The Consequences of Mismanagement

ARRA Summary of comments today by U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell: ‘Senate Democrats have more to do in these last few weeks than they have done all year. It’s time to stop the political show. It’s time to focus, for once, on the fundamentals.’ U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell: “We’re now in the final days of the session, and Congressional Democrats have left an enormous amount of work undone.” Congress is already two months into Fiscal 2008, and the leadership has 11 unfinished spending bills out of 12.

Democrats have delayed troop funding and are now saying things are going well, and they want to cut off the funds that are needed to finish the job. Democrat action could force forcing the Pentagon to pink slips for more than 200,000 employees as a way of getting around the threat of no funding.”

The Protect America Act that monitors terrorists overseas expires on Feb. 1. Judiciary Committee Democrats voted for a revised version that weakens it. Under this new version, U.S. commanders could be blocked from gathering critical intelligence on foreign targets. “We need to stop foreign terrorists who want to kill innocent Americans - not be paralyzed into inaction over their search and seizure rights. Republicans support the bipartisan, common-sense Senate Intelligence Committee bill that allows commanders greater freedoms in the field and recognizes that telecom companies shouldn’t be sued for doing their patriotic duty as required by the Federal Government intelligence officials to protect American lives.”

Democrats haven’t fixed a problem in the tax code that they’ve known about all year. Millions of middle-class Americans are about to receive the AMT tax hike. In Oct., Treasury Secretary Paulson warned Congress if they didn’t act by early Nov., 25 million households would get a major tax hike and if not by the middle of this month, 50 million would face delays in getting their refunds. Even if Congress acts today, millions of tax returns will still be delayed.

Senate Democrats need to act on executive nominations, including nominees to head the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Agriculture.

Regarding Judiciary Committee circuit court nominations, there has been one hearing on one circuit court nomination since the summer recess, and only five hearings for five circuit court nominees all year. During a comparable period in President Clinton’s last Congress, the Republican controlled Senate held hearings on 10 of Clinton’s circuit court nominees including five after the August recess.

We need to pass the bills that keep the government functioning.
We need to stop taxes from being raised on the middle class.
We need to strengthen the laws that help us catch terrorists before they strike.
We need to fund our troops in the field.

‘It’s now December, and Senate Democrats have more to do in these last few weeks than they have done all year. It’s time to stop the political show. It’s time to focus, for once, on the fundamentals.”

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