Lawmaker News

Harry Reid has taken the time this year to criticize the prostitution industry in his home state, but he hasn’t taken the time to finish last year’s budget in the Senate.

Talk about trying to change the subject.

Small towns in Nevada, apparently, (those under 400,000) can make whatever calls they want on the legality of cathouses, and many make them legal so that they can balance their municipal budgets.

I don’t think the Senate majority leader has that option at the federal level. You can legalize every hooker from here to Sunday, and that’s not going to balance the budget.

But you also can’t balance the budget if you don’t try. And last year, the Senate didn’t even give the budget a passing glance.

It is often said in Washington that there are really three political parties: the Democrats, the Republicans and the Appropriators.

This saying reflects the reality that those who typically are attracted to the Appropriations or Transportation and Infrastructure committees have a history of being all about bringing home the bacon, and they can be a powerful force against meaningful budget cuts.

Nowhere was this truism more apparent than in the vote on the Blackburn/Jordan amendment in last week’s continuing-resolution fight in the House. For those who missed it, Reps. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) attempted to pare an additional $20 billion from the CR using an across-the-board formula totaling an additional 5.5 percent in real spending cuts.

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the middle-aged “Young Gun” leader of the Republican Party, stepped in it this week when he compared the Wisconsin families protesting Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) drastic and politically motivated attack on their employee benefits to the rioters in the streets of Cairo, Egypt. Appearing on MSNBC’s "Morning Joe" program, Ryan said “he's [Walker is] getting riots — it's like Cairo has moved to Madison these days."

Paul Ryan should apologize. Immediately.

I like John Thune. The South Dakota Republican certainly made a name for himself several years ago by knocking off then-Majority Leader Tom Daschle in what many saw as only the beginning for this tall, handsome senator with a steely demeanor.

But fast-forward a few years since his arrival in Washington, and it’s safe to say Thune has been something of a dud on the national stage. He hasn’t led a legislative initiative of any national importance that I can think of, and we all know there are plenty of issues he could try and make his own.

Much of the anger that fueled the Tea Party rage against Washington was based on the ideas that Congress wasn’t listening and the majority was forcing its agenda on America.

Now, never mind that the agenda set by the majority party over the past two Congresses was originally fueled by massive gains in the 2006 and 2008 elections where Democrats were elected in traditionally conservative districts — a clear and obvious rejection of the policies of the Bush administration that led to the Bush recession and record Bush deficits that we are not likely to eliminate anytime soon.

That original Tea Party movement (if only Democrats were as good at branding and messaging as their GOP counterparts) used the anger at President Bush to sweep Democrats into office to implement the policies that have begun to turn around the Bush recession, rebuilt our financial institutions, saved the American auto industry and opened up access to the same healthcare members of Congress get to more than 30 million Americans.

Leadership. It may be hard to define, but you know it when you see it. And you know it when you don’t.

On Sunday morning’s “Meet the Press,” it was clearly lack of leadership that was on display.

On the hot seat: Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). Who didn’t hesitate to say he accepts President Obama at his word: that he is a Christian and an American citizen, born in America.

But then, like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) on the same show just three weeks ago, Boehner refused to take the next step and criticize those nutball Republicans who show up on Fox almost daily, insisting that Obama is a Muslim. Nor would he condemn those Birthers who don’t believe Obama was born in the United States, and is therefore not a legitimate president.

Earlier this week, the Senate voted to repeal ObamaCare.

The amendment failed, but that is not how either Mitch McConnell or Harry Reid saw it.

McConnell saw it as a victory for his long-term strategy of taking back the Senate. Next year, 23 Democrats are up for reelection, and now McConnell has them on record supporting a law that he thinks is politically toxic.

But Harry Reid also claimed victory. He kept his team unified and stopped the Republican momentum on this big issue.

You win some. You lose some.

Abortion opponent Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), co-sponsor of the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, was in Chicago yesterday to speak to the City Club.

With the news here focused on the horrific, life-threatening “Blizzard of ’11,” Roskam’s remarks haven’t received much notice. They should.

According to a report in the Chicago Tribune, Roskam, the new chief deputy Republican whip, addressed “controversy over a ban on federal funding of abortions, including a new definition of what constitutes rape.” Roskam, who holds the seat once held by anti-abortion stalwart Henry Hyde, explained that House Republicans planned to push for a federal statutory ban on taxpayer funding of abortions. As the Tribune’s Rick Pearson noted, “The definition of rape as an exception entitled to federal funding has been changed to ‘forcible rape.’ ”

We live in a litigious society. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Only in America can a woman order a hot cup of coffee, clumsily spill it on herself, and then turn around and sue the vendor for millions in damages and WIN! It’s ridiculous, and it needs to stop.
 
Such frivolous actions only detract from the real episodes when lawsuits are the only answer — to punish and send a message that the behavior cannot occur again. When we as a society allow the inane to occur, we begin to empty the action of any value and meaning. That helps no one in the long run.

Political insiders are closely following the debate about "earmarks,” with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) making the case for individual projects that create many jobs. There is a lot of hot air and hypocrisy surrounding many who oppose earmarks for others while pushing earmarks for their home states and districts.

Let me suggest a very specific compromise proposal for what are called earmarks.

Members of the House and Senate should be allowed to offer such proposals with one major stipulation. Each proposal should come with a short but detailed employment impact statement, modeled after environmental impact statements. The employment impact statement should detail exactly how many jobs would be created by each proposal, and at what cost.