taxes on the “rich”, those evil so-and-sos. (Glad I’m not one of them.)
The Senate, on the other hand, has moved somewhat slower. S. 1, a bill to reform the ethics of the Senate (impossible, actually, since you first have to have some ethics to reform) has caused quite a little storm over predictions of the end of free speech as we know it. (Well hell, they want to do away with the Second Amendment, why not the First as well? Even better, let’s just get rid of that whole pesky Constitution thing altogether, so we can get right to the fun of totalitarianism and a police state?) Others disagree, and I’m a bit more inclined to agree with them (even while casting a watchful eye on the bill) at this point.
And from what I can tell, that’s all the Senate has done. (Not that being relative do nothings is a bad thing in this case.)
So there we have it in a nutshell, the first 2 weeks under our new Democrat masters leaders. The big question is where do they go from here. Personally, I expect various tax increases, probably one or more attempts at anti-gun owner legislation, continued pissing and moaning on Iraq, various actions aimed at either the poor and starvin’ or for the children and other assorted nanny stateisms.
Anyone care to place a bet on whether or not I’m disappointed?
