Congressional Oversight

Well, the ASSociated Press has their latest Bush-bashing poll out, the most highly touted feature of which is the purported rabid anger of conservatives at their own party and (so the AP orgasmically hopes) their bitter determination to do whatever it takes to remove the GOP (and, therefore, themselves) from power in November. I believe their phrase was, "an Election Day massacre." Apparently the Democrats no longer have to bother with fundraising or campaigning. Just grab their favorite snacks (and "substances"), some frosty (adult) beverages, a box of flavored lube, several crates of condoms, lie back, and watch as we, the center-right, do all their damage for them.

Of course, the Donks will never be able to do that, as the upcoming confirmation hearings for (presumptive) CIA Director-designate General Michael Hayden will once more illustrate. Brother Hinderaker captures the point succinctly:

Hardly anything would give the Republican faithful a bigger boost than the spectacle of Senate Democrats attacking an Air Force general for trying to protect America against terrorism.

Amen. Cap'n Ed's fretting aside, the fact remains that Democrats, like Republicans these days, are their own worst enemies, and GOPers will never hurt themselves by providing their foes with every opportunity to act out their worst base instincts. And the issues on which they are the most politically suicidal still matter more to the American people - and most especially conservatives - than pork-barrel spending, gas prices, and immigration. Though the latter is close.

And yet....well, are you familiar with what, in baseball, is known as the unearned run? This is where a baserunner reaches home due to a fielding error or other means not attributable to the pitcher. That is what a Republican hold (or even, heaven help us, a victory) in November will be - unearned, fueled by one last fusillade of Bush Derangement Syndrome that frightens enough disgruntled Pachyderms into turning out to prevent a Democrat impeachment Götterdämmerung that would cripple the President, embolden our enemies from Damascus to Tehran to the caves of the Afghan-Pakistan border to Beijing to Pyongyang (to Moscow?), and bring about consequences far worse, and more comprehensive, than 9/11. Kind of like 1992 would have been had the Cold War still been raging.

Yes, indeed, unearned. Shall we count the ways, as I have been procrastinating on doing for weeks now out of a general disinclination to focus on the melancholic?

***House GOP appropriators are bitterly resisting emergency-spending reform conservatives persuaded the House leadership to include as part of this year's budget resolution:

The reform would require Congress to set aside, in each year's budget, a "rainy day fund" for emergencies; emergency spending in excess of that fund would have to go to the House Budget Committee for a vote.

The powerful Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee objected to this reform because it would mean sharing emergency-spending power with the Budget Committee. Led by House Appropriations Committee chairman Jerry Lewis, these Republicans informed the House leadership that they would not vote for any budget resolution "that would REQUIRE the Budget Committee to approve non-defense related emergency spending in excess of the amount stated within the Budget Resolution." In other words, they refused to give up their power to spend money off the official books.

Because of their objections, the budget process is now at a standstill.

In still other words, Chairman Lewis and his fellow porkers have abused that power and are holding the budget process hostage against their own leadership's attempts to "ground" them from it.

***The Senate voted last week to divert $1.3 billion from Iraq war funding to pay for new Border Patrol agents, aircraft and some fencing at border crossings widely used by illegal immigrants, as well as provide the Coast Guard with new boats and helicopters.

My first thought was that this had been a Democrat amendment. The political dynamics would make it a no-brainer - with even some Republicans cutting and running to join the "cut & run caucus" (Only in the Beltway could craven quislingism become fashionable), what better way to split the center-right majority than to pit national security against homeland security. Talk about neutralizing the Dems' two biggest weaknesses in one swift, efficient blow.

Then I read a little farther - and.....

As the World's Greatest Deliberative Body takes up the latest supplemental appropriations for the Iraq war - to which, of course, the latest Katrina-labeled porkfest is attached - Senator Judd Gregg [REPUBLICAN, New Hampshire] has apparently offered and obtained an amendment cutting about 3% - about $1.9 billion - from the war funds to pay for more border patrol resources.

Words fail me. But it got worse:

Senator Hillary Clinton, D-NY, said Gregg's cuts would "take money from troop pay, body armor and even joint improvised explosive device defeat fund. Now that is a false choice and it is a wrong choice."

So let's add this up. Senator Gregg did the Donks' job of splitting his own coalition for them, and gave their 2008 presidential standardbearer the bonus opportunity of getting to the GOP's right on national security as well. Quite a full day's RINO work, I must say.

***A prominent senator last week threatened to defund the National Security Agency over its terrorist surveillance program whose legality and constitutionality, confirmed by multiple federal courts, was demonstrated and proven six ways from Sunday since the program was treasonously leaked to the press five months ago.

And once again, it was one of ours - allegedly:

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter said [last] Thursday he is considering legislation to cut off funding for the Bush Administration's secret domestic wiretapping program until he gets satisfactory answers about it from the White House.

"Institutionally, the presidency is walking all over Congress at the moment," Specter, R-PA, told the panel. "If we are to maintain our institutional prerogative, that may be the only way we can do it."

If I may be permitted a lapse into French for a moment: TAUREAUMERDE! It is Snarlin' Arlen who is trying to stomp his legislative number-nines all over the Executive (who got his worthless ass renominated and re-elected not two years ago) with this petulant power grab. Conduct of foreign policy, and particularly war - of which foreign intelligence-gathering is unquestionably a part - is the exclusive purview of the Commander-in-Chief, not five-hundred thirty-five li'l Napoleons (the Capitol Hill Gavel Brigade?). Specter's sense of institutional entitlement is mind-boggling.

As is his sheer obtuseness:

Specter said he had informed President Bush about his intention and that he has attracted several potential co-sponsors. He said he's become increasingly frustrated in trying to elicit information about the program from senior White House officials at several public hearings.

Well, sure, Senator - BECAUSE IT's A SECRET PROGRAM! Rien d'un dieu, like it hasn't been compromised enough already. I wish somebody would ask Specter how many Americans he's willing to see perish in fresh terrorist attacks in order to maintain his "institutional prerogative."

***In response to rising gasoline prices - and to show that they're "on the case" (which in Beltwayese means, "See, we care!"), Senate Republicans trundled out what they dubbed the "Gas Price Relief and Rebate Act of 2006."

Did this legislation advance a free-market energy agenda? Did it provide that half the royalties from offshore drilling in federal areas more than 3 miles at sea go to the states on whose coasts the drilling occurs, with the other half going into a pool to be distributed to the other states to provide a sufficient incentive to overcome unreasoned local opposition to such drilling? Did it open up ANWR and the rest of Alaska to drilling? Did it streamline the process for building new nuclear power plants and oil refineries? Did it shut down the ability of greenstremists to sue in order to stop energy projects across the board?

The answers are no, yes (on ANWR), no, kind of ("incentives" to "encourage" new refinery construction) , and no.

As to the rest of what it proposed (shudder)....

Gas Tax Holiday Rebate: everyone gets a check for $100.

In other words, bribing the public on the cheap to buy into Congress' "populist" demogoguery as a diversion from Congress' own culpability, via runaway environmental legislation and regulation, for constricting our domestic energy supplies. Already emblematic of this turkey, the rebate gimmick has drawn a ton of public ridicule. Besides, depending upon what kind of vehicle you drive, a hundred bucks might only cover your next tank of gas.

Of course, they could simply suspend the federal gas tax directly - as Democrat Bob Menendez suggested - but that would show the public just how badly Congress is gouging them at the pump, far more than "Big Oil" could ever dream of, and they can't be raising our collective consciousness on that.

Consumer Anti-Price Gouging Protection: Authorizes the FTC and others to "bring enforcement actions against any supplier unlawfully inflating the price of gas."

Not only is "price-gouging" a myth, but apparently nobody even has a firm, agreed-upon definition of what it is. Besides, there have been countless such investigations into "price-gouging" and every damn last one of them has come back with the same verdict: the price of gasoline is determined by the laws of supply and demand - in other words, the market. Which, by the by, does not tolerate "price-gouging" by providing this little antidote known as "competition."

Didn't Republicans used to believe in the free market? Or are we "all collectivists now"?

Tax Incentives....

Yay!

....Repeals tax incentives for the oil companies, while expanding tax incentives for hybrid vehicles and increasing refinery capacity....Advanced Energy Initiative: Funds research and development into alternative fuels and "advanced technology vehicles."

Huh? Who do they expect to increase refinery capacity? Mary Kay Cosmetics? And if "alternative fuels" and hybrid vehicles are such a good idea, why do they need to be propped up by federal subsidies?

I'll buy an "advanced technology vehicle" when they start coming with a Mr. Fusion instead of a really long extension cord. Or warp drive.

Fuel economy standards: Authorizes the Secretary of Transportation to impose fuel economy standards.

Oh, joy. Just what we need - more federal energy regulation. Make consumers buy light-weight, unsafe, glorified roller skates they don't want and which "Big Auto" (which is already losing money hand over fist) doesn't want to make. Force people onto boondogglerous mass transit (i.e. socialized transportation). Make American cities look like their Vietnamese counterparts - overrun by bicycles. Didn't we try this nonsense in the halcyon Jimmy Carter days? And isn't that what gave us Ronald Reagan, a Republican who actually did believe in the free market and wasn't ashamed to say so?

As an aside, I have to post this devastating point that Brother Hinderaker quotes from an oil industry exec:

I talked to an oil executive recently who told me that the fact that we can't expand our refining capacity is a scandal in terms of the public interest, but is actually good for the oil companies' profitability. Look at it this way: if the oil companies agreed among themselves not to drill for oil in new locations like ANWR, and not to build new refineries, so as to limit the supply of oil and thereby drive prices higher, it would be illegal; indeed, it would be the greatest price-fixing conspiracy in American history. But it isn't the oil companies that have conspired to limit supply and thereby drive prices higher. It is our government that has foreseeably, if not intentionally, achieved this ignoble end. [emphases added]

Kinda puts a whole new spin on the "Republicans are in the pockets of Big Oil" canard, doesn't it?

***There was some small saving grace this week: Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, "under pressure from business leaders," backed away from raising taxes on "Big Oil" to fund the aforechortled "rebate" scheme. Unfortunately he hasn't backed away from the scheme itself:

Frist said the rebate "will help people who are emptying their wallets at the pump. ... We've got to help those who are feeling pain ... as quickly as possible."

Apparently we're all Bill Clintons now, too.

Jim Geraghty has a sinking idea of where all this idiocy is heading:

If this demagogic wave does not get beat back, then we are doomed to a future of increasingly incoherent and ineffective economic policies. For any major public policy problem, there will often be an easy private sector target. Pharmaceutical companies. Health care plan administrators. Mining companies. Fast-food companies. Tobacco companies. Banks. Financial services companies. Media conglomerates. Wal-Mart.

This is what policy decisions will be in the future if politicians learn that there is no consequence for taking the easy, demagogic path. When a problem comes up, politicians will fall all over themselves to blame the scapegoated industry or company and use the stirred up public outrage as an excuse to seize financial assets through “windfall taxes” or “fairness taxes” or whatever they’ll want to call it. Political debates will be settled by who can shout the loudest and pound the table the hardest.

I have just one rhetorical question to add to J-Ger's prophecy: Wasn't the above precisely what the Republicans ran against, and won big because of, in 1994? And is the fact that the only way the DisLoyal Opposition has managed to stay to the left of the GOP - and thus keep the latter in power despite its ideological and philosophical perfidy - to become an openly boastful gang of thieves, crooks, heathen, demogogoues, extremists, and traitors a blessing to the Republican Party or a curse?

These days, that is becoming the most rhetorical question of all.