We Elected Them – Now What?

by Jack Lee

Polls say that 60% of us are prepared to be disappointed by the newly elected republicans that have seized control in Congress. We elected them, but we have faint hope that this gang will be any better than the last gang. This is not unsound reasoning by any means since many of those still in Congress were around when we were accusing the republican party of not living up to their principles.

What exactly do you expect of them?

Let’s be realistic now, what do you really think the republican’s can and should accomplish by controlling the House of Representatives?

One of the primary functions of the Senate and the House is to come up with a budget, so let’s start there. Republicans should be able to introduce a bill almost immediately to block those nasty earmarks and the good part there appears to be consensus both in the House and the Senate that this would be a good thing, even President Obama has said so. So let’s expect them to deal with earmarks or pork, however you wish to say it.

What’s next? How about blocking stimulus spending and recovering the stimulus money not already spent? This will be a little harder, but it’s doable and they will get a little boost from mildly improving economic news.

Here’s an idea that is shared by many in Congress, let’s de-fund all federal programs that have no provable value? And yes, we can do that from the House because the House has to approve the budget. There is no shortage of waste in Washington and this is a cause worthy the republican agenda. Here’s the good news, this has already started. Here’s the bill written by a Kansas Representative Todd Tiahrt-R (pronounced tee-hart): HR 1802 – To Establish the Commission on the Accountability and Review of Federal Agencies Act (CARFA). Congressman Tiahrt’s bill would require Congress to vote on eliminating wasteful and ineffective spending that would result in billions of taxpayer dollars being saved. The Heritage Foundation has estimated that over $100 billion could be saved by eliminating ineffective federal programs.

So when this ugly business of waste, fraud and abuse is identified the republicans and democrats with a conscience need to expose it and do what they can to stop it. Just the attempt will be seen as valiant in the eyes of voters, but passing this bill would put the onus on the Senate and we’ll see how interested they are about saving billions from waste.

Can you think of anything else the republican’s should do? How about securing the border, illegal immigrant removal, tax reform, deficit spending, dealing with the drug cartels now operating in the US, eliminating crop subsidies, scaling back corporate welfare, or dealing with the war on terrorism spending abuses? There are plenty of important issues, but we can’t spread ourselves too thin. We’re going to need to stay focused on only the most pressing issues in order to get just a few of these things addressed before the 2012 election.

So, lets take some personal interest and encourage our newly elected representatives and those old incumbents to follow through on the key issues that they can and should address and do it in a logical order of importance. That part is up to you and your expectations to make sure they do. Let us know what you expect – we’ll pass it on to the right people and we’ll show you who is stalling and how to target them too.