We start the new year with Republican control of house (solid) and Senate (decent but not veto proof or even filibuster proof). The voters are unhappy, they are still out of work, just scraping by. They still have Obama who will veto anything they pass.
Republicans need to show the voters they care, they keep the public debate both public and sensible.
they need to propose laws that the voters approve of. Laws that fail to attract a single Democratic vote lack broadbased support. And to win political support, the laws have to be understandable. Which means short. Which means to the point. A law doing something good packed with a trainload of unrelated pork is easy for the voters to classify as a swindle. Obama is looking for opportunities to veto anything and everything. Bills with wads of pork tucked into them will get vetoed and Obama will claim he is vetoing because of the pork. So keep the bills clean and simple, so that everyone understands what it is about.
So much for generalities. Mitch McConnell has already cued up the Keystone XL pipeline. Good chose, it is simple, most voters like it, Obama might even sign it, and will face some heat if he doesn't. Next start appropriation bills. one for each federal department thru the committee process. Then we can cue up some tax reform, some immigration reform, some patent and copyright reform, and some regulatory rollback. For instant, an act of Congress declaring that CO2 is not a pollutant and cannot be regulated by the EPA under the clean air act. An act of Congress declaring that "navigable waters" means waters deep enough to float a canoe in dry season. Tighten up the endangered species act to forbid invention of new species, followed by declaring the new species endangered.
We voters want to see some democratic lawmaking done in a serious fashion by serious people.
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