As urgent needs simmer, feckless 119th Congress cools its heels

While Fox is busy beating the bejesus out of Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz over the COVID money fraud scandal and MS Now is busy beating the bejesus out of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, the first year of the 119th Congress is coming to an end.

This week, conservative Republican House member Nancy Mace wrote a piece in the New York Times noting that she sought election to Congress to try to do some good (as, presumably all members do) but was now wondering why she was there.

A frustrated Mace wrote that the leadership decides what bills get a vote, what is in those bills and whether amendments might be allowed. She even praises former Speaker Nancy Pelosi because Pelosi understood that a Democratic or Republican majority was not permanent and that you needed to get busy and get things done.

This Congress’s signature achievement was the Big Beautiful Bill (BBB) but the Congress — with Republican (albeit narrow) majorities in both houses and the White House — has once again failed to pass the 12 appropriations bills that fund the federal government.

Of course, that is not that unusual — it has only happened four times in the last half century.

Our politics are such that presidents generally have their first year to push through their legislative agendas before concerns about midterms and inconvenient votes kick in. This is particularly true when the president is in his second term. Lame duck status creeps up very quickly.

There is much to be done, and plucky groups of representatives and senators introduce bills, but given the president’s tight hold over Republicans and Speaker Johnson’s and Majority Leader Thune’s tight hold on the majorities in their caucuses, there is gridlock. Heck, Speaker Johnson shut down the House for nearly two months.

House members have had to use the rare tool of a discharge petition to get floor votes on several issues, including the Epstein files.

What should the Congress be doing? Immigration is the president’s signature issue and there were billions in the BBB for enforcement, detention facilities and the border wall, but there is no sign of a push to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Democrats might have forced a vote in the Senate on Affordable Care Act subsidies, but there is no guarantee of a vote in the House and certainly no guarantee that anything will pass. Meanwhile, healthcare costs continue to rise. President Trump has promised something better than Obamacare for a decade. Now would be a good time.

Don’t hold your breath.

A bill languishes in the Senate to provide heavier sanctions on Russia, another form of leverage on Moscow to end its war in Ukraine, but President Trump won’t allow it to go forward. Neither is a vote on aid to Ukraine in the cards (pun intended) — though majorities in both houses would support it if allowed to vote their conscience.

Oh, and the Social Security Trust Fund continues steadily toward insolvency.

Meanwhile, there has been precious little oversight of the more questionable moves by the Trump administration, which have ultimately ended up in court. And the acquiescence to a transfer of power from the Congress to the White House should disturb all. There are many instances of the White House saying it will not spend the money the Congress has allocated, but the Congress remains largely mute.

Legislating, especially on major issues, is hard work and an all-hands-on deck affair. We haven’t seen much of that since the BBB. More often, we have seen executive orders and obstruction. When might the Congress address some of the American people’s most urgent needs?

• Keith Peterson, of Lake Barrington, served 29 years as a press and cultural officer for the United States Information Agency and Department of State. He was chief editorial writer of the Daily Herald 1984-86. His book “American Dreams: The Story of the Cyprus Fulbright Commission” is available from Amazon.com.