No Loss for Words

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!

I lifted this post from www.laborunionreport.com this morning.  I thought it was noteworthy.  Everyone should endorse this plan with a vote. 

The Secret Ballot Protection Act: It’s Time to Make it Law.
January 17, 2011
By Laborunionreport

Let’s put this whole debate about card-check to bed once and for all. It’s time to pass the Secret Ballot Protection Act.
On Friday, the union-controlled National Labor Relations Board threatened to sue the states of Arizona, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah, if any (or all) of them attempt to enforce the recent voter-approved measures in their states that guarantee workers the right to a secret-ballot election.

The states were also advised that the Board has authorized the Acting General Counsel to file lawsuits in federal court, if necessary, to enjoin them from enforcing the laws.

As unions have spent hundreds of millions of dollars buying Democrat politicians to pass the job-killing and hallucinogenically-named Employee Free Choice Act, it is natural that the union-controlled NLRB would come down against the states for trying to ensure secret-ballots for workers. However, as the NLRB recently affirmed that it is legal for a union and employer to bargain even before a union is recognized in exchange for card-check, workers’ rights are being seriously eroded under the current regime.

There is, however, a way in which this entire issue can be ended once and for all for the entire nation. That is through the passage of the Secret Ballot Protection Act.

Here is the entire bill. It is as simple as it is short.

Most Americans (78%) believe that “secret ballot elections are the most democratic method of choosing representation, while 87 percent agree that ‘every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether to organize a union.’” Unions and the union-controlled National Labor Relations Board would prefer rather do away with secret-ballots.

Let’s put an end to the games and push Congress to enact the law to protect Americans’ right to a secret ballot.
If Democrats don’t want to allow Americans to have secret-ballot votes on whether to become unionized or not, let them go on record (publicly) and vote against secret-ballots. If President Obama doesn’t want Americans to have the right to a secret-ballot vote on unionization, then let him veto it…publicly.

Let’s put a stop to the attempts to kill secret-ballot elections and get the Secret Ballot Protection Act made into law.

 It’s really that simple.