Congressional Recap

Now that Congress is in the August recess, let's take a moment to review what they've gotten accomplished this session. Quite frankly, it's not much.

There have been only a couple major pieces of legislation passed into law in the first 7 months of the Democrat-led 110th Congress. One is the minimum wage increase. But, that's not going to be enough for the liberal left (see my previous blog here). Can't wait to see what that law will do to the price of food, products, and services over the next couple years. Yippee.

They finally approved Bush's request for more flexibility in terrorist surveillance, but it expires in six months, so it's not a permanent fix.

They passed an ethics 'reform' bill which did very little except give themselves political cover on the ethics issue. Here's another example of unintended consequences and proof that the bill was short on accountability: the New York Times writes that "[F]ar from causing embarrassment, the new transparency has raised the value of earmarks as a measure of members’ clout. Indeed, lawmakers have often competed to have their names attached to individual earmarks and rushed to put out press releases claiming credit for the money they bring home." Yeah, that worked.

A bill was also passed that enacted most of the 9/11 Commission's recommendations, but there was a monster loophole in there, too, allowing terrorists easy access to the U.S. if they were citizens of 'friendly' nations (see previous blog here). Will this one ultimately be a help, or a hindrance? Only time will tell.

Other than that, they renamed a bunch of post offices. That's it.

Unless, of course, you want to talk about the blatant abuse of political power that the Democrats have wielded since January. Here's a short list:
- launching hundreds of investigations into the Bush administration
- stealing a vote in the House of Representatives to provide welfare to illegal aliens (here and here)
- hypocrisy in recognizing the minority in the Senate
- begging for surrender and defeat in Iraq, even at the expense of the troops that they sent there, despite the fact that the surge is working (here, here, here, here, here)

On three of the biggest issues to Americans -- Iraq, the economy, and illegal immigration -- the Democrats are falling down flat. Just 3% of the American public supports the Congress' actions on the War in Iraq, the Democrats freely admit they're planning to raise your taxes (here, here, here), and the Democrats have repeatedly advocated for amnesty (here and here) and benefits for illegal aliens, prompting state-level efforts nationwide.

Is it any wonder this Congress has literally the worst rating ever in the history of official polling with only 14% support from the American people?

So, there you have it...your elected liberal Democrats leading the way to their vision of America's future. The next session should be interesting to watch, as the expected fights will be more tax increases (the alternative minimum tax), fireworks on General Petraeus' September progress report on Iraq, and more attempts at amnesty by the Democrat party.

There's my two cents.