Today, We Found Ourselves Back in The Ways and Means Committee Room

Statement

Today, we found ourselves back in the Ways and Means Committee Room for a day's worth of rule setting within the Republican Conference. While there were a host of different amendments that would go with the Rules package that will be voted on in final form in the New Year, there were three that I think really stood out.

One would be the failure of an amendment offered by Congressman Gary Palmer. He had proposed ending the consideration of suspension votes if the cost exceeds $500 million. What that means in plain English is this: suspension votes are viewed as non-controversial; they go through an expedited process in getting to the floor and generally are viewed as not costing much. To suggest that $499 million is not much would have been more than generous on Palmer's part, but the Conference ultimately decided that they could come to agreement on any amount. I was in the losing side of that vote because I think there needs to be a financial limit. To leave an unlimited threshold on suspension votes is a real mistake.

The second amendment that I think really mattered was Rob Bishop's. It would force the Congressional Budget Office to stop counting land transfers from the federal level to the states as as a cost to the federal government. Again, what this means in English is that the federal government could transfer federal lands to state or local governments and presume the federal government was not losing anything. This strikes me as crazy. When I spoke on this amendment, I made the point that it just defies common sense that you could be twenty trillion dollars in debt and be giving away assets without any financial consideration. I ran into the same problem when I was governor in the handing off of armories, and if nothing else, this is simply an accounting problem that will overstate the cost of federal government and understates the cost of state and local governments.

Finally, we had a really robust debate on the issue of bringing back earmarks. There were two different amendments on this front, one by Rooney of Florida and one by Culberson of Texas. It looked like the ban on earmarks was going to be lifted, until the Speaker stood up and said "Wait a minute, we can't do this. We can't have an election that's about draining the swamp and then bring back earmarks in a non-transparent way." What he pledged was a process to address this issue that would end in the first quarter. It would be open, it would be public, and it would ultimately be about this important debate on Article I powers and Congress' ability to exercise its authority. I think that one of the important things to think about in this debate is the separation of powers that the Founding Fathers intended to exist and the checks and balances created by that separation. The authorizers don't appropriate funding. Congress declares war, but it's only the executive that administers it; the executive branch appoints judges, but the Senate confirms them; and Congress passes the laws, but the president is to only administer them. There has been bracket creep and erosion of the lines that the Founding Fathers drew...and it is indeed time to redraw lines of responsibility here. It will be an important debate that will need to balance taking power and authority back from the executive branch….and the tendency for Congress to abuse its own authority here.

More debates ahead, but this is part of what happened today….

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