New bill should unite House
GOP. By Rick
Manning, contributor
House Republicans left dozens of
important policy riders and measures that defund various parts of the Obama
agenda on the table during the failed omnibus negotiation, but that doesn't
mean that their work should go for naught.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) is bringing
together many of the most important economic riders into a single bill, The Article I Consolidated Appropriations Amendments of
2016, to keep these issues at the top of
the agenda rather than losing the value of the hard work done last year to rein
in President Obama's pen-and-phone approach to governance.
Among the dozens of policy riders
and defunds incorporated into the act are a number of measures that would stop
the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) regulatory onslaught against energy
producers, mining and agriculture. Other measures would stop the Labor
Department and National Labor Relations Board from becoming virtual proxies for
Big Labor through various actions that attack the franchise and independent
consultant business models, putting union reps into the middle of OSHA
inspections at non-union companies, and ambush union elections.
The genius of the legislation is
that a vast majority of the proposals contained within it have already been
vetted through regular order processes, and passed by the House, giving the
legislation an aura of consensus that every Republican should be able to rally
round.
Buck argues that "By doing our
work, House Republicans have laid out a counterbalance to President Obama's
wholesale assault on free markets and individual liberties." While, at some level, it may feel
like conservatives are being asked to play Charlie Brown, trusting Lucy Van
Pelt to not pull the football away again, the Buck effort has the benefit of
keeping Obama policies that threaten our nation's economic security at the
forefront in one neat package for the House to send over to the Senate.
The reality is that Senate Democrats
are unlikely to allow the comprehensive legislation to become law, but once it
is passed by the House, every individual item should be inserted into must-pass
appropriations bills and other legislation demanded by the president. By virtue
of the House passing the Buck bill, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) will have the
impetus to drive a set of appropriations bills to the president's desk that
include Republican priorities rather than the Democratic Christmas tree that
the omnibus became.
What's more, like former Majority
Leader Eric Cantor's (R-Va.) "You Cut" program, the Consolidated
Appropriations Amendments of 2016 provides a bounty of issues for
editorialists, talk-show hosts and bloggers to focus upon with ready-made
constituencies and facts to support them.
What's more, the legislation has the
potential to bridge the gap between the left wing of the House Republican
Conference and the conservatives by showcasing areas of agreement. An example
is the inclusion of the Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.)-sponsored de-fund of Obama's
attempt to destroy local zoning through a U.S. Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) regulation. The de-fund passed with an overwhelming number of House Republican
votes and enjoys not only the support of the conservative Gosar, but also Rep.
Pete King of New York, leader of the GOP's moderate wing.
The HUD Obamazoning de-fund is just
one of dozens examples of proposals contained within Buck's legislation that
bring Republicans together, rather than tearing them apart. And this binding
together around limited government principles and rebuilding Congress's Article
I responsibilities is one of the great opportunities for 2016.
Manning
is president of Americans for Limited Government.
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