Freedom Line Blog

Like I said last week, the lame duck Congress will be very active:

Confident that Republicans would retain their majority in the House, Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told POLITICO that GOP lawmakers would reject any new taxes on households in the highest income tax bracket.

“We’re not raising taxes on small-business people,” Boehner said. “Our majority is going to get re-elected … We’ll have as much of a mandate as he will — if that happens — to not raise taxes.”

That anti-tax mandate would be shared by the White House if Mitt Romney wins tonight, of course.

H/T: NBC News

Politico: “A House committee’s lawsuit against Attorney General Eric Holder over his refusal to turn over some documents related to the fallout from Operation Fast and Furious will move forward at a faster pace than the parties requested, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.

“The Justice Department moved on Oct. 15 to throw out the lawsuit brought by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and agreed with the House panel that it’s lawyers could have two months to respond to that motion. However, U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected that proposal on Wednesday, saying that the House committee should file its response by Nov. 16.”

The quicker review means that the next step in the Fast and Furious scandal – whether President Obama can be compelled to hand over documents relating to the Mexican gun-running operation – won’t get buried in the last days of the lame duck session.

Good for Judge Berman.  America needs a timely resolution to this issue.

Politico reports that a group of Democratic and Republican senators are “quietly pushing to have a major tax and budget package ready by September so a bill can be introduced immediately after the November elections and passed by Christmas.”

In other words, during a lame duck session.  Only in the U.S. Senate could people seriously think that a multi-trillion dollar deal negotiated in secret and passed by a Congress that no longer reflects the electoral will of the people somehow counts as statesmanship.

This isn’t to say a lame duck Congress should never hold consequential votes.  A terrorist attack, a foreign military invasion, or an asteroid hitting the earth all qualify as legitimate reasons to let retiring and dethroned members decide national policy.  But the fear of falling off a “fiscal cliff” that’s been approaching for years – unsustainable deficits, exploding entitlements, budget sequesters that gut the Defense Department, expiring Bush tax cuts that raise rates on individuals – certainly does not.

It’s been said, rightly, that major reforms need bipartisan support.  But that’s only half of the equation.  Major reforms of the magnitude now being contemplated need to be road-tested on the campaign trail.  The 2012 election is one of the most important electoral moments in the modern era.  If there are good ideas brewing in the Senate, members should establish some consensus and make it part of the public debate.  Otherwise, enjoy the perks of office and let the next Congress, and the next President, decide.

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent for the Washington Examiner, shares her thoughts on the final weeks of the current Congress and what is in store for the 80 new Republicans entering the House.

Listen to the interview here.

As CFIF recently noted, the Democrats in Congress are committed to passing more controversial legislation before their chokehold on the legislative process eases in January.  Reporting from the San Antonio Express-News confirms that members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus are personally lobbying President Barack Obama to put the weight of his slight frame behind a vote on the DREAM Act during the lame duck session.

As noted in the Express-News article, there are 800,000 reasons to do so:

The DREAM Act, or Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act, would require the affected youths to enter the armed forces or attend college for two years, clear a background check and have no criminal records to be eligible for citizenship.

Roughly 800,000 teens and young adults would be eligible, according to immigration rights groups.

With one of those immigration rights groups estimating an annual addition of 65,000 potential beneficiaries under the DREAM Act, the only thing standing in the way of a multi-generational Latino dependency on the Democratic Party is a GOP-led filibuster in the Senate.

Traditionally, presidents facing opposition at home go abroad to find policy and political success.  Basically, if you can’t beat them, play with someone else.  It’s an especially useful move in the latter part of a president’s second term, when lame duck status settles in and speculation about a successor mounts.

Perhaps we’re seeing that now with one-term President Barack Obama.  One thing is missing, however, from the script: a foreign policy success.

So far, the president’s 10 day Asian trip has been a disaster.  It started with a badly handled mis-impression that 34 warships costing $200 million a day were escorting the president to India.  (They weren’t.)  Then his staff was embarrassed by press handlers working for the Indian government.  Now, he’s failing to secure a crucial free trade deal with South Korea while being ostracized at the G-20 meeting for his fiscal and monetary policies.

All this may make him more likely to be defeated in his reelection campaign, but it is a terrible projection of powerlessness to the rest of the world.