To Congress, With Thanks

A lot of people were upset when the GOP-controlled 109th Congress spent all its time (as much as two days a week) debating gay marriage and flag burning amendments when the country was falling apart. What most didn’t realize is that this Congress doing nothing is Congress at its best.

Which is why I feel it’s time for few kind words for the much-maligned GOP “do nothing” Congress. When we look at the record, it is clear we should be thankful they have done so little, because what little they have done has been disastrous.

What is their proudest achievement? Massive tax cuts for the richest one percent of our society. So what does that mean for the rest of us? We pick up the tab. Ultra conservative judicial appointments also assure guns nuts they can shoot up schools and work sites. Nice going, 109th.

This is the only Congress in history that refuses to demand accountability of the Executive branch. (And if ever an Administration needed Congressional oversight, it’s this one). Senate Democrats asked for a committee to investigate war profiteers and the resolution was soundly rejected by every GOP member.

This Congress won’t ask why thousands of our troops are killed or maimed because they lack body armor, yet on behalf of the Religious Right it went into emergency session to save one life, that of poor brain-dead Terri Schaivo, spurred along by Bill Frist’s medical diagnosis based on a videotape.

While not on Abramoff golf outings, this Congress found time to write a prescription drug bill that strictly forbid the federal government from negotiating lower prices for consumers. As more and more Americans were forced into bankruptcy by stagnant wages, rising gas prices and soaring health care costs, the 109th made matters worse by approving a bankruptcy bill that sided with the credit card industry.

Oh year--who can forget their fiscal miscalculations in dealing with Social Security, Medicare Plan D and Hurricane Katrina? Little wonder this Congress has lower public approval ratings than Dick Cheney.

Difficult though it be, pronouncements of individual Congressmen stand out. Such as Arizona’s Rep. J.D. Hayword who introduced legislation for unlimited logging because “forests are a fire hazard.” Or Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe who calls global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people” and says our situation in Iraq “is nothing short of a miracle.”

And who can forget when Sen. Majority Whip Mitch McConnell sponsored a bill seeking $20 million for a party to celebrate American’s victory in Iraq? Perhaps he was still in shock and awe of President Bush landing on the aircraft carrier and looking dashing in his Navy flight jacket as he declared “mission accomplished.” (Not to be outdone were the repeated mutterings of Vice President Cheney that the insurgency “is in its final throes”).

Whatever. This ‘do nothing’ Congress never asked any questions—it just 'stayed the course’ and kept throwing money to Halliburton.

Perhaps the saddest accomplishment of this Congress is the authorization for construction of a wall across much of the U.S. Mexican border. What kind of message does that send to the free world? It’s hardly the one the French government admired so much in the early days of our Republic that it presented us with the Statue of Liberty. Perhaps our new image created by the 109th Congress will inspire a donation from Russia’s Vladimir Putin — something symbolic of the Berlin Wall.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, whose state has a long unfettered border with Canada, said recently “you can be sure that if Congress can build a 12-foot fence, Wal-Mart can build a 14-foot ladder”.

Voters on November 7 will have the last word on the 109th and it is likely to be “goodbye, good riddance.” But were it not for such distractions as FBI probes, corruption scandals and a two-day work week, it could have been a lot worse.