What to Do When Congress Comes to STOP?

The Democratic Party continues in denial about the election of President Trump.  There is little to say about this that has not already been said.  Nobody believed he could win and when he did, no Democrat believed it could have been legitimate.  Now comes Mueller and his immaculate job of stone-turning and needle-searching with a final verdict that says….well, yes….he did win legitimately. 

For over two years of this President’s term, the Democratic Party has engaged in a Resist movement that was designed to accomplish either all or part of the following: delegitimize his election, remove him from office, impede any leadership efforts he might make, sabotage his legislative agenda, make him unelectable for a second term, and place him in prison.  While failing on most counts, they have been remarkably effective at one collateral impact: they have rendered Congress absolutely and completely dysfunctional. 

Republicans too were shocked at Trump’s victory and many of them are refusing to embrace him as their Party’s leader.  This selective and timid approach to governing led them to a decisive defeat in the mid-term elections and the loss of House leadership.  That event made the Democratic efforts to compromise President Trump exponentially simpler.   We now come to a crossroads for many voters who are registered as Democrats.  Like him or not, President Trump has now been cleared by Mueller and should be considered by his harshest critics as our President.  Does the Democratic Party now pivot from Resist to Debate?  Do they follow their merry band of clownish Presidential candidates into the fantasy land of extreme liberal thought or do they begin to seriously propose reasonable alternatives to Trump and Republican policy initiatives?  Will they run the obvious risk of blind resistance to anything Trumpian for another two years and be exposed for the shallowness and irresponsibility that strategy possesses? 

We are now a government that has lost its way; a system of rule that is riddled with trivialities, futility, and senselessness; a hot mess of spite and malice.  This government needs to find its bearings and quickly.  In order for our nation to continue to be the place we all would like it to be, all three branches of our government need to rediscover their true purpose.  The President must restore dignity, respect, competence, and civility to the Chief Executive’s office.  Whether they accept him or not, he must become a Leader for all Americans.  The Judiciary must return to its role as chief interpreter of law and not the creator of law.  And Congress…Congress must find a way to understand the fruits of majority without destroying the rights of minority.  They have to step up, make hard decisions, and do their job. 

I wailed to the heavens when Obama abused his powers with Executive Privilege.  I continue to wail when Trump does the same.  As sad as it is and reasonable though it may sound, the inability of Congress to do its job is no excuse for the President to bypass or circumvent the Legislative Branch of our government.  A huge part of the blame for this transference of power from Congress to the Executive lies with Congress itself.  Because it has been either unwilling or unable to make the hard decisions, it has abdicated its responsibilities through the legislation that it writes.  Congress has passed too much authority to federal agencies.  Read https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/04/state-legislatures-bureaucrats-administrative-agencies/.   Through its inaction and procedural failures, it has allowed the Presidents, both Democrat and Republican, to usurp its rightful authorities and distort the fashion our government operates in.  The Executive Branch has taken that purloined authority and parceled it out to the various Lords of all the federal agency fiefdoms.  Congress must get its act together or we, as a nation, will be in some treacherous straits.  Here are some areas that will be explosive landmines in the complex nexus that connects our three branches of government; issues that will ultimately filter down into our everyday lives.

Terrorism and FISA.  There is little doubt that domestic terrorism is a real and critical threat to our well being.  It is essential that our intelligence agencies have the tools and resources they need to protect this nation from that threat.  But as for me, I am not convinced that our government has the integrity and sufficient safeguards in place to be trusted with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).  Read this: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/end-of-robert-muellers-investigation-leaves-unfinished-business.  The absurd abuses we have witnessed in FISA relating to the Obama DOJ misbehavior in the Trump/Russia Collusion Confusion should be sufficient warning that government officials, regardless of Party, cannot be relied upon to act in good faith when vested with authority to surveil U.S. citizens.   

Immigration.  I do not like Trump’s use of executive power in addressing the southern border crisis; but I can understand his frustration.  With repeated opportunities to pass good-faith and bipartisan legislation over the past couple of years, the Democrats in Congress have pig-headedly refused to deal.  Something certainly needs to be done and I have no problem with the President using his duly appointed powers to try and solve this problem.  But the real solution to the immigration issue lies with Congress passing broad immigration reform that looks carefully at laws, resources, dreamers, and illegal and legal immigrants.  If we are waiting for the train to wreck in order to fix the railroad, the train just ran off the rails.

Health Care.  Obamacare was a debacle from day one.  It was the ultimate ego trip for Obama and he sacrificed his entire presidential agenda to get it passed.  Now it has been gutted by the Courts, Congress, and the President and the nation is left with a hollowed-out shell of Obamacare.  We now have a mishmash of a health care industry that is driven mainly by corporate greed and government over-regulation.  Forget repeal of Obamacare; just come up with a good, solid health care reform package that recognizes the obvious principles of allowing the free market to offer different plans for different people, varying coverage at multiple pricing levels, provides coverage for people with pre-existing conditions (albeit in consideration of higher premiums), permits selling across state lines to maximize consumer choice, addresses the astronomical pricing of drugs, and permits the health care industry to do what America does best…compete and innovate.  Individuals should be allowed to purchase the level of health insurance they are comfortable with, including none, and then be held accountable for their choice to over-insure or under-insure.

Federal Spending.  This is the single issue that showcases Republican hypocrisy better than any other.  When a Democrat is in the White House, all we hear from Republicans is cut spending, deficits are ballooning, and balance the budget.  When a Republican is in the White House, all we hear are…crickets.  Democrats hardly even waste their breath to put forth any concern about runaway federal spending.  It has never been their priority and it never will be.  But make no mistake about it.  Even if you can print your own money, a day of reckoning will come when spending so far exceeds resources and real production that we will become a bankrupt nation.  You and I will not have to deal with those consequences; but our children and grandchildren will.  I do not advocate for one of these balance the federal budget in ten years fairy tale plans; they are as foolish as the spending habits that spur them.  But we must begin to exert some commonsense control over federal spending and make progress towards bringing our expenditures more in line with our receipts.  The very security of this country is at stake when other global powers hold our debt in their hands; for they will ultimately choose to use that against us.  

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Democrats…it is time to step up.  It’s time to dispense with this self-serving and debilitating Resist nonsense.  We had total Democrat control with Obama and it failed.  We had total Republican control with Trump and it failed.  Like it or not, the two national parties need each other if this government is going to work as the founders intended.  If the Democrats cannot find leaders who can return them to some sense of civic sanity, what are we to expect? Another six years of what we’ve had for the last two?  Can our nation sustain that kind of atrophy?  What will that type of environment do to our social fabric, our global standing, our fiscal stability, and will it lead to the type of country that can prosper and sustain itself?  If Congress continues on its current path of dysfunction, authority will continue to accrue to the Executive and Judicial Branches of our government.  And that will be to the detriment of our nation.   America does not need a King, be they Democrat or Republican.  Nature, and civics, abhors a vacuum.  If Congress won’t do its job; somebody else will.