George Rebane

[This is the transcript of my regular KVMR commentary broadcast on 9 November 2012.]

The election is over, President Obama won, and it’s too early to tell what will come out of the new Congress that gets sworn in with the President this coming January.  I was going to do a real interesting piece on the reported clinical differences between the people of the Right and Left persuasions; you know, dealing with questions like ‘Does your biology influence your vote?’  But then it struck me that a more immediate concern in the coming weeks will be what our so-called lame duck Congress is capable of doing before the year is out.

Most people understand that a ‘lame duck’ Congress is the one that knows the results of the November election, still has seated members who have been voted out of office for the following term, and still has the full powers of a sitting Congress that is capable of a lot of mischief before the next Congress is seated.   Historically, much of what lame ducks ‘accomplish’ has depended on who was still in the White House.  The lame duck session is only for a month or so because Congress recesses for Christmas, and the new Congress is sworn in January. 

Today’s lame duck will have some pretty weighty decisions to make, or kick down the road and let the country take the consequences.  But what usually happens now is a surge of pre-planned midnight legislation during these four weeks.  The problem with such legislation is fourfold –

Lame duck surges occur regardless of election outcome, but they are a lot bigger when there is a change in party control.  The outgoing party usually pushes through about 20-25% more legal and regulatory volume during the surge than during normal operating periods when they are not lame.

Second, the laws passed are subject to a much lower quality of analysis in the rush, and therefore generally produce poorer legislation than when there is no such press of time.

Then, the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs or OIRA is supposed to review all legislation to see that it dovetails with what is already law and being regulated by the various government agencies.  During the lame duck session OIRA is hampered in its duties, and the result contributes to the regulatory muddle that we find ourselves in.  But not to worry, the resulting mess is a full employment provision for government lawyers, who will gladly litigate and sort it all out over the coming years at our expense.

Finally, as with all the usual effluent from Congress, lame duck legislation is no easier to repeal than that passed during any other time.  So there you have it, the lay of the legislative land on which our political midnight marauders will seek to work their hidden agendas during these short weeks.  And this year the list of stuff that needs to be done is daunting.

First and foremost is the impending Taxmageddon slated to kick in after New Year.  This is the largest tax increase in the country’s history that, if allowed to stand, will make Depression2 a certainty.

Then we have the infamous sequestration of spending that is cut overwhelmingly from our defense department.  Going ahead with those cuts will see us relinquish our role as the global sheriff, which has provided worldwide stability since WW2, and convinced two communist superpowers to stand down and make a go of it through trade and commerce, instead of mutually assured destruction.

Then the so-called ‘Alternative Minimum Tax patch’ needs to be passed so that 27 million more Americans don’t get swept up by this perverse automatic tax increase that was another law gone wrong decades ago.

Add to that a new regulatory surge that is loaded, cocked, and ready to go off in January.  This includes loads of business stifling rules and fees, which the current administration is using its bureaucracy to end-run Congress as America continues its fundamental transformation.

The list is actually a lot longer, but we’ll have to stop here and hope that everyone gets the idea about what will be going on behind the curtain in Washington.  What actually will come out of that sausage factory, no one knows.  All we can say now is ‘beware the lame duck at midnight’.

My name is Rebane, and I expand on this and related themes in my Union columns and on georgerebane.com where the linked transcript of this commentary is posted, and where such issues are debated extensively.  However these views are not necessarily shared by KVMR.  Thank you for listening.