THE PRESIDENT SEES CONGRESS, TOO, AS A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY
by Robert H. McElroy 2007
(TheWeekInCongress.com Aug 3, 2007) It was John of Blackburn who said at the cusp of the 19th Century that “The proper memory for a politician is one that knows what to remember and what to forget.” A fitting example of that quote is President Bush’s recent comments that Congress has yet to consider most of the spending bills needed to keep the government running beyond September 30th.
That selective memory lends itself well to the politics of this election cycle. During his press conference about the Nation’s need for Congress to pass amendments to the wiretap law, a matter raising hackles on those unconvinced that privacy is a necessary sacrifice for national security, he tucked in that potentially delayed appropriation bills are a weighty matter because an unfunded government is one that cannot protect us and deliver necessary services.
This is politics with a common theme: there is a threat and the president is ready to deal with it but for the unrealistic obstacles created by the Democrats in Congress. The implied message is to remember that in the 2008 elections.
The president’s comments, if not convincing of imminent danger, underscore the political challenges that the Democrats face when moving legislation in Congress to the September 30th fiscal year deadline. To continue funding government programs beyond the obligatory cost-of-living increases and to revitalize programs they believe were underserved by the Republican Majority in the past 12 years Democrats need the cooperation of Republicans in the Senate, a president who threatens to veto bills that go beyond his spending limits and Republican votes in the House and Senate to override those vetoes.
Adding to the challenge, Democrats have been generous in bringing most appropriation bills to the floor open to amendments. Most amendments are offered by Republicans and center on cutting so-called earmarks, shifting funds between programs and providing across-the-board cuts.
There is legitimacy to the Republican amendments in that they were reelected by their districts and States to continue a mandate upon which they now act. Rarely, though, is anything undertaken in Congress so one-sided in intent. The amendments were time-consuming at best and most were defeated with bipartisan votes. In the sense that they provided no practical change, only the basis for a plethora of political ads we must soon endure, those amendments appeared to be, and in some cases were, obstructions to moving the bills.
Further delaying floor action was a proliferation of procedural moves--motions to rise, motions to adjourn and parliamentary inquiries--that had little productive purpose and many were offered with a demeanor akin to a frat-house prank.
A less selective memory than the president’s recalls that over the past ten years few if any Congress’ have passed all spending bills by September 30th. Most were sent to the floor as enormous multi-department Omnibus bills in November or December. Although the 109th House managed to pass all but one appropriation bill by September 30th 2006, the 109th Senate passed, and the president signed, only three.
With the opportunity between the November elections and December 31st to pass all appropriation bills, the 109th Congress left nine unfinished, passed a resolution to continue spending at previous year levels for the most part and then adjourned. One wonders, then, if the President’s perception that the Democrat Congress is taking us to the brink of disaster is to be believed, how the Republic could have survived the 109th Congress and most of those that went before.
##
## All Rights Reserved. © 2007 TheWeekInCongress.com(TM)
No reproduction, language translation or distribution without written permission from TheWeekInCongress.com.(TM)