Post

A Congressional Group Hug

I just got back from a holiday vacation, one where I tried to think about Congress not at all. It pretty much worked.

But then I come back to the office to hear everyone and their brother talking about an “economic stimulus” package to jump start our allegedly ailing economy — I’m still convinced the media drums this stuff up when there’s nothing else to cover. Apparently, the congressional folks went home over the holidays and got an earful, and are back, loaded for bear. It is, after all, an election year.

The best part of this new zeal was the bipartisan, bicameral leadership press conference where House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV), along with their respective lieutenants, stood shoulder to shoulder with House Minority Leader John Boehner (R, OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY), and talked abou a fast-track bipartisan economic stimulus package that Congress would pass lickedy split.

Now, once you got past the expressions on the respective party leaders’ faces — that face you make when you smell something funny — the press gaggle was surprisingly short on details and long on “commitment.”

Pelosi said she wouldn’t share specific items because the gang was meeting with the President this week. The number two House Democrat, Steny Hoyer (D, MD), went so far as to say the bipartisanship was so strong, the commitment so deep, the need so great, that Congress will pass the stimulus package and put it on the President’s desk within 30 days!

When asked, Boehner wouldn’t comment on the Hoyer prediction. McConnell was remarkably quiet, but then he’ the guy who tied the Senate Farm Bill debate up in knots for well over 30 days.

The President followed with his own cry to rally the congressional troops to make sure the economy doesn’t slow down. His call was a singular message — “it’s an economic stimulus package, not a taxpayer hand-out package.”

Having said that, various committee chairs and ranking members on the Hill have been conferring with each other, the Administration and others on what taxpayer gifties such a stimulus package should include. So far, it’s a foregone conclusion there will be a tax rebate, similar to that in 2001, but it’s a pretty safe bet the Ds will want to target the “middle class,” while the Rs will want to hand out money universally. And the President’s tax cuts, set to expire in 2010, will come up whether Mr. Bush makes them a priority or not.

So now the hard part begins, namely reconciling the respective priorities of the two parties, and getting the President to buy off on the package. Just one question: When does tha 30-day clock begin?

***

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi quietly shifted the food service contract on the House side to a new “green,” and terribly politically correct food provider. No longer is it Starbucks and burgers in the various House cafeterias, but now it’s “fair trade” coffee, with part of the proceeds going to ensure kids in coffee-growing countries have shoes and get an education. It’s also eggs from free range chickens, and milk from cows never shot up with BST. Everything is recyclable, compostable or reuseable.

Not everyone is thrilled with the San Francisco-ization of the House food service. Minority Leader John Boehner said he misses the old food, and a number of members have taken Pelosi to task for the political correctness of the menu and the products being sold. Ag groups aren’t happy because most of the products being sold are claimed to be safer, healthier, etc., and there’s not one scintilla of evidence to prove any of the claims. The claims also track a lot of animal rights and consumer group rhetoric and political agendas.

And everything costs more — as you might expect. Not good news for House staffers, who earn on average about $25,000 a year.

Doesn’t Congress have better things to do?

Oh, and the “fair trade” coffee stinks.