"A Lame Duck Session That Lives up to its Name"

Sydney M. Williams

Thought of the Day

“A Lame Duck Session That Lives up to its Name”

December 2, 2010

Lame duck sessions are notoriously political, especially when the Party in power loses seats and, in this case, loses control of the House. Blame hangs over Congress like a winter fog in San Francisco. Typically, bills that have been tabled for months assume “critical importance”...as leaders reach the end of their tenure.

The President and Congress who spent a year and a half passing two of the most complex (and longest) bills ever enacted – healthcare and financial reform – now list at least six bills they deem critical for the remaining four weeks of their term – a term that includes the Christmas holiday! Two bills are truly critical – funding the 2011 budget and a bill to prevent taxes going up on January 1, a bill whose delay has exacerbated the sense of uncertainty among individuals and small businesses and has inhibited economic recovery. Besides, it is never a good idea to raise taxes – which doing nothing would do – on anyone when economic growth is anemic as is the current recovery. The other bills can wait for the new Congress, but the President, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi beg to differ. They want their last ounce of blood.

The bills include:

1) Funding of the 2011 Federal Budget.
The Federal government operates on a September fiscal year. At this point there has been no formal appropriation for fiscal 2011, which means that for the last two months the government has been funded with interim financing via continuing resolutions. Yesterday, Congress voted to grant appropriations to keep the government in business for two more weeks. How lame can you get?

2) A new tax bill.
Tax increases are coming on January 1st for all tax payers, unless the Bush tax cuts are extended or made permanent. In an action that is purely partisan politics and a waste of valuable time, Congress will vote to extend the Bush cuts for the low and middle income. Republicans and some Democrats will thwart the move and we will be back to square one.

3) The START Treaty.
The START Treaty was signed by the President almost eight months ago, on April 8. All treaties, to become effective, must be ratified by the Senate. However, Senators need to be made comfortable with the Russians interpretation of the Treaty that missile defense would not be impaired. Yet the President went on the air yesterday to push to push this bill again. Why, when taxes and the budget should be the top priority? Why Harry Reid waited so long to bring this bill to the floor is anyone’s guess.

4) Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.
The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy dealing with gays in the military emerged as a compromise in 1999. The House in May of this year passed a bill repealing aspects of the law considered offensive to gays. The bill stalled in the Senate. Senator Reid wants to try again. On the other hand, according to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, 62% of the 115,052 troops surveyed said that repeal would either hurt cohesion or have a mixed effect.

5) Unemployment Extension.
About 800,000 Americans will lose their benefits next week without an extension. On Tuesday the Senate failed to pass a bill that would have extended the benefits for another year. The reason: the cost of $56.4 billion was not offset by any budget cuts. Senator Reid wants to try again.

6) The DREAM Act.
The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act was first introduced in 2001 and reintroduced on March 26, 2009. The Act would permit those children of illegal immigrants who attend school and college a path to citizenship. Why the Senate leadership waited until the last weeks of this term to bring this humane bill to the floor remains an unanswered question.

In part, the frenzy that characterizes the vanishing Congress is prompted by the thrashing Democrats took on November 2 and their apparent denial of reality. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have a limited window to demonstrate the efficacy of their last-ditch efforts.

While Republican gained 63 seats in the House (and it was the largest increase for any single Party during a midterm election since 1938,) the full force of the Republican wave can be seen in the states’ legislatures. The National Conference of State Legislatures website reads: “The winds of change blew with hurricane force.” The GOP gained 675 seats and now have the most seats they have held since 1928. As my son Sydney, President of Lyceum Associates, wrote in his monthly, Perspectives, the GOP pick-up was “the most in the modern era. The previous record was in the post-Watergate election when Democrats picked up 628 seats.” The election, which had the largest midterm election turnout ever, was, as the NCSL notes, a “stunning repudiation of Democrats…” There are now more Republican state legislators than at any time since the Great Depression. More important for them, they will be in control during the critical remapping of 190 U.S. House districts when the Census data is released in February.

How much better for the President, Harry Reid, the Democrats and the people of America if Congress were to clarify the tax situation, pass a budget appropriation bill and then, if there is time, address the needs of the unemployed who are losing their benefits. The other issues, as important as they are, can wait another month or two. One can make an argument that the stimulus bill was critical and that financial reform was needed, but ramming through a healthcare bill was an example of Congress and the President putting personal policy preferences ahead of the needs and wants of the people, and meant that a number of important issues were shunted aside. They are still stonewalling during this important time. Delaying necessary issues like budgets and taxes to the last minute speaks volumes about the isolation of those who have spent too many years in Congress, and the inability of those members to identify with the wants of the electorate and the needs of the private sector. During the last lame duck session, two years ago, the newly elected President, in a response to Representative Paul Ryan of Republican from Wisconsin, famously said, “We won.” Well, two years later, Republicans won.

Maybe the two Parties will come together in the last four weeks, but November is gone; so far this lame duck session has just been lame.