Friday, April 30, 2010

I Want To Be In The Minority



Kevin Drum makes the obvious point that, yes, Virginia, being in the House Majority is way more entertaining than being in the Minority. But then he goes here (emphasis mine):
... being in the minority just absolutely sucks. You get nothing. You have no ability to do anything. You're shut out of decisionmaking completely. Your staff is minuscule. Etc. etc. The only way in which it's better than being in the majority is if you just like having the doorman call you "congressman" and literally don't care about the process of lawmaking at all.

This is of course the appropriate time to make the point that the median House Republican's view of the function of government is to deliver tax cuts and deregulation and not much else. But with a Democratic President wielding a veto pen, I have a hard time believing that any bill that Peter King (or Steve King, who I was really thinking of) likes will be enacted into law any time soon. Sure, he can call up hairbrained amendments and make Democrats look bad, but nothing he's in favor of will ever get passed the President's desk. Holding the House when you're the opposition power isn't necessarily a lot of fun. House and Senate Democrats basically let the government run on auto-pilot from 2006-2008, and I suspect Republicans would do the same.

1 comment:

chris said...

Yeah, but you get to write a budget that doesn't fund the EPA or OSHA and if Obama doesn't sign it, then its like a cut to social security and socialised medicine.

If i were crazy and evil, that would sound like fun.