Congress is broken so none of this surprises us
Washington cannot help itself because the system is a Hydra
Cut one leg off, and it grows back
The Greek myth of the Hydra is a fearful one. This great beast was portrayed as having many heads with which to attack. The trick to beating such a monster: cut off one head at a time while doing your best to avoid all the others. But there’s a problem here. Every time you cut one head off, it grows back.
This perfectly describes Congress over the last few years. One of the great institutions of world history turned into cash register for political payouts to political benefactors by 2010. Corporations, interest groups, government contractors, recipients of various forms of welfare, and the 2.95 million federal employees as well as the nearly three million former employees who are now retirees and other annuitants make up an impenetrable wall of separation between Members of Congress and their constituents.
Where do you start?
The tentacles of the federal government reach to literally every part of our lives. This is a truly insurmountable problem because millions feel they depend upon this or that program. Cut people off and they react. But the Hydra keeps fighting. Where in the world do you start in your effort to kill the Hydra which is our federal government?
Remove the special regulatory carve outs for big corporations?
Radically reduce the federal workforce?
Reduce or (God forbid!) eliminate welfare programs?
Repeal Obamacare (yeah, that promise was broken)?
Eliminate or reduce Social Security and Medicare?
The system is broken too
In 1974, Congress passed the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act (commonly called the Budget Control Act) to reassert it’s authority over spending in the Executive Branch. It required 12 separate appropriations bills to be passed by September of each year and it placed a requirement upon the President to spend the money as Congress directs in legislation. This worked pretty well for about 20 years.
But by the last 1990s, it all began to crumble. By 1998, Congress began passing Continuing Resolutions to bridge the gap when certain appropriations bills couldn’t get passed in time. Members of Congress soon began to realize that these bills were easier to pass. Messy committee battles were difficult to deal with. Every member in the committee process wanted their piece of the pie. Then when the bills got to the floor, there were often late night where the rest of the Members were able to offer their amendments. It was tough work.
By 2010, the entire process was falling apart. Congress hadn’t passed all 12 appropriations bills for 12 years. The National Debt had grown from just over $4 billion in 2000 to something over $11 trillion. Obamacare had just passed after a nasty fight. It was projected to add even more debt. Obama passed a $787 billion bank bailout and an over $800 billion “stimulus” package. The Tea Party wave brought in a Republican majority poised to turn it all around.
And now we have the Hydra
The mythical beast called the Hydra was a fearsome thing. According to myth, Hercules was sent to defeat the beast which was terrorizing the countryside of Lerna on the Peloponnesian Peninsula of Greece. It has eight mortal and one immortal head. The mortal heads would grow back if cut off. Hercules could only defeat the Hydra with the help of his nephew Iolaus. When Hercules cut off one of the mortal heads, Iolaus would keep it from growing back by cauterizing the wound with a torch. After the eight immortal heads were conquered, Hercules cut off the immortal head and buried it under a huge stone.
The complexity of this mythical task of Hercules’ is a great analogy to the problems of American government that has stretched far beyond the restraints of the Constitution due to corrupt and/or inept GOP leadership in Congress in this century. And with so much power centered in the chair of the Speaker of the House, you must cut off the head to make any real changes. That has been difficult.
Here’s the list so far.
John Boehner
Nothing changed. John Boehner took the first shot at Speaker. Nothing changed. The spending kept increasing. Boehner and Mitch McConnell made deals with Obama and got nowhere. He kicked four conservative Members off their committees. A Motion to Vacate the Chair was filed (a parliamentary procedure that removes the Speaker of the House), and Boehner resigned.
…..then a new head grows on the Hydra.
Paul Ryan
Donald Trump went into office with a promise to repeal Obamacare among other things. Republicans controlled the House. Paul Ryan sitting in the Speaker’s chair didn’t push a full repeal which sent a weak bill to the Senate (I wrote about this on Breitbart at the time). Then John McCain cast the deciding vote against it. There were many other legislative missteps by Ryan. My belief is he purposefully slowed the Trump agenda. This seems obvious when you hear the recording of when Ryan decided he was going to abandon Trump. Another Motion to Vacate the Chair was about to be filed. Then Paul Ryan Resigned.
…….then a new head grows on the Hydra.
Kevin McCarthy
Republicans went into hiatus in 2018 when Nancy Pelosi took back the gavel. In 2022, the gavel went to Kevin McCarthy after Republicans barely took the house back in a remarkably weak election effort. McCarthy had a 20-day battle for the Speaker’s Chair on his hands in January 2023 when he was forced to make a deal with the conservative wing of the caucus when a group of House Freedom Caucus members blocked the vote for Speaker. Part of the deal was to pass all 12 appropriations bill by September (what is called ‘Regular Order’). This didn’t happen. McCarthy didn’t even try to put all 12 bills on the floor. He didn’t release all the J6 tapes either as promised. This time, a Motion to Vacate the Chair went to the floor for a vote, and McCarthy was removed as Speaker.
……then the head of the Hydra grew again.
Mike Johnson
After another long battle to pick a Speaker, Mike Johnson emerged with a bit of fanfare among Republicans. He seemed a great consensus pick that would please everyone. Suddenly, things seem to have gone awry. A horrible budget deal which extended post-COVID spending levels that were worked out under Nancy Pelosi was approved in December. This was supposed to be a stop-gap until a better deal could be negotiated. But Johnson worked out a deal with Sen. Chuck Schumer to extend the same spending levels again in January. Not one thing has yet changed.
……will the head be cut off again and another Hydra emerge?
The recent budget deal in Congress is broken again. And the new Speaker is avowedly Christian
I wrote an article some weeks ago when the GOP House Caucus decided unanimously to support Mike Johnson for Speaker. There was a picture of nearly all the GOP members standing behind Johnson in an attitude of prayer. I looked at the Members there—many of whom I know or with whom I am acquainted—and the typical cringe came over me.
I didn’t cringe because of all the flaws I knew these people have. And there are some real doozies in that crowd. Trust me. These are people who need to pray. No, I cringed because I knew that these people in the main weren’t expressing any intent upon pleasing God in their actions thereafter. That’s the pattern. That’s the inertia that drives Washington. And I explained in the article why nothing was likely to change. I know Mike Johnson to be a good man in his personal life, but even he didn’t understand himself and what he was about to do.
I might take a moment to note here if you’re someone who likes to point out how Christians are hypocrites, you haven’t read the Bible you reference for your argument very closely, and you haven’t recently given your mirror a good, long stare.
Regret? No, much worse than that
I know I don’t need to tell you this, but Washington, DC is a cesspool. Everyone knows that. But having spent some years working in and around that system, I find that most people lack a true understanding of what that means. Sometimes the good guys don’t fully understand it.
Take Warren Davidson from Ohio for example. Davidson is most definitely one of the good guys. In fact, he’s someone you should admire for his courage and determination to reassert the Constitution. His voting record is phenomenally good. Daniel Horowitz’s Liberty Scorecard is the standard I look to when judging a Member’s voting record. Davidson scores a 96%. This guy is seriously good Member of Congress. Yet even he by his own admission didn’t understand the dynamic that would bring newly minted Speaker Mike Johnson to make a deal with Sen. Chuck Schumer.
Chad Pergram shared a video of Davidson’s statement here.
Washington just can’t break the habit of spending
Here’s what we are faced with. Government spending is out of control and skyrocketing. We spend in 2023 an outrageous $6.37 trillion. This is 143% of the unprecedented pre-COVID spending level of $4.45 trillion in 2019. One might argue that the COVID emergency required extra spending. I totally reject that argument, but if we accept that fact, spending should not far from half of what it is now.
These levels include not only a Social Security system that is nearly bankrupt and growing precipitously. They also include sustained COVID spending that isn’t used for that purpose anymore. It’s just added government payouts.
On top of that, our payments on the debt will eclipse 10% of our total budget soon. And they’ll be well past 20% in less than a handful of years with rising interest rates and refinancing of portions of that debt happening in 2024.
Yet Congress continues to keep spending levels are far above record highs.
The Hydra so far is winning.