Congress is Finally Making Tough Choices
Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill said that "democracy was the worst form of government except for all the others that have been tried." It's true that democracy is often times messy and full of unexpected turns.
This past week, the House debated the continuing resolution to fund our government. It is necessary because the leadership of the last Congress did not pass a budget. We must pass this bill before March 4thto avoid a government shutdown.
The new Speaker of the House brought to the floor a bill to reduce spending by $100 billion. Then he did something that we have not seen in Washington in recent times. He allowed any member of any party to offer as many changes to the bill as they would like. Over 500 amendments were offered to reduce spending further or move money from one program to another.
The result was that for the first time in years, Congress actually debated what the priorities were for funding our government. There were amendments to reduce spending in nearly every area of government. Some passed; some did not. Some I agreed with; some I did not.
Many of the pundits said that the process was messy. Indeed, Congress was forced to stay in session late into the night, every night, in order to hear all of the amendments.
In the end, the House voted to reduce spending by more than $100 billion. It may be messy, but it is high time that lawmakers started making tough choices.
Sincerely,
