GOP Makes Plans For The 118th Congress
By CHRISTOPHER MANION
As America looks forward to the 118th Congress that meets on January 3, 2023, priorities abound: Indict Hunter Biden! Impeach Mayorkas! Fire Fauci!
Amidst the teeming multitude, Prufrock sighs: “And this, and so much more?”
Yes, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary is a lying incompetent, Hunter Biden is as corrupt as his father, and the blending of Fauci and fire is appealing indeed.
Joe Biden’s “death by a thousand cuts” has unleashed a flood of Deep State attacks on our freedoms that would tie up a thousand Federal Courts for a lifetime. But Joe Sobran was right: “The Hive” will continue to thrive if we devote our efforts to swatting one drone at a time.
Inspired by Newt Gingrich’s successful 1994 “Contract with America,” the House GOP has published its “Commitment to America.” It represents a succinct attempt to present the issues that Democrats have been drowning in a deluge of drivel (e.g., “MAGA Republicans,” “Threats to Democracy,” ad nauseam).
On the Economy, the Commitment emphasizes energy and gas prices. On Safety, it’s crime domestically and Communist China internationally. On Freedom, it’s Big Tech. On Accountability, it’s Hearings, Hearings, Hearings.
It’s comforting, perhaps even promising — but it’s not enough.
The section on education is illustrative. “Make Sure Every Student Can Succeed and Give Parents a Voice,” reads the title.
“When schools shut down, teachers’ unions still got paid but students bore the costs. All studies show that ‘virtual schooling’ has caused severe learning and development loss that will take years to make up. What’s worse, when parents tried to understand what their children were being taught and how their tax dollars were being spent, they weren’t just ignored — they were targeted by this Administration.”
Teachers’ unions? Fair enough. They are the most radical national lobby, and their members, competent or not, are legion, and they live in every zip code. And Biden’s Justice Department should be severely disciplined for doing their bidding.
But what is Congress going to do about teachers’ unions but complain?
Instead of swatting at drones, why not go for the jugular? Cut down the tree that houses the hive and burn it in a bonfire on the National Mall.
Resolved: Close Down the Department of Education.
That’s right. A Democrat Congress created it, a Republican Congress can dissolve it, and return its hundreds of billions in annual funding to the states and to the people. This vital ingredient of American life belongs to them, not to a horde of bureaucrat lifers in Washington, D.C.
Forty-two years ago, Ronald Reagan ran on a platform that included the elimination of this newly created political junkyard. Reagan’s predecessor and opponent, Jimmy Carter, had been elected four years earlier because he promised the teachers unions that he’d give them their baby.
Alas, instead of eliminating it, President Reagan had to focus on defeating the Soviet Union without firing a shot. House Speaker Tip O’Neill (D., Mass.) went along, but demanded his swag — and one of the biggest boondoggles in that boatload of swill was continuing the Department of Education.
By the time “conservative” Bill Bennett was appointed Education secretary several years later, he was multiplying the department’s activities, rather than shutting the water off.
Ronald Reagan succeeded in defeating the Soviet Union without a shot. Now it’s time for the other shoe to fall and close down the Department of Education.
After all, the GOP’s “Commitment to America” emphasizes the rights of parents. That single act — cutting down the tree and burning the hive — will do more for the rights of parents than anything else Congress can do.
More Work To Do
There are constitutional companions to this concept that properly belong to the Supreme Court, not Congress.
As we noted last summer in considering the court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court’s reasoning will have a long-term impact far beyond abortion. Add to that decision the court’s findings in Carson v. Makin and Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, and you have the foundation for a renaissance of religious freedom in the public square.
After all, it was the Warren Court that drove prayer, Bible reading, and the Ten Commandments from the public schools. Let the states bring the cases before the Federal Courts to restore their rights, and let the Supreme Court repair the immeasurably profound damage done by taking God out of our children’s lives.
Next, the GOP “Commitment” addresses immigration. “We have a plan to regain control of the southern border,” it claims: “Fully fund effective border enforcement strategies, infrastructure, and advanced technology to prevent illegal crossings and trafficking by cartels. End catch-and-release loopholes. Require proof of legal status to get a job.”
As Ronald Reagan used to say, “There you go again!”
Can’t Republicans in Congress simply demand that the federal government on all fronts enforce existing law and expel from our country every single alien who resides here illegally?
That’s right. Why not end them back home until they can come back legally?
But wait — all of them?
Yes. All of them.
Consider: The GOP’s “Commitment to A Nation That’s Safe” thrashes “the liberal prosecutors and district attorneys who fail to do their job and keep criminals off the streets.” It goes on to describe the trafficking of deadly fentanyl “flowing into our country and robbing an entire generation of Americans from a chance at the life they deserve.”
Query: Who is bringing the drugs? Illegal aliens.
Republicans criticize leftists who “fail to do their jobs,” and that criticism hits home. If Republicans — the party of law and order — agree simply to allow tens of millions of lawbreakers to remain in our country illegally, are they doing their jobs?
If the GOP ignores this massive breach of the law, it would be guilty of consenting to national euthanasia by design.
And finally comes the GOP’s “Commitment to Accountability.” Do they really mean it?
Why don’t they start by following the Constitution and repairing the damage they did last March by opening an illegal proxy war in Ukraine against Vladimir Putin?
Maybe they could commit to a study session devoted to Article 1, Section 8, Clause 11, and demand a vote on a Declaration of War against Russia.
If it passes, we’re at war.
If it fails, we’re not, and we wish Ukrainians well but will no longer use them as a proxy for the U.S. military.
Is it asking too much to ask our beloved lawmakers to follow the law?
Yes, the Democrat minority (which voted unanimously for the Ukraine war without declaring it) will call us “extreme.”
Well, as we have chronicled for years, the American Left considers the Constitution to be extreme. Our republican form of government is, after all, a “threat to democracy” in Joe Biden’s favorite phrase.
Let’s face it. In the past two years, Democrats have advanced the most extreme and destructive agenda since the New Deal. They want national abortion on demand until birth, they want to pack the Supreme Court, they want to take over state and local elections, they want to ban “discrimination” against sodomites, lesbians, trannies, polyamorous marriage, and force us all not only to accept these vile violations of the natural law of the laws of nature and of nature’s God, to support them.
Keep freedom alive. Burn the hive.