The Congress convened following the new year and everyone thought the Democrats and the President would have to move to the center in order to get things through the Republican controlled House. And appearances are that in relations with the Republicans the President in particular is talking nice. My problem is what is happening away from the legislative arena.
The President and his advisors knew months ago their complete control of the Congress was soon to end. The lame duck session was a transition period.
There are two ways to accomplish your agenda as a President or a Governor. You can use the legislative process or the regulatory process. A well coordinated legislative process puts in place the framework for the regulatory process that follows. Even though the Democrats don’t control the agenda of the House of Representatives, they control all the bureaucrats that have more than enough work to do implementing the laws passed during the past two years.
All you have to do is look at the Environmental Protection Agency to see numerous examples of how they stepped up their program to stifle oil exploration, drilling and refining. There is little that can be done to reverse past regulations or stop new ones coming down the pike.
Under the banner of climate change and global warming, the government will implement regulations that no elected official every saw let alone voted on. The power of the bureaucrats is immense. One of President Obama’s skills is in organizing. His political appointee operatives have been surgical in how they have inflicted the greatest damage to their respective organizations during the first two years and now will work more under the radar fleshing out the regulations promised in Health Care Reform, Financial Reform and Economic Stimulus without oversight except what private citizens might report.
Some of the poison pills that have been inserted into the legislation are designed to prevent their overturning. By themselves, those poison pills were reason enough to vote no.
Things are no better at the state level. Governors have the same type of power in managing the departments that draft and implement regulations they decide are appropriate. No legislator gets to vote on them, the governor and his/her staff handle everything.
An Act of Congress is pretty important, but enacting an administrative code can be insidious. Cap & Trade did not pass the Congress, but implementing the regulations that will accomplish the same thing will happen over the next couple years in spite of the fact that there was no vote.
Unless the Congress specifically challenges the regulators, the work will continue.
I know it might create more work, but I would like to see the Congress and the Legislature enact a law that requires that elected officials vote before the regulatory language takes affect. Even if the votes are taken at the Committee level. Elected officials need to be able to bring the EPA Chief into a committee room to ask questions and get answers. Make every member of a committee understand the implications of the regulations so a Barney Franks committee can’t plead ignorance in the future.
This idea is not new, there are much brighter guys than me who have pitched it before, but sometimes a good idea needs some time to get traction.
One more thing. Any regulation not voted on by elected legislators is sun-setted.
I am not trying to create new jobs for these guys, but I am trying to make them accountable for the jobs they have and the work they are not doing. Have them be the watchdogs over the bureaucracies they create and make sure they have something to work on besides creating new laws. The Executive branch has taken so much power from the legislative branch because the legislators allowed it. It is time to start shifting it back.
One more thing number two.
Think about public employee job reduction plans like we think of Cap n Trade. Every year we reduce the number of public employees based upon a benchmark set in 2005. Look for ways to trade public sector employees for private sector employees. The number of public employees should have to go down every year. The pay issue should also be factored in there somewhere too. Have minimum standards for so many worker bees for every supervisor bee then expand the ratio so there are fewer dead wood supervisors and more field workers.
It’s something to think about!
No Loss for Words 
Balance the Federal Budget
by Steve DanaI thought this link and this letter from Senator DeMint was worth consideration if we are serious about our national debt. Read the letter and click the link to get the ball rolling.
http://senateconservatives.com/stopthedebt
Dear Fellow Conservative:
The first major test for Republicans this year will be on how we address our nation’s exploding debt. We are quickly approaching the statutory debt limit of $14.3 trillion so this issue will come to a head very soon.
President Obama wants Congress to raise our nation’s debt ceiling again without doing anything serious to cut spending and balance the budget. His economic advisor, Austan Goolsbee, recently argued that the sky would fall unless we keep borrowing. But the truth is the sky is already falling BECAUSE we keep borrowing.
We must stop the debt and balance the budget, and that’s why I’m writing to ask for your help today.
There are senators on both sides of the aisle who hope their constituents won’t be paying attention when the Senate considers the debt limit in February. They want to quietly vote for more debt without paying a political price.
We can’t let that happen.
Please join me in doing two things right now.
First, visit http://stopthedebtpledge.com and sign our “Stop the Debt” pledge. It states, “I hereby pledge to support only those candidates who demand that Congress stop the debt and pass a Balanced Budget Amendment.”
In the last 10 years, Congress has raised the debt ceiling 10 times, but it has not voted a single time to pass a Balanced Budget Amendment. The only way to keep Congress from creating more debt is to pass a Constitutional Amendment that forces it to balance the budget without raising taxes.
Second, call your senators and tell them to “stop the debt and balance the budget”. Urge them to do everything it takes, including a filibuster, to block the debt limit increase and pass the Balanced Budget Amendment. Click here to contact your senators.
The Balanced Budget Amendment will:
Require Congress to balance the federal budget each year
Prevent Congress from spending more than 20 percent of GDP
Require a 2/3 super-majority vote to raise taxes
Every state except for Vermont has a requirement to balance its budget and so should Congress. This is a commonsense reform that is overwhelmingly supported by the American people. There is no reason why the Senate cannot pass the Balanced Budget Amendment.
The last time the Senate voted on the Balanced Budget Amendment was in 1997 when it was just one vote shy of the 67 votes needed for adoption.
We can win this policy battle if we’re willing to fight for our principles. All 47 Republicans voted in November to make the Balanced Budget Amendment the policy of the Senate Republican Conference, and there are 23 Democrats up for re-election in 2012 who won’t want to vote against it.
The President may attack conservatives who filibuster the debt limit and accuse us of putting the nation at risk, but the President and the politicians in Congress who refuse to balance the budget are the ones hurting our country. The time has come for Americans to draw a line in the sand and say “enough is enough”.
Please sign the “Stop the Debt” pledge, forward it to your friends and family, and call your senators to urge them to stop the debt and pass the Balanced Budget Amendment.
Respectfully,
Jim DeMint
United States Senator
Chairman, Senate Conservatives Fund
Posted in Political commentary | 1 Comment »