Here’s a modest proposal: Since it has become blindingly obvious that the United States Congress won’t get anything meaningful done before the November election, maybe the Capitol should be closed down for the next five months.
Here’s a modest proposal: Since it has become blindingly obvious that the United States Congress won’t get anything meaningful done before the November election, maybe the Capitol should be closed down for the next five months.
Turn off the computers. Empty out the refrigerators. Throw some sheets over the furniture. Turn off the air conditioning.
Admittedly, this would be a disappointment for tourists. It would be a hardship for Capitol staff members and constituents back home who want to order a flag that’s been flown over the Capitol (they have people who raise and lower flags for hours every afternoon) or obtain some other form of help from their senator or representative. Maybe they could leave a skeleton crew in the basement to handle those matters.
But why pay the Senate and House chaplains and sergeants-at-arms $171,000 a year to pray over and protect sessions in which nothing will be done? For that matter, why pay the senators and representatives $174,000 each (leaders get more) to bicker with each other?
Congress’ annual budget for itself is $4.7 billion. If we closed things up for five months, we could save nearly $2 billion, enough to buy a missile submarine or 10 days worth of food stamps. Or we could pay 1/100th of 1 percent of the national debt.
The nation doesn’t need to spend the next five months listening to arguments like those heard last week. The Senate fooled around with various budget proposals, voting down four of them. They included President Barack Obama’s budget and the House-passed version drafted by Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. They included a let-grandma-eat-cat-food budget sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.
Over on the House side, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, promised another fight over raising the debt ceiling later this year. Never mind that last year’s debt ceiling fight caused bond rating agencies to lower the rating on U.S. debt, thus driving up interest rates, thus adding to the deficit that Boehner professes to hate so much.
It was as if Boehner, having nothing much else to do, decided to pick a fight. Everyone already knew that the confluence of events called “The Cliff” or “Taxmageddon” looming at year’s end will be the mother of all fiscal emergencies. The Bush tax cuts will be expiring. The Obama payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance extensions will be expiring. The Great Sequestration will be about to begin, automatic cuts of $2 trillion from the budget over the next 10 years, equally divided between social and defense programs.
That was the price Boehner exacted for last year’s debt-ceiling hike. Now he wants to renege on it.
Everything depends on the elections. Will Republicans retain control of the House, and will the Democrats retain control of the Senate? If President Barack Obama wins re-election, Democrats will be in the driver’s seat during the lame-duck session of Congress in November and December. If Republican Mitt Romney wins, the calculus changes.
Right now, Obama and congressional Democrats are content to play the cards they’ve got. If Congress does nothing, the Bush tax cuts expire. If Obama is re-elected, Boehner will have to deal. If Romney becomes president in January, Republicans can revisit the tax cuts next year.
But unless one party or the other captures 60 seats in the Senate, the stalemate will continue regardless of who is in the White House. Democrats now are mulling reforming filibuster rules, but before they do that, they’ll need to know how many seats they control in November.
Until Nov. 7, Congress will be in a state of entropy. Everybody might as well go home.