US Politics: Why This "Lame Duck" Congress is So Important

EA's US Politics correspondent Lee Haddigan returns from a post-election break with this analysis:

It is hard to fault Americans’ civic engagement with their political process. If they hold a political viewpoint, it is a near-certainty there will be a website to explain it, and almost as certain that a rally will be held in Washington to publicise that opinion.

So this Monday, as Congress meets in the quaintly-named ‘"lame duck session" --- the period between an election and the inauguration of the newly-elected members to the legislature --- Americans will gather at Capitol Hill to attend the "Rally to Stop the Lame Duck".

The November Speaks website promoting the Rally is run by Americans for Prosperity, one of the shadowy organizations criticised by President Obama during the 2010 campaign for influencing public opinion without revealing the name of its donors. It states, “We must keep the pressure on to ensure Congress does not pass radical legislation such as Cap-and-Trade [environmental measures], Card Check [union legislation], or tax hikes during the lame duck session.”

It is a message sure to receive attention in Washington  because this will be an early indicator of the extent of the “no compromise” attitude that Republicans will assume for the next two years. The keynote speakers are the two champions of the Tea Party in the House of Representatives, Michele Bachmann (Minnesota) and Mike Pence (Indiana). Even though the Tea Party eschews a formal leadership structure, Pence and Bachmann will become the spokesman and spokeswoman of the limited government philosophy in Congress. Newly elected Tea Party senators like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio may have higher profile job titles, but nowhere near the political pull of their two colleagues in the lower house.

But let’s take a step back. What is the lame duck session? And why is it so important that a rally has been organized to oppose certain actions it might take?

On Monday the Representatives and Senators who were defeated in the elections, or are leaving office for other reasons, will still be members of Congress with full legislative responsibility. So, even though Republicans regained control of the House on 2 November, for a short while Democrats will keep their majority. Those Democrats who are departing in January can attempt to pass controversial (or "radical", according to the November Speaker website) legislation without having the mandate of their electorate. 

"Lame duck" does not mean that this session of Congress is powerless. The term refers to the traditional British designation of a broker on the London Stock Exchange who could not pay his debts and was thus defenseless against financial aggression from fellow brokers, much like a lame duck is unable to defend itself. Somehow during the 19^th century, it became associated with the Congress that met after the Presidential election and before the inauguration on 4 March of the following year. The 20^th Amendment of 1933 shortened the period between elections and the seating of the new Congress to 3 January, but the rather incongruous lame duck reference remained in use.

Incongruous because this lame duck session will see some weighty issues decided or, if no compromise is possible, left undecided for the new Congress in January to handle. If that happens, Congress will open for its first meeting against the background of an intensely partisan atmosphere; for the two most important matters for this lame duck Congress to resolve will affect the financial future of every individual American.

In January of 2001 and 2003 a Republican-controlled Congress, under the Presidency of George W. Bush, enacted a series of tax cuts. These reductions, if they are not extended by the lame duck Congress, will expire and tax rates will return on 1 January 2011 to their original levels. For example, the lowest rate of personal income tax will rise to 15% from the current 10% if the tax relief extension is not approved. The highest personal rate will rise from 35% to 39.6%. Alongside these new income tax rates various other tax increases, including a dividends tax rise from 15% this year to 39.6% in 2011, will also take place.

Both the Democrat and Republican leadership have declared that they want to extend the tax cuts that affect lower- and middle-class tax payers. However, Democrats, under pressure from their progressive wing, are not so keen on extending the cuts on incomes above $250,000 a year. Republicans have countered that the cuts should apply to all, arguing the standard trickle-down theory that increasing taxes on the rich will stop them from consuming products whose manufacture ensure employment for fellow Americans.

The basic options before the lame duck Congress are:

a)     Extending the tax cuts for everyone, at least temporarily

b)     Making a new higher income tax rate of, say, $1 million where the cuts do not apply

c)     Doing nothing and letting the tax cuts expire

Neither party wants option c) to occur, but if no compromise is reached it is what will happen. The tone set by this lame-duck session will be inherited by the new Congress. And, most importantly, if no agreement is reached, many Americans will see an immediate impact on their paychecks.

A decrease in federal government spending, another central demand of the Tea Party, will also need to be addressed in the lame duck session. When Congress adjourned at the end of September, no budget for the coming fiscal year –-- which runs from 1 October 2010 to 30 September 2011 –-- had been set. Presently, government services are being funded through a continuing resolution which runs out on 3 December. This will probably be extended until the next Congress convenes in January, but the likelihood is that Democrats will at least try and increase appropriation spending while they still control the House.

What is at stake in the appropriation debate? Social security benefits, Medicaid, and Medicare are not affected. These are non-discretionary programs, accounting for roughly two-thirds of government spending which receive their funding automatically once their existence has been authorized by Congress. Each fiscal year, however, 12 separate appropriation bills must be passed for the financing of discretionary government spending. They fund:

·     Agriculture

·     Commerce, Justice and Science

·     Defense

·     Energy and Water

·     Financial Services

·     Homeland Security

·     Interior and Environment

·     Labor, Health and Education

·     Legislative Branch

·     Military Construction and Veterans Affairs

·     State and Foreign Operations

·     Transportation, Housing and Urban Development

Not one of these appropriation bills has been passed for the current fiscal year, and with a figure of around $1 trillion involved, the stakes are high for a Republican opposition in the lame-duck session. 

The issue of appropriation spending has become a divisive topic within Republican circles recently, not over ways to limit the level of funding for these government services but over the subject of earmarks. Earmarks, also known as ‘"pork", refers to an item of federal expenditure, added to an appropriation act, for a specific project that benefits only a state or local district. Citizens Against Government Waste, in its yearly Congressional Pig Book,  identified 9,129 projects at a cost of $16.5 billion, in the 12 Appropriations Acts of fiscal year 2010. CAGW gave An Earmark Grows in Brooklyn Award (a designation playing on the title of one of the greatest films of all time) to Representative Clarke (D-NY) for securing earmark funding of $400,000 for safety improvements at Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.

The problem for Republicans is that some of them agree with earmarks, and some of them don’t. Earlier in the year, House Republicans adopted a rule imposing an earmark moratorium, which is expected to endure into the next Congress. In the Senate, however, calls for a similar self-imposed ban, led by Senator Jim DeMint (South Carolina), are meeting stiff resistance under the influence of the Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Kentucky). McConnell and others argue that earmarks are authorized by the Constitution and provide the only means whereby a representative for a state or district can overcome federal bureaucratic inertia and secure needed funding for their area.

Spending of $16 billion may appear trivail when considered in the light of the $1 trillion of discretionary funding. But it is at the heart of the Tea Party anger over a wasteful government, and the conservative blogosphere has been afire with condemnations of senators supporting McConnell’s resistance to a moratorium. Erick Erickson at RedState.com has spent the last week hammering away at GOP senators who will not accept the Tea Party line and repudiate the use of earmarks. In Tuesday’s post, No More Earmarxists, Erickson argued:

Do we really want to spend all this time and effort working to get so-called conservatives elected who fail us yet again?

Of course not. So let me say it. Earmarks are certainly not the only issue, but they are the most telling as to whether Republicans really have learned their lesson in the minority. Here is what I suggest:

·     Do not accept the conservative bona fides of any politician who has failed to take the moratorium or who argues for them.

·     Do not allow any politician to speak to a tea party rally unless they have taken such a pledge.

·     Criticize any “agenda” or any “contract” from any Republican leader or Republican entity which doesn’t include an immediate, unilateral earmark moratorium.

It is time to purge the earmarxists from the conservative movement.

On Thursday, Erickson posted a plea for all conservatives to contact their Republican senator, or to “adopt” one if they live in a state without one, to pressure them into supporting the DeMint Resolution next Tuesday. Since Erickson had already listed Republican senators up for re-election in 2012, with a reminder they were not safe from a primary challenge from a Tea-Party backed rival, the message was quite clear. Vote against earmarks or else....

For those who wish to learn more about earmarks there is --- inevitably an organization called Taxpayers Against Earmarks with a website, though, as yet, they have planned no rally in Washington. planned.

No doubt there are also groups on the Web opposing the DREAM Act, VAT, Card-Check, Cap-and-Trade, and other subjects that may possibly be debated by this lame-duck session. But the issues to watch, in what could be an animated session for a waterbird that can’t walk, are the Bush tax cuts, the appropriation debates, and the seemingly inevitable civil war –-- this time over earmarks –-- that erupts whenever conservatives gain electoral success.