Congress To Finish Destroying Country During Lame Duck Session

Yeah, we were there for "LAME DUCK '10." Time of our lives, man, time of our lives. The gays got their military, the U.S. and Russia decided not to nuke each other for another few years, some nutrition or FDA dongle was passed -- it was a lot of congressional activity! (Also too, there was that gross tax cut deal, but nevermind that.) What mediocre mixture will we get out of this year's lame-duck session? How about long overdue ANNIHILATION OF THE REPUBLIC! Because they're planning on doing the Bush tax cutsandthe debt ceiling, then. And let's not forget some solution to the previous debt ceiling deal's major cuts to everything, forever, that are already in the pipeline lest a compromise can be found. Can Congress please just admit that it's not capable of solving all (or any) of this in the lame duck and hand it off to Hitler already, like the Germans did in the 30s? At least that guy could make decisions.

It is unusual to have the Bush tax cuts and the $1.2 trillion in across-the-board cuts and the breaching of the debt ceiling all come into play in the lame-duck session just after presidential and congressional elections, but that's the legacy of our 112th Congress for you. John Boehner introduced bits of his plan to "tackle" all of these most important issues in a speech today at the rich guy who wants to destroy Social Security's forum:

In addition to teeing up another debt limit fight for the lame duck session of Congress later this year, by demanding dollar-for-dollar budget cuts in exchange for new borrowing authority, House Speaker John Boehner also insists that regardless of the election outcome, Republicans will reject higher taxes on wealthy Americans in that fight.

And to build leverage for the GOP position, he announced Tuesday that House Republicans will pass legislation before the election to extend the Bush tax cuts indefinitely.

“What also doesn’t count as ‘cuts and reforms’ are tax increases,” Boehner will say before the annual Pete Peterson Fiscal Summit in Washington, DC, according to prepared remarks. “Any sudden tax hike would hurt our economy, so this fall - before the election - the House of Representatives will vote to stop the largest tax increase in American history.”

Well, any votes "before the election" won't matter except as political posturing (which is allowed!), so that leaves it to the lame duck. The informal rules of etiquette would tell the 112th Congress to extend all deadlines a few months so as to let the next president and Congress deal with them, but -- here's a secret -- there are no informal rules of etiquette anymore! So instead we will see INSANITY on Christmas Day and New Year's Eve when we cannot pay attention, which is the only good part of this.

[ TPM ]