Trump wants jobs, and Congress could help, but if all he’s got is a phone and a pen, he can do a lot. Consumer confidence just rocketed to a 16 year high, more people are entering the work force, and the failure of Ryancare hasn’t tanked the stock market. Economists know there’s a psychological component of economic growth, but there’s no way to quantify it exactly. But Trump’s election has given people hope, and it’s contagious.
Congress has become little more than an assembly of 535 political entrepreneurs, each looking out for themselves. There’s no way to discipline them, and they have no loyalty or allegiance to anything but self interest. There are exceptions, but the bulk of them are time servers and egomaniacs. They’d rather have excuses than votes that upset anyone.
The House Freedom Caucus has pissed a lot of people off, so they may be on to something. Rather than pass legislation designed to appease the squishes in the Republican Party, maybe it’s better to pass nothing at all, and let Trump govern as Obama did, without Congress. I don’t think Trump needs to do much. He just needs to undo a lot of things, and he’ll see results. He can kick the can down the road to October, then cram everything he really needs into the Monster Reconciliation of 2017, and round up 51 votes in the Senate and 218 in the House. They either vote “yes” or shut down the government, default on the debt, and send the economy into a recession. Regular order is dead, because Congress as an institution is dysfunctional.
A disappointing non-vote in the Tennessee House State Government Committee today, so the location of September’s BBA Planning Convention will not be determined until next week’s hearing. My understanding is that one of our votes in Committee had to leave, and since we were at the bottom of the calendar we were put off for a week. But this Convention will be held. In some things what’s important is not what happens, but that it happened at all. When the Chair of the first Convention of States since 1861 gavels the meeting to order, it will in one sense be mission accomplished. Everything after that is gravy.
reaganproject.com 