The Absurd Report

Operating outside public view, the House Democratic majority is taking extraordinary steps to maintain spending as usual while awaiting the arrival of a Democratic president. Remarkably, the supine House Republican minority hardly resists and even collaborates with its supposed adversaries.

There has been little public Republican protest over the seizure of the appropriating process by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her clique. For the second year, no appropriations bill other than defense is scheduled for passage. Instead, spending details are crafted in the speaker’s office, negating President Bush’s veto strategy. In a little-noticed maneuver on April 23, Pelosi won passage of a bill preventing billions from being saved through Bush administration Medicaid regulations. Despite the GOP leadership’s nominal opposition, House Republicans voted 2 to 1 for higher spending.

Adding in Pelosi’s unprecedented tactics in blocking the Colombian free trade agreement, she has in 16 months established herself as one of the most powerful speakers ever. The stunning aspect of Czar Nancy’s rule is the degree of Republican acquiescence. Neither the loss of their House majority in 2006 after 12 years nor the prospect of more losses this November has toughened the Republicans.

Republicans have just caught on that Pelosi plans for the second straight year to substitute a continuing resolution for individual appropriations bills. Continuing resolutions in the past consisted of a single sentence keeping spending at the previous year’s level, but these documents have become complicated descriptions of spending. At year’s end, the Democrats devise an omnibus bill wrapping up all domestic spending—hamstringing the lame-duck Republican president’s resolve to veto generous Democratic appropriations bills one by one.

SideBear: Subverting the Constitution on the left of me and Wimps on the right of me.