Call Congress Back To Vote On Drilling
The Bear on Jul 28 2008 at 8:28 am | Filed under: Energy Policy
Leadership: When it comes to giving relief at the pump by drilling for more oil, this is truly a “do-nothing” Democratic Congress. President Bush should give ‘em hell like Harry Truman did.
Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution states that the president “may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both houses” of Congress. On more than two dozen occasions in our history, presidents have done just that, forcing the Senate and House of Representatives to meet on extraordinary matters of defense or economic peril.
Sixty years ago this month, President Truman called such a special session to shame into action what he labeled a “do nothing” Republican Congress. He dubbed it the Turnip Day Session, because of the day on which it began. According to folklore in Truman’s native Missouri, “On the 25th of July, sow your turnips, wet or dry.”
Congress refused to do Truman’s bidding in the session, but the bold move saved the president’s political skin. He defied the odds that November and was re-elected — largely because the public came to view the 80th Congress as in the grip of a cowardly paralysis.
Today’s Democratic-controlled 110th Congress is just as paralyzed, but the stakes are far higher. Our irrational dependence on oil from foreign nations is squeezing American consumers and businesses with sky-high fuel prices. And it makes us vulnerable to blackmail by hostile, oil-rich regimes.
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