Congressional Hijinks

Will we continue to ignore this? The newspapers are fired up.

Des Moines Register has this.

President Ronald Reagan was so appalled after being presented with a 1,200-page omnibus appropriations bill that he used the occasion of his 1988 State of the Union address to warn Congress to never send him a bill like that again. He vowed to veto any such bill.

The warning didn't take. Congress has sunk into the habit of passing omnibus bills that wrap practically an entire year's worth of legislation into one package. The latest is a 1,600-page monster that, with the explanatory verbiage, runs to 3,500 pages and weighs 14 pounds.

The very existence of such a bill is an admission by Congress that it is incapable of performing even its most basic duty in an orderly manner. All of the 13 regular appropriations bills should have been passed by Sept. 30 - not delayed nearly two months and then lumped all together and jammed through without close inspection.

Chicago Sun-Times weighs in.

Bad things, very bad things, can happen when federal legislators don't pay attention. A case in point is the 3,000-page omnibus budget bill -- hurriedly passed in the wee hours last week. In it there was a clause allowing congressional chairmen and their staffs to peruse Americans' tax returns. With no thought about privacy rights. It was only dumb luck that one Democratic staffer even noticed it.

Even then no one was willing to accept responsibility for this dark intrusion into individual privacy. "No earthly idea how that got in there," said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. C'mon, Sen. Frist. The ability to snoop into our income tax returns became part of the budget bill because you and other lawmakers didn't carefully read the legislation that came across your desks. OK, you've tried to right things by declaring this slippery little clause void, but even as you protest innocence, the point is that someone stuck it in there in the first place.

It's no secret -- but still a scandal -- that lazy legislators in Washington pass important bills without reading them. This spending bill is a case in point. So was the Patriot Act. Yes, the Patriot Act, a law that has a significant impact on the civil rights of every single person, and there are lawmakers of both parties who voted for it without bothering to read it.

And the Trib shows the trends.

Good news: Discretionary spending excluding defense and homeland security will increase by just 1 percent. When inflation and a 3.5 percent raise given federal workers are factored in, spending at many federal agencies actually will decline. President Bush wanted Congress to spend less, and lawmakers complied.

That's a relief, because the president and Congress had previously collaborated to produce some of the biggest increases in discretionary spending in recent history: 10.3 percent in 2002, 9.7 percent in 2003 and 8.3 percent in 2004.

Bad news: Congress still can't help itself. The bill made room for members to insert thousands of pet projects, many of them unnecessary, even frivolous. Bringing the pork home is a time-honored tradition that unfortunately remains exempt from the austerity drive.

More bad news. Though Congress got tighter with discretionary spending, such spending is a shrinking piece of the federal budget. The $388.4 billion is less than one-sixth of the $2.4 trillion the government will spend in the next year.

Congressional powers increase when public opinion rests firmly behind Congress in opposition to autocratic behavior by the President - such as with Clinton in 1994. Presidential powers increase when public opinion resides firmly behind the President in opposition to an arrogant unchecked Congress - such as with President Reagan.

It seems with Bush's new legitimacy and popular vote gains - coupled with Congress unwilling to govern itself - the time will be ripe for the LIV (line item veto). It can now be couched as the President coming to the aid of the people. "Congress is wasting money" and "the President has been forced to take action."

The corruption of Congress - predominantly caused by underpaid but well-accessed staffers influenced by overpaid access-needing lobbyists - is making the LIV a real possibility. And it's actually a staggering display of Congressional failure to police and fulfill its constitutional responsiblity. If the LIV goes through it will effectively transfer a major legislative function to the Executive, and thereby absolve Congress from ever learning its lesson. Bills would be passed encumbered and devoid of scrutiny, and the President would be effectively crafting legislation with selective cuts.

It would be the admission that Congress cannot be trusted to regulate the legislative process and must ask the Executive branch to do that part of its job.

It would, however, dramatically short-circuit the lobbyist influence in Congress because within a very short time all real legislative efficacy would actually be held within the Executive. It would truly be the first step (or perhaps last) in the creation of an American Caesar, whereby the uniquely tribunician power to legislate became embodied in the princeps - later Emperor - despite the fact that the Octavian abdicated the tribune title .

But - it can be truly said that the growing popularity of the LIV is a reaction to a lack of reasonable Congressional behavior. If we do get a Caesar, it will be on the tide of public disdain for an irresponsible Congress.