The first of the two-legged, two-staged, lame-duck session of Congress begins Monday, and it consists of mostly wounded ducks. These winged fowl would love nothing more than to duck the huge legislative agenda that awaits them.
Ducking responsibility by the current Congress has been honed to an art form. However, ducking this lame-duck session might prove to be a bit harder.
The reason ducking or punting on the legislative agenda isnt an option is because it would arguably cause major harm to our economy and most Americans.
You see, Congress ducked or skirted its responsibility to fund the entire federal government. Members failed to debate and discuss the myriad programs under the helm of the Department of Defense while our troops are involved in two wars. They failed to fund an extension of the federal unemployment benefits and also failed to find a way to fix or resolve the underpayment that occurs when doctors and hospitals ask the federal government for their reimbursement payments for seeing Medicare patients.
They need to address the expiration of the 69 or so tax deductions most of us have been enjoying for almost 10 years, known as the Bush tax cuts. They also need to consider a similar amount of tax deductions that expired at the end of December 2009, known as the tax extenders. These extenders help small businesses and also include the "alternative minimum tax" (AMT) patch. The AMT, which has been temporarily fixed, if not extended again will encompass and force more tax payments from an unexpected 21 million Americans.
When the Congress decided to postpone consideration of all of this major legislation, it set the expiration date to come due during this lame-duck session. This train wreck of expiring legislation gives the minority party in Congress more negotiating power than it typically would have in similar situations. The reason is that the majority party, the one led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, needs to ask Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) for some cooperation to get all of these major legislative initiatives through Congress.
If the GOP in Congress answers with a no, the train wreck begins. However, who would get the blame for the train wreck? Most folks know that deadlines and responsibilities lie with the controlling party and its leadership. This plays out daily in the average Americans life. Therefore, it is logical to assume that the American public would place blame on members of the current Congress for not doing their job and taking care of this business when it typically comes due during the regular session.
Add to this potential train wreck scenario the shellacking the current controlling party in Congress took in the midterm elections, and it's no wonder the members of this upcoming lame-duck session would like to duck the two-legged session of Congress altogether.
Elizabeth B. Letchworth is a retired, elected United States Senate Secretary for the majority and minority. Currently, she is a senior legislative adviser for Covington & Burling, LLC and is the founder of www.GradeGov.com.
