9/21/2023 0 Comments Un resolution lame duck periodDonald Trump spent months declaring that a COVID-19 vaccine was imminent, a gambit that failed to pressure the FDA into an approval before Election Day but did succeed, nevertheless, in eroding the American public’s confidence in a vaccine. Call me naive, but I can’t believe anyone would be that dishonorable.In the end, there was no October surprise. The Democrats could, of course, make the pledge today and break it tomorrow. Every current member should be publicly asked: In the event you lose in November - a remote and deeply deplorable eventuality, but still not inconceivable - do you pledge to adhere to the will of the electorate and, in any lame-duck session of Congress, refuse to approve anything but the most routine legislation required to keep the government functioning? How then to prevent a runaway lame-duck Congress? Bring the issue up now - applying the check-and-balance of the people’s will before it disappears the morning after Election Day. It didn’t stop them from pushing through a health-care reform the public didn’t want by means of “reconciliation” maneuvers and without a single Republican vote in either chamber - something unprecedented in American history for a reform of such scope and magnitude. Perhaps shame will constrain the Democrats. To pass in a lame-duck session major legislation so unpopular that Democrats had no chance of passing it in regular session - after major Democratic losses signifying a withdrawal of the mandate implicitly granted in 2008 - would be an egregious violation of elementary democratic norms. The only thing holding the Democrats back would be shame, a Washington commodity in chronically short supply. And carbon taxes would be the newest version of the cap-and-trade legislation that has repeatedly failed to pass the current Congress - but enough dead men walking in a lame-duck session might switch and vote to put it over the top. Major tax hikes, possibly including a value-added tax, will undoubtedly be included in the recommendations of the president’s debt commission, which conveniently reports by Dec. Among the major items being considered are card check, budget-balancing through major tax hikes, and climate-change legislation involving heavy carbon taxes and regulation.Ĭard check, which effectively abolishes the secret ballot in the workplace, is the fondest wish of a union movement to which Obama is highly beholden. Jay Rockefeller, Kent Conrad and Tom Harkin are already looking forward to what they might get passed in a lame-duck session. And playing along with Obama might even brighten the prospects for, say, an ambassadorship to a sunny Caribbean isle.Īs John Fund reports in The Wall Street Journal, Sens. They could then vote for anything - including measures they today shun as the midterms approach and their seats are threatened - because they would have nothing to lose. Except for the fact that a lame-duck session, freezing in place the lopsided Democratic majorities of November 2008, would be populated by dozens of Democratic members who had lost re-election (in addition to those retiring). Article contentīut assuming the elections go as currently projected, Obama’s follow-on reforms are dead. This advertisement has not loaded yet, but your article continues below.
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