I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

The Fortnightly Rant for January 14, 2011, from The New Hampshire Gazette, Volume 255, No. 8, posted on Monday, February 1, 2011.

Finally, all the obstacles have been cleared away. Last year’s mid-term elections are history. The old Congress has disbanded. The new 112th Congress has been sworn in, and it has already begun doing the peoples’s business — or, perhaps, giving the people the business.

Whoops!

One slight kerfuffle marred the start of the session. As the swearing-in ceremony got underway on the House floor January 5th, two Republican members were AWOL. Pete Sessions (TX) and Mike Fitzpatrick (PA) were celebrating with constituents in the Capitol Visitors Center. Giving the proceedings a post-modern flavor, the two recited their oaths of office while raising their right hands towards a television set.

Sessions and Fitzpatrick had each cast eight votes before anyone realized they were violating the terms of the Constitution. Seeking to rectify the situation, John Boehner (R-OH), the new Speaker of the House, swore both men in properly on the House floor and asked Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to agree to a unanimous consent decree which would have glossed over the glitch. Pelosi declined to fiddle with Constitutional requirements, forcing Boehner to quickly get a bill passed subtracting the extra-legal votes from the record.

A second problem stemming from the Visitors Center event may not be so easily resolved. Fitzpatrick’s invitation to constituents included a solicition for campaign contributions, in apparent violation of the law prohibiting any fundraising activity on Capitol grounds.

Taking Care of Appearances

On January 6th, amid an ongoing foreclosure crisis, with unemployment stuck at ten percent, John Boehner’s Congress got down to serious business — Representatives took turns reading the Constitution aloud in its entirety. This exercise in conspicuous civic piety probably cost taxpayers $1.1 million, according to an analysis by Vanity Fair.

Somehow Frank Guinta managed to draw what had to be a sought-after reading assignment: the 2nd Amendment. The Seacoast’s own Congressmen added a Palinesque twist to it, though. Where the amendment reads, “shall not be infringed,” Guinta uttered something that sounded like more like “afringed.”*

The Truth Deficit

The GOP’s Congressional campaign was built on the premise that they were the only party qualified to tackle the country’s greatest problem, namely, the budget deficit. This was a bold strategy, because forensic analysis of the fingerprints on that deficit shows that the vast majority of them belong to Republicans. **

To create the appearance that it was making good on its promise, the new Republican leadership team instituted a rule saying that no bill would pass unless its cost to the Treasury was offset by cuts elsewhere in the budget.

Except when it’s inconvenient, as with the health care repeal bill they plan to vote on next week. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has reported that health care reform will save $143 billion over the next decade. Repealing it would therefore cost that much. But the GOP is waiving its deficit offset rule for their repeal bill, because, according to no less an authority than John Boehner’s press secretary, “no one believes” the CBO’s estimate.

Democrats still control the Senate, and Barack Obama is in the White House, with his veto pen at the ready. The GOP is as capable of repealing health care as Abbie Hoffman was of levitating the Pentagon. Reading the Constitution cost over $1 million and accomplished nothing, but it was a bargain compared to health care repeal.

I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change

For all its incessant yammering about its love of the Constitution, the GOP is hell bent on “improving” it. Their members in the House have introduced eleven Joint Resolutions for Constitutional Amendments. These include not one, but six different resolutions for an Amendment requiring a balanced budget. This benighted notion will never be adopted, and for good reason. Thanks to the GOP, though, the taxpayer will pay six times.

Another GOP-introduced Amendment would “control spending” by limiting annual expenditures to one-fifth of the nation’s economic output. The only useful purpose served by this proposal is to call to mind Mencken’s dictum, “[F]or every problem there is a solution which is simple, clean and wrong.”

One quixotic Representative filed a resolution to repeal the Sixteenth Amendment, thereby abolishing the Internal Revenue Service. A resolution in favor of the line item veto also makes an appearance.

There are amendments for purposes other than choking off the Government’s money supply. They include one from Rep. John Fleming (R-LA), who thinks the Constitution should specify that “[t]he liberty of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children is a fundamental right,” upon which “neither the United States nor any State shall infringe … without demonstrating that its governmental interest as applied to the person is of the highest order and not otherwise served.” This one deserves the title, “Peace of Mind for Authoritarian Patriarchs Amendment.”

Last and, frankly, probably least, is that old perennial favorite of the GOP, an Amendment “giving Congress power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.” This may not be a complete waste of money and time. If it gets anywhere, it would at least have a stimulating effect on the Flag Police.

Democrats have proposed a few Amendments, too. Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Blue Dog, filed his own resolution — for a total of seven — calling for a balanced budget amendment.

Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur appears determined to prove that amending the Constitution is not necessarily a foolish endeavor. She has filed resolutions to waive the application of First Amendment rights to corporations with respect to disbursment of funds to influence elections. That is a damned fine needle to thread, but if it worked it would be golden. Another Resolution would limit contributions and expenditures in elections. Again, a difficult thing to accomplish, but a tremendously valuable thing to achieve.

Now, if we could only make Kaptur’s bills retroactive …

* Don’t take our word for it, listen to the audio.

** The strategy worked because, unlike Democrats, the Republicans understand that today’s corporate media operate on post-modern principles. You’re not responsible for anything you do, unless someone can pin it on you.