INSIDER MEMO: Ex-Hill Staffer Takes on Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell
To: Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, Speaker Paul Ryan
From: Rachel Bovard, former policy director, U.S. Senate Steering Committee
Subject: Conservatives are right, eliminate the lame duck
Dear Leader McConnell & Speaker Ryan,
Do you ever feel like you’re having the same conversation over and over again when it comes to Congressional spending? It’s because you are.
Here we are, again, talking about the need to pass a Continuing Resolution (CR).
Despite all the lip service paid to “regular order,” “passing individual spending bills” and “getting back to work,” you and Senator McConnell, R-Ky. (F, 44%) have not been able to send a single appropriations bill to the President’s desk.
With one week to go before a two-month election year recess, moving forward with appropriations bills is not only futile, it’s actually wasting time that could be spent on other Republican priorities – like protecting religious liberty, instituting regulatory reform, combating the zika virus or, I don’t know, repealing Obamacare?
As always, the issue comes down to one of timing and of length. How long should the CR be extended? To the end of the year? Or into the new one?
Conservatives like Congressmen Dave Brat, R-Va. (A, 100%) and Mark Meadows, R-N.C. (A, 93%) are focused on extending this year’s spending levels into the March or April of next year, saving the spending decisions for the new Congress, and the new president. Such an extension also protects the CR from becoming an end-of-the-year grab bag of parochial projects, various extensions of unauthorized programs and higher spending.
It also effectively eliminates the “lame duck” session of Congress – the period of time after the election, when a bunch of members who have been defeated or decided to retire – can come back and make all kinds of spending decisions over which they’ll never face any accountability, all the while encouraged by a president who is also on his way out the door.
However, the House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky. (F, 34%) prefers a CR that extends to December, and loves lame duck sessions. Lame ducks provide Rogers and his appropriator colleagues maximum leverage to extract concessions out of their membership, and the opportunity to squeeze conservatives who demand lower spending levels or other policy changes. You may recall this as the annual December dance in Congress – members want to go home, and so do the staff, and because of that, they’ll pretty much vote for anything and bully anyone who stands between them and Christmas dinner. (Remember, there’s a reason that Obamacare was passed on Christmas Eve.)
The conservatives are right on this issue. The CR should be passed into the middle of next year, or beyond. This isn’t simply a matter of avoiding further spending increases, it’s a matter of good governance. It’s removing the ability of Members of Congress (and the president) who are leaving the Congress from making significant decisions over the nation’s fiscal future – one in which they will no longer play a part.
You wouldn’t let your ex come in and manage your bank account, right?
Then why would you let a Member of Congress who has just lost an election come back and extract all he can from the taxpayers till?
Stop trying to pass pointless appropriations bills, and instead direct your committee chairs to start crafting a CR that goes well into the new year. Even better, have it lower spending.
Doing so will make you the first House Speaker in a very long while who doesn’t cave to special interests, to the desire of departing Members to line their pockets, and who finally stands up for the taxpayer by effectively eliminating the lame duck session of Congress.
(For more from the author of “INSIDER MEMO: Ex-Hill Staffer Takes on Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell” please click HERE)
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