First Task for a GOP Congress: Subpoena the Jan. 6 Committee
With all due respect: fuck that nonsense.
The first task for a GOP Congress is to stimulate the economy, which they can do not by playing meaningless little political games like the above, but by reining in government spending — the management of which, lest we forget, is the primary purpose of Congress.
Here’s a pro tip for the politicians: if the economy is whizzing along, unemployment is close to zero, people’s retirements aren’t being eroded by inflation, energy costs are low and all the things that make for a happy populace are in place, then you won’t have any problem getting reelected (which, lest we forget too, is the primary focus of all politicians — yeah, I know, it sucks but there it is).
Unfortunately, reining in public spending is difficult — it shouldn’t be, but to our betters in Congress it is — whereas making cheap political gestures (e.g. nailing the Jan 6 clowns or “impeaching the President”) are very easy, even though they don’t do diddly about making the voters’ lives more affordable.
You want some ideas? Sure.
Reduce every single government department’s budget by 25% (this number being close to the actual rate of inflation for the past two years). No exceptions.
Start the process of repealing the 16th Amendment, towards an end goal of a replacement Amendment which institutes a flat, universal, no-exemptions income tax of 5% that can only be raised by a Congressional (both House and Senate) vote majority of 75% — or, even better, repealing all wage, corporate, estate and cap gains taxes to be replaced by a national end-user sales tax. (I can dream, too.)
Pass a law which institutes a blanket “sunset” provision of ten years for every law in the U.S. Code, past, present and future. (If a law’s that good, it should pass a re-vote easily; if not, it should die a well-deserved death. If this makes Congress too busy to create more laws, that’s a feature, not a bug because we have too many laws on the books already.)
Start the process of repealing the 17th Amendment. The state legislature, not the people of the state, should decide who should be sent to represent the state’s interests in Congress. (The people can control this by voting for their U.S. House and local legislatures, as originally envisioned by the Constitution.)
Of course, there are more suggestions, many more. But none of them have anything to do with empty political gestures.
How’s the weather there in Fantasyland?
When has a (recent) congressional investigation actually done anything? Investigate, investigate, hold hearings, made grandstand speeches in the guise of “asking questions”, fiddle faddle, and then …
nothing. No one in jail. No one executed. No one expelled from govt service, forever, without pension.
As for your list, with reducing budget each dept must also reduce headcount by 25%.
And multiple agencies (education, ATF, FBI, etc.) get 100% reduced.
But nutless R’s won’t do any of that. Even if they had 100% of the house, senate, and executive branch. Because nutless.
GOP, the party whose motto is “Don’t rock the boat.”
Once they learn about all the benefits, they really like being the minority party, and their first concern is getting reelected. To actually change anything is, as you say, rocking the boat.
Pass legislation that any legislation passed in the future applies only to congresscritters the first year before it applies to everyone, still including congresscritters. They need to quit creating laws from which they exempt themselves.
The proper hierarchy is:
God
|
The people
|
The Constitution
|
The government
The problem is that the government has had their heads so far up their own asses for so long, they think they’re at the top of the ladder.
you’re absolutely right Kim. These investigations are fruitless. no one goes to jail even when held in contempt of congress, ahem Brainwasher Holder. Not enough get charged for crimes, lois lerner, her boss, hillary clinton, peter strzok and his pin cushion and the list goes on endlessly.
Get the economy going, secure our country and bring back prosperity. Then and only then start the inquisition.
JQ
Kim, a good list……
But, as suggested above, we need manpower reductions within the fort.
An initial 25% reduction in bucks is good, and a 50% reduction of buck rogers to go with it would be really good.
And, YES, we need a Sunset Law included in all legislation; Ronnie was 150% correct when he said that “there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program”.
Make them all TEMPORARY BY LAW: If they work, you can continue them; if not, let them fall by the wayside.
Along with repealing the 16th & 17th Amendments (both were at the top of the Early 20th-Century Progressive Movement wish list), we need to cast the Federal Reserve System to the winds by repealing the Federal Reserve Act of 1913.
Now, that’s a good decades worth of work – evaluating the effectiveness of those chores should take another decade; after that, Congress would have time to deal with any emerging problems (remembering what Silent Cal said about problems: When you first see an issue arise, keep and eye on it but don’t do anything drastic; for when it gets up close there’s a 90% chance that it’ll have run off the road and cease being a problem) and fine-tune what they have done
Repeal the Apportionment Act of 1929, which capped the number of representatives in the house at 435. More representatives would dilute their power, make corruption somewhat more expensive (corporations will have to buy many more politicians to get favorable-to-them legislation passed), and letting the number of representatives grow in proportion to the population might make them more responsive to their constituents. Originally, the Constitution called for one representative for every 30,000 people but, not being an unreasonable sort, I’d up that to 50,000. Sure, we’d need a facility for them to meet the size of a small stadium, but it would be well worth the cost. Or we could just use today’s technology and have them meet virtually.
Of course, this will never happen because what organ of power ever gave up any of that power willingly?