{"id":14529,"date":"2012-06-07T16:56:03","date_gmt":"2012-06-07T20:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/?p=14529"},"modified":"2012-06-07T16:56:03","modified_gmt":"2012-06-07T20:56:03","slug":"senate-angling-for-lame-duck-deal-on-taxes-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/14529\/senate-angling-for-lame-duck-deal-on-taxes-spending\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate Angling for Lame Duck Deal on Taxes, Spending"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/stories\/0612\/77140.html\" target=\"_blank\">Politico<\/a> reports that a group of Democratic and Republican senators are \u201cquietly 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.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In other words, during a lame duck session.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t to say a lame duck Congress should never hold consequential votes.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But the fear of falling off a \u201cfiscal cliff\u201d that\u2019s been approaching for years \u2013 unsustainable deficits, exploding entitlements, budget sequesters that gut the Defense Department, expiring Bush tax cuts that raise rates on individuals \u2013 certainly does not.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been said, rightly, that major reforms need bipartisan support.\u00a0 But that\u2019s only half of the equation.\u00a0 Major reforms of the magnitude now being contemplated need to be road-tested on the campaign trail.\u00a0 The 2012 election is one of the most important electoral moments in the modern era.\u00a0 If there are good ideas brewing in the Senate, members should establish some consensus and make it part of the public debate.\u00a0 Otherwise, enjoy the perks of office and let the next Congress, and the next President, decide.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politico reports that a group of Democratic and Republican senators are \u201cquietly 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.\u201d In other words, during a lame duck session.\u00a0 Only in the U.S. Senate could people seriously [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[84,2075,61,105,178],"class_list":["post-14529","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-posts","tag-congress","tag-lame-duck","tag-spending","tag-tax","tag-u-s-senate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14529","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14529"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14529\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14535,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14529\/revisions\/14535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cfif.org\/v\/freedom_line_blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}