Giorgio: The Republican Do Nothing Congress

Wednesday, August 06, 2014

Paul Giorgio, GoLocalWorcester MINDSETTER™

House Speaker John Boehner

Congress shut down last week to go on their annual 5 week summer vacation, which they call listening sessions. I really don’t know what they are vacationing from, except the swamp-like heat of Washington, D.C. They are certainly not taking a vacation from work, since they haven’t done anything this session.

In 1948, President Harry Truman ran for reelection against the “Do nothing Congress”. That Congress passed 900 bills. The current Congress has passed just 143 laws. Most of these laws mean nothing-the naming of a Post Office here or there, the honoring of somebody, etc. In an NBC Poll released on Sunday 74 % of those surveyed thought that the Congress was unproductive. It is.

This inability to get any work done- such as immigration reform- is not a partisan fight between Democrats and Republicans. It is an intra-party squabble among Republicans. Speaker John Boehner just does not have the ability to lead the fractured Republican Party in the House of Representatives. This is a fight between the right, the far right and the way over the edge right. Speaker Boehner once remarked that a leader with no followers is just a man out for a walk. Boehner has been doing a great deal of walking lately.

Boehner has ceded his leadership

Unfortunately for America, Boehner has ceded his leadership to o others such as Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who once again hijacked House Republicans, this time on the recent Immigration debate.

Everyone agrees that we have a problem on our southern border. President Obama proposed a solution which would have cost billions of dollars. Money would have gone to securing the borders, new immigration law judges to deal with the children now here, and money to house them and feed them until their status could be determined.

What happened to the bill in the House was bizarre to say the least. After the warring factions of the GOP got through with the bill, it was stripped down to about $500 million. This amount is not adequate to do anything.

The Republicans who sued President Obama for using executive action earlier in the week then suggested that he use executive action to solve the problem. Most legal scholars believe that the President does have broad powers that he could use dealing with the influx of unaccompanied children into our country.

Obama has broad powers

For example, the President could delay deportation, but could not grant legal status. He could also have them issued work permits, so that they could work and pay taxes. The President could expand the program known as “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals”. This would effectively bar deportation until every child is afforded due process and has a hearing. The President cannot unilaterally grant them asylum or permeant resident status.

We need to solve this problem now. We need to secure the borders, but we also need to care for those children that have literally walked thousands of miles to escape brutality and murder. I was able to watch some of the Congressional hearings on this subject last week. The stories that were told were chilling. They were stories of murder, rape, and forced slavery. They were stories of children, as young as seven, forced to join gangs. They were stories of whole families slaughtered.

The conditions in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala are well documented. The large majority of these unaccompanied children are not making the journey, so they can get welfare benefits. No, they are making the trek because they are scared to death of staying home.

Congress needs to act. We need comprehensive immigration reform now. The President should call Congress back into session and keep them in until they get something done.

Learn from Truman

This Congress has gone way beyond Harry Truman’s Do Nothing Congress of 1946-1948. This Congress makes that Congress look like work aholics. The Republicans need to remember that President Truman ran against that Congress. No one gave him a shot at winning. But win he did. The Democrats may want to take a lesson from Harry Truman. Speaker Boehner and the Republicans may want to take a warning.

Paul Giorgio is a longtime Democratic Party Activist who has worked on numerous campaigns. He was a Lead Advance Person for President Clinton & Vice President Gore. He was Deputy Director of Special Events for President Clinton’s first Inauguration. He has been elected a delegate to numerous Democratic National Conventions and recently served as one of President Obama’s representatives on the Platform Committee. In 2013 he was chosen as a Presidential Elector. He is the President of Pagio, Inc., publishers of Pulse Magazine, Vitality Magazine and Worcester Medicine.