[Vision2020] Congress Does Right (Bob Schieffer)

[Tom Hansen]

>From Bob Schieffer's commentary at the close of today's (January 21, 2007)
"Face the Nation" -

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Congress Does Right
By Bob Schieffer

I know you'll find this shocking but I am about to say something nice about
the Congress. 

I mean it. 

Congress has actually done some pretty decent stuff lately; the House has
put itself on a five-day work week. With holidays, they haven't actually
worked five days in a row yet, but they've been around the Capitol more than
usual. That's important because it means they may actually get to know each
other. 

Working their Wednesday-Thursday schedule in recent years so they could rush
home to attend more fundraisers has left Congress a collection of strangers,
one reason the debates have become so nasty - and so unproductive. 

Equally important, both houses have finally gotten serious about ethics
reform. 

Mind you, it has taken a slew of indictments and jail terms - on Friday
former Ohio Congressman Bob Ney became the latest to head for the hoosegow -
but the new rules the House approved and the legislation the Senate passed
Friday amount to the toughest reforms since Watergate. 

The reforms ban gifts and travel paid for by lobbyists, bar senators'
spouses from lobbying, take away pensions of members of Congress convicted
of serious crimes, and require public disclosure of who is involved when
those secret projects called earmarks are slipped into appropriation bills. 

What is breathtaking is not so much that these things have been outlawed,
but that they were ever allowed in the first place. 

To be sure, there are still some loopholes to be closed, but at least this
is a start. How long has it been since we could say even that?

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

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"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"

- Thomas Jefferson

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