Congress is back, although we can’t quite say that we missed our “favorite” lawmakers. Now that the leaves are turning brown and there’s pumpkin spiced-everything all-around, our elected officials are back to their usual, partisan bickering. Senate Republicans returned from recess with a $500 billion “skinny” coronavirus relief bill, but that measure got promptly voted down for not churning enough red ink.
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Congress is back, although we can’t quite say that we missed our “favorite” lawmakers. Now that the leaves are turning brown and there’s pumpkin spiced-everything all-around, our elected officials are back to their usual, partisan bickering. Senate Republicans returned from recess with a $500 billion “skinny” coronavirus relief bill, but that measure got promptly voted down for not churning enough red ink.
At the very least, there seems to be a (tentative) bipartisan understanding that core agency funding (via continued resolution) and stimulus spending should be kept separate from one another. But all restraint may go out the window once lawmakers become lame ducks after the 2020 election and spend freely without an iota of democratic accountability. By approving spending through the start of 2021, Congress can stop these outvoted and retiring lawmakers from passing bad policy and dragging taxpayers even deeper into debt. And, a CR that runs into 2021 means that Congress won’t try to pass a bloated spending bill right before the holidays.
Even before the coronavirus pandemic, America had a significant debt problem. And after a 6-month, $4 trillion spending binge, America owes nearly $27 trillion to her creditors. That astronomical sum amounts to more than $200,000 for every American household. If lawmakers continue to embrace short-term spending “solutions,” this problem may get significantly worse by the end of the year.
After every midterm election, lawmakers inevitably get voted out or decide that it’s time to leave the hallowed profession for good. Devoid of any sort of accountability, these lame-duck Congresses embrace all sorts of spending shenanigans. After the midterm elections concluded in 2010, lawmakers wasted no time putting together a $1.2 trillion spending bill laden with more than 6,000 earmarks totaling $8 billion. An outraged Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., lamented, “The American people said just 42 days ago, ‘Enough!’ ... Are we tone deaf? Are we stricken with amnesia?” And with shameless inclusions such as $349,000 for swine waste management in North Carolina, the late, great senator may have been onto something.