So, Joe Lieberman is feeling newly liberated now that he has announced his retirement. He doesn’t need to raise any money. He doesn’t have to worry about angering the base of the Democratic Party. And so he has an idea. Why don’t all the senators who are retiring get together to make their own bucket list. A bucket list is a list of all things you’d like to do before you die (i.e., kick the bucket). The idea is that if you get a terminal diagnosis, you should make up a bucket list and try to complete as many items as you can in the limited time that you have.
In senatorial terms, this is metaphorical. It’s not your life that is ending, but your career as a U.S. Senator. I thought that it actually wasn’t a terrible idea for a bipartisan bloc of retiring senators to get together and work on some dream list of legislation that ordinarily can’t get passed because it is too contentious. But the only thing these retiring senators want to do is attack entitlements and balance the budget.
Now, I’d be willing to listen to any proposals to fix our structural debt and bring our deficits into line, but I was thinking that maybe these senators might actually have something more personal or idiosyncratic in mind. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to any creative vision, even after decades of serving in Washington. That’s probably why they’re retiring in the first place. They’re used up. They’re compromised. They’re like the caged bird who doesn’t fly the coop even when you leave the door open. They are now liberated from the time-consuming and humiliating requirements of fundraising, but they still have no idea how to do something meaningful and good for the country.
So, in their honor, let’s make our own legislation bucket list. To get us started, how about comprehensive prison reform, decriminalization of marijuana, and real elections reform?
You can be as vague or detailed as you want. If you were a senator for eight months, what would you try to accomplish?
