When Congress returns the week of April 12 following recess, both the House and Senate have unfinished business to attend to. For the House, they must begin their work on the federal budget. Looking back at past years, this budget process would have been well underway. However, D.C. was completely consumed with the Health Care debate, so this needed annual task was left undone.
This column will monitor that process carefully to see if the House of Representatives includes any reconciliation instructions. These instructions, similar to the Health Care reconciliation instructions, might make passage of future legislation on Immigration reform and/or Cap n Trade much easier to achieve because it provides for passage in the Senate with only a majority vote.
For the Senate, they have to resolve the one-month extension of the unemployment benefits, COBRA health benefits and a delay in cuts in the doctors' reimbursement payments. Remember, this bill expires while Congress is on its break. Click to read more. The Senate GOP want the bill paid for with unspent stimulus funds and the House wants the tab to be simply added to our deficit. Once the Senate and House resolve their differences with this $10B bill, the Senate is poised to begin debating the Financial Regulatory Reform bill. Click to read text of House bill. This bill seeks to regulate the financial services industry to try to avoid a repeat of the housing/banking industry bust of 2007. Among the dozens of new government agencies this bill creates, one of the most controversial is the Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). This independent agency is designed to regulate most financial products and services.
It is during this upcoming Senate debate where you will see Congress and the White House demonizing bankers and businessmen. This is a strategy page taken from FDR and the New Deal era. If you remember your American history, by 1935, the top income tax rate was at 79 percent and tax revenues had plummeted from those collected during the low tax period under the Harding/Coolidge roaring 20s. Thus FDR had to rely on new taxes on cigarettes, liquor, gas, telephone and the like to pay for his New Deal. When FDR faced policy failures with economic stagnation, he used businessmen as scapegoats for supposedly slowing or stopping the recovery. This may sound familiar to many who follow national politics.
You see, FDR and Barack Obama have much in common. Both men went to Ivy League schools and law school. Both men started their political careers in the state Senate. Neither man had any business experience and both believed that our economy needed tons of federal intervention, large government spending and a redistribution of wealth. One of the first acts of the Obama administration was to tax cigarettes to pay for the huge expansion of the government childrens health insurance program. We often hear this administration discussing higher taxes on gas, wine and beer, soft drinks and the like. FDR often denounced bankers because he said they were the recipients of low taxes from the Coolidge era and their salaries were outrageous. President Obama makes this same claim today.
While senators and House members have one more week of rest and relaxation, you can bet many staffers are studying the FDR strategy of scapegoating and creating a fall guy. Lets just hope the fall guy isnt the American people.
Elizabeth B. Letchworth is a former 4 times elected United States Senate Secretary for the Majority and Minority-(retired). Currently she is the owner of GradeGov.com http://www.gradegov.com/
