This Tweet was moderately popular over the weekend, so I share it here:
Do we still have a Congress? You think they’d mind passing a law or two, so the president can take break from doing all the legislating?
— Brad Warthen (@BradWarthen) February 4, 2017
We’ve seen some life in the judiciary, much to the new president’s consternation.
When will we see some life out of the legislative branch — you know, doing stuff rather than just saying stuff?
I know they’re out of practice. And I know that a lot of the stuff they would do would be stupid — like repealing Obamacare without replacing it with something that actually leads to at least as many people having good coverage. But hey, “stupid” is relatively, and they can’t possibly look as bad on that score as the executive branch — can they?
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Well they’ve been pretty much a do nothing Congress for the past two decades, why change now?
They already have.
Usually there are complaints about Congress passing bills they haven’t read and don’t understand. Now we’re to believe that Trump didn’t read and fully understand his executive orders, especially the one about Bannon on the NSC.
The worst part is that in Trump’s case, this explanation seems to have been offered by his allies to suggest that this is an adequate excuse for his signing something that is very unfortunate. Similarly, we are told that his rudeness and ill humor in his conversation with the Australian Prime Minister was because he was tired at 5:30, at the end of a long day. Sorry, these are not legitimate excuses for a president who is doing very damaging things, nationally and internationally. Presidents are supposed to be stronger and more competent than that.
Let’s see: According to a quick search of the database at congress.gov, the following legislation has passed both chambers:
1. S.84 — A bill to provide for an exception to a limitation against appointment of persons as Secretary of Defense within seven years of relief from active duty as a regular commissioned officer of the Armed Forces. (This is now a law, having been signed by the President.)
2. 4. H.J.Res.38 — Disapproving the rule submitted by the Department of the Interior known as the Stream Protection Rule. (No idea what this is, and it has yet to be sent to the President, but I assume it will be.)
3. H.J.Res.41 —Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of a rule submitted by the Securities and Exchange Commission relating to “Disclosure of Payments by Resource Extraction Issuers”. (No idea what this is, and it has yet to be sent to the President, but I assume it will be.)
4. H.R.39 — Tested Ability to Leverage Exceptional National Talent Act of 2017 or the TALENT Act of 2017. (Signed by the President and now a law.)
5. H.R.72 — GAO Access and Oversight Act of 2017. (Signed by the President and now a law.)
Meh.
I still maintain that the last time Congress DID anything was when they passed Obamacare. Not saying that was great, or bad, or anything. But it DID something.
Probably the last thing before that was authorizing the president to invade Iraq. The last thing before that was the Patriot Act.
(I’m not saying you’ll like everything they do. I just like to see them put themselves out there on SOMETHING.)
It seems like Congress has done less in a decade than it did in a given week when LBJ was president…
They could start slow. Walk before running. They could try, for instance, passing budgets regularly…
Balanced budgets??? National debt reducing budgets????
Sure, why not? I’m not picky…
Just covering the facts.
Not sure passing stuff is necessarily a gods thing. Especially with THIS congress. I think 3 on Bryans list is a partial repeal of Dodd-Frank.
a good thing.
Or maybe not. I did hear something about Dodd-Frank
I sure would be happy if Congress repealed all the stupid TRID stuff in Dodd-Frank. It’s the most worthless nonsense ever. Whoever came up with all of it has probably never examined a title, never given a title opinion, never acted as an escrow agent, or otherwise done a real estate closing in their life.
Real estate agents hate it.
Lenders hate it.
Buyers and sellers hate it.
The closing attorneys hate it.
No one likes the new TRID laws, and it doesn’t actually make anything better for anyone. It literally took a process that wasn’t broken and created extra hoops to jump through.
I had a client come in last week to do a refinance. He was so frustrated before he even got to the closing table because his bank had sent him about four or five different “closing disclosures”, none of which had the same numbers, and none of which matched the actual numbers I had for the closing. My numbers were right, but the whole process of it being disclosed to him early (as intended by the law) was a charade.
Ever since TRID went into effect back in 2015, I’ve asked buyers, sellers, agents, and lenders about it. “Is there anything about TRID that you like?” No one has ever come up with anything.
The Trouble With TRID” was one of my favorite “Star Trek” episodes…
Ya know, if these are the opening lyrics of a song:
Real estate agents hate it.
Lenders hate it.
Buyers and sellers hate it.
The closing attorneys hate it.
… I have to say, I’m not hearing a single…
“I still maintain that the last time Congress DID anything was when they passed Obamacare. ”
That was only half a Congress who passed it. And very few (if any) who voted for it actually knew what was in the bill.
I’d rather see incremental bills than any grand scheme like the Obamacare debacle.
Debacle?? Just watched a show where people in a county in eastern KY had health insurance for the first time. The county voted for Trump with 82% of the vote. These folks are concerned with the costs but greatly appreciate having insurance. Is the ACA perfect? No. Is it an improvement over what we had? Absolutely!
The Stream Protection Rule is designed to require mining companies (read “coal”) to maintain streams and rivers in the vicinity of a mine in their natural state. Perfectly reasonable regulation.
The stream protection rule prevents dumping coal ash into our public waterways. Killing it is a gift to the coal industry, and a serious loss for the environment. It won’t save the jobs of coal miners, but it will let utility companies off the hook.
How long has the rule been in place? Does it cover things that the Clean Water Act doesn’t?
Just asking honest questions here. I really have no clue about this sort of stuff.
Me too. Duke Energy was doing some questionable stuff with coal ash.
The rule was new and was intended to address problems not already covered. The Duke Energy coal ash problems in NC are a prime example. The regulation was badly needed, and now we won’t have it.
It’s not that they aren’t doing anything, the problem is they’re busy un-doing rational legislation.