Once Labor Day is over and Congress is reconvened, the president is going to unleash an ambitious economic program aimed at reducing unemployment. We don’t know what the details will be, yet, by Congress is going to have to react to it and take some kind of action. However, the Republican leadership of the House has already mapped out their agenda for the fall, and it’s filled with nothing but anti-labor and anti-environmental legislation that will never pass the Senate or escape the president’s veto-pen even if it did.
House Republicans are planning votes for almost every week this fall in an effort to repeal environmental and labor requirements on business that they say have hampered job growth.
With everyone from President Obama to his Republican challengers in the 2012 campaign focusing on ways to spur economic growth, House Republicans will roll out plans Monday to fight regulations from the National Labor Relations Board, pollution rules handed down by the Environmental Protection Agency and regulations that affect health plans for small businesses. In addition, the lawmakers plan to urge a 20 percent tax deduction for small businesses.
I don’t know how stupid the Republicans think the American people are, but no one reasonably expects a Democratic Senate or a Democratic administration to buy into a jobs program based on weakening unions and poisoning the environment. It’s more bad faith time-wasting, and it’s precisely why this is the most unpopular Congress in living memory.
The Republicans need to stop fostering the delusion among their base that owning the House means that you get to pass your agenda. It gives you a seat at the table, not an excuse to do absolutely nothing but pose and posture. There are some things that both sides should be able to agree to, including some compromises on orthodoxy, to create some damn jobs. Wasting weeks of debate on bills that are going nowhere and accomplishing nothing is going to push Congressional approval levels below ten percent.
