Democrats with a plan

One of the complaints from Republicans and the press these days is that Democrats don't have any plans to fix anything. However, Wisconsin Congressman Dave Obey has a House Rules Reform Package that should be acted on very soon.

Here is a summary of what the bill would do:

-Prevent lobbyists from having anything whatsoever to do with paying for, sponsoring, or arranging Congressional travel.

-Prevent former members of Congress from using their access to the House floor to lobby.

-Increase fiscal discipline by prohibiting any budget reconciliation measures from being considered by the House if it would increase the size of the Federal deficit.

-Curb abuses of power by ending the practice of using earmarks to buy votes for questionable legislation and holding votes open long beyond the time required in House rules in order to change the outcome.

-Prohibit legislation from being voted on until printed copies have been available for at least 24 hours.

You would think that the last one wouldn't be that big of a deal but if this was enacted it would save us millions. When I worked for Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR), I was stunned at how often Members would be writing stuff in the margins of the omnibus appropriations bills (huge spending bill that is passed at the end of sessions when Members don't get their job done and get individual bills passed for each area of government) right before or even during a vote on the bill. It's like being in line to pay for your groceries and having your kid dump the entire candy section into your cart when you aren't looking. Really bad way to run government and even worse way to spend taxpayer dollars.

And the 'fiscal conservative' Republicans were in charge when I worked there.